"Martha's Motel" Auxilliary at Dartmouth College? A missive from the past: "Records Reveal Possible Voter Fraud" - Granite Grok

“Martha’s Motel” Auxilliary at Dartmouth College? A missive from the past: “Records Reveal Possible Voter Fraud”

From the files of CNHT – the organization that has been laboring in the vineyard of Voter Fraud for decades as it has been toiling on behalf of local taxpayer organizations all of over the State of NH.    For those that say that there is no voter fraud, here is a report from Dartmouth back in 2003 leading to the conclusion that political operatives have indeed been driving truckloads of “mobile domiciled” students through the large loopholes in NH Election Law. Voter Fraud did not start with the embarrassment of our Election officials by the Project Veritas crew – they only shined a large flashlight on it.

Once again I posit it – have both Democrat and Republican Elites colluded to sweep this under the rug when running the Secretary of State or Attorney General to protect NH’s status of the First In The Nation Primary State?  Rule #1 in politics – get the bad news out quickly and Rule #2 – fix it.  Rule #1 has been avoided and certainly the Dems have been trying to keep Rule #2 from being implemented. While we have been concentrating on those that have not complied with the intent of “domicile” law here in NH, here is another perspective.

Below – emphasis mine.

********************

Records Reveal Possible Voter Fraud

Wednesday, February 5, 2003

by Michael Ellis

After the 2000 election, close to two hundred students at Marquette University in Wisconsin admitted to voting multiple times in a survey by the campus newspaper. In St. Louis, Missouri, there are more people registered to vote in the city than there are residents, by a margin of thousands. On college campuses, the danger of illegal voting is real, given that students living on campus can easily claim and show proof of two residences. With the absence of a national database of voters, fraud can cross state lines, as out-of-state students register and vote by absentee in their home states and in person in their adopted states, with no one the wiser. Committing such a crime in New Hampshire would be relatively easy to do, given the state’s policy of allowing new voters to register on the day of the election, instead of in advance as is customary elsewhere. While nothing so egregious as voting several times has yet been uncovered at Dartmouth, voter fraud of a less severe nature may have occurred in the past year’s elections.

For New Hampshire, not only was a seat in the evenly-divided U.S. Senate at stake, but also the state’s governorship, and both seats in the U.S. House. With Senate control potentially hinging on the outcome here, both national parties flooded the Granite State with television and radio ads. Opinion polls leading up to Election Day showed the candidates essentially tied. After the polls closed, however, and the votes were counted, any semblance of closeness in the race disappeared. Sununu beat Shaheen by over 20,000 votes and Republicans swept every major statewide race. Hanover remains an anomaly in the statewide Republican trend. This past election, 4,364 votes were cast in the Town of Hanover, with 3,171 going to Jeanne Shaheen and 1,140 to John Sununu. This result came as no surprise; Hanover has gone solidly Democratic for years, and routinely is carried by Democratic candidates by a three to one margin. The explanation is doubtlessly the liberal influence of the College. If one were to judge by the sheer number of vocal Shaheen supporters found on campus preceding the election, it is quite easy to see how she carried Dartmouth by such a large margin. They stationed themselves throughout campus–in Collis, the Hopkins Center, and Thayer Dining Hall — urging students to vote with the implicit understanding that they would cast their ballots for Shaheen. Vans driven by Shaheen volunteers and adorned with Shaheen signs transported voters to polling stations. Upon arriving there, students were exposed to another barrage of Shaheen campaign workers, and Shaheen signs adorned every feasible space.

The Young Democrats’ effort–while futile statewide–did succeed in bringing close to 900 Dartmouth undergraduates to the polls. Once inside the station, students faced long lines to vote. Christopher Galiardo 0 recalled waiting ‘for between forty-five minutes and an hour’ and some students remember waiting for as long as two hours. The wait was a result of the higher than expected turnout and the presence of large numbers of new voters. Most students took advantage of New Hampshire’s same-day registration law when they reached the polls, causing back-ups as they filled out forms and proved their residency. Alexander Kallis ’06, explained that presenting a Dartmouth ID card was sufficient proof of Hanover residence. Many Democratic students were outraged by the presence of Republican election lawyers at the poll site, challenging the residency of students and requiring them to sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury that they were indeed residents of the Town of Hanover, and, in doing so, renouncing residency in their ‘home’ states. Even the effort to ensure that everyone voting was a New Hampshire resident with a valid street address was not enough to prevent several instances of apparent voter fraud.

Imagine that – forcing students to follow the law caused “outrage”.  Can we see a repeat of that in 2014? In 2016?  And of, btw, if our current Secretary of State or Attorney General refuse to properly and fairly execute the law, can we please replace them?

The New Hampshire state law governing the eligibility of voters, Section 654: 1, declares that ‘every inhabitant of the state, having a fixed and permanent established domicile, being a citizen of the United States, of the age … shall have a right at any meeting or election, to vote in the town … in which he is domiciled.’ It sounds simple enough; only those who live in the Town of Hanover, are at least 18 years old, and are US. citizens are permitted to vote. From merely running the names of all those who voted through the Dartmouth Information Directory it is apparent that illegal, or, at the very least, suspect activity did indeed take place in the past election.

The most stunning case is that of Eric G. Bussey ’01. Bussey registered on Election Day in 2000, at which time he lived in New Hampshire Hall and was eligible to vote. Now, however, his DID entry, which was updated in October 2002, lists his residence as ’35 French Farm Road, Norwich, Vermont.’ By taking advantage of his past residency in New Hampshire, it appears that Eric was able to vote in Hanover despite the fact that he is ‘domiciled’ in Vermont, a violation of New Hampshire election law. Since it seems that Bussey voted while ineligible to do so, he would also appear to have perjured himself. Perjury, as defined by Section 641 of the New Hampshire criminal code, can be prosecuted as either a misdemeanor or a Class B felony, subject to punishment of up to seven years in jail. Calls to Bussey’s home in Vermont to seek a comment from him went unanswered, as his phone was disconnected.

While Eric Bussey is the most appalling instance of potential voting fraud that took place, several other individuals also seemed to have presented less than compelling grounds for eligibility. Robert S. Cushman, who appears to be unaffiliated with the College, and Miguel M. Licona ’03, both listed their permanent addresses as the ‘Ledyard Canoe Club.’ Calls to the Ledyard Canoe Club to seek confirmation of their residence were not answered. Attempts to contact Licona at his home phone number were equally unsuccessful. Even if these two individuals do, for some bizarre reason, live at the Canoe Club, it is surely not a year-round residence, as the Club is closed in the winter.

Also striking is the case of Kathleen Catapano ’99, a graduate student in the Environmental Studies Program, who listed her residence as ‘6182 Steele Hall.’ Steele is a chemistry building that contains classrooms, labs, and offices, but absolutely no residences. Calls to Catapano’s residence were also unanswered. She should not have been permitted to vote by giving a home address that does not exist.

Perhaps more bizarre are the addresses listed by Lisa E. Danzig, Stephen A. Noel, and William M. Robb, of the Tuck Business School, and Robert A. Cushman III ’03, and Matthew J. Slaine ’06. Their home addresses are simply marked as ‘X’ on the official spreadsheet of those who voted in the election. Sallie Johnson, the Town Clerk of Hanover, explained these discrepancies as the product of the day’s long lines. Instead of giving a street address as requested, these individuals may have given a mailing address that did not function as a street address, such as a Hinman or P.O. Box number. While these individuals should have been prevented from voting, Johnson noted that ‘a few did  slip through‘.

After election day, election supervisors were to contact these individuals to determine their actual street address, and if it was an address outside of Hanover, their names would be purged from the voter rolls. Even so, they still cast ballots without offering proof of residency. It is quite possible that one or more of those five individuals residing at ‘X’ were not eligible to vote in Hanover. The only one of the five reached for comment, Robert A. Cushman, recalled that he indeed wrote his home address of 15 Downing Road, not a Hinman Box, on the voter registration card and is has no idea why his address was listed as ‘X’.

While these ten voters, some of whom may have voted legally, were not enough to sway the election results, their actions may well be illegal nonetheless. A situation in which the race between Shaheen and Sununu was closer, and decided not by 20,000 voted but by a mere 20, can be easily imagined. Considering the Florida election debacle in 2000 or this past year’s Senate race in South Dakota, decided by a mere 527 votes, every vote must not only be counted, but also scrutinized for legality.

Copyright © 1996-2004 The Dartmouth Review

>