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Monday, February 13, 2012

OddlyEnough™: WV Secretary of State Says, ‘We Don’t Tolerate Election Law Violations’!

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Secretary of State Natalie Tennant was a guest on Fox News past weekend to talk about the voter fraud pleas Lincoln County Sheriff Jerry Bowman and Lincoln County Clerk Donald Whitten are scheduled to enter next month.

“We don’t tolerate election law violations no matter who tries to do that,“ Secretary of State Tennant said Sunday morning during a segment involving the Fox News Voter Fraud Unit.

This statement is at odds with the voter fraud in Gilmer County and reminds us of just how committed Tennant is to ferreting out fraud.

The segment opened with a clip from Booth Goodwin, U.S. Attorney for West Virginia’s Southern District, who said voter fraud will not be tolerated in the Mountain State.  The clip was from the announcement about the pleas last month.

That was when those working in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Secretary of State’s Office announced the results of a more than yearlong investigation focused on the abuse of the state’s absentee ballot system in Lincoln County prior to the 2010 Primary Election.

Federal investigators say Bowman, Whitten and an unidentified third person, believed to be Lincoln County Commissioner Thomas Ramey Jr., tried to fix the outcomes of local races by illegally manipulating absentee votes.

They allegedly distributed absentee ballots to people who were not eligible to vote absentee and, in some cases, marked their ballots for candidates they supported, including themselves.  In all, more than 600 absentee ballots were cast.

“You see what takes place when you have a cooperative effort to stop it,“ Tennant said of the voter fraud investigation on Fox News.

The plea hearings for Bowman and Whitten are scheduled for March 07, 2012.  As part of those deals, the two will resign from their elected positions and agree never to run for office again.

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