Its to late to do anything about it now we're stuck with him. I have to ask though what if it had been known he had failed to make the ballot in Indiana before the primaries. Politics like a good many other things is all about perception, if you are perceived to be a winner then winning becomes a little easier. So what if going into the primaries obama was seen as being a weak candidate unable to get on the ballot of all 50 states with the same caveat for Clinton. Hard to say but it may very well have been President McCain with Palin as V.P.
Officials found guilty in Obama, Clinton ballot petition fraud
By
Eric Shawn
Published April 26, 2013
FoxNews.com
A jury in South Bend, Indiana has found that fraud put President
Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana
in the 2008 election. Two Democratic political operatives were
convicted Thursday night in the illegal scheme after only three hours
of deliberations. They were found guilty on all counts.
Former longtime St. Joseph County Democratic party Chairman Butch
Morgan Jr. was found guilty of felony conspiracy counts to commit
petition fraud and forgery, and former county Board of Elections worker
Dustin Blythe was found guilty of felony forgery counts and falsely
making a petition, after being accused of faking petitions that enabled
Obama, then an Illinois Senator, to get on the presidential primary
ballot for his first run for the White House.
Morgan was accused of being the mastermind behind the plot.
According to testimony from two former Board of Election officials
who pled guilty, Morgan ordered Democratic officials and workers to
fake the names and signatures that Obama and Clinton needed to qualify
for the presidential race. Blythe, then a Board of Elections employee
and Democratic Party volunteer, was accused of forging multiple pages
of the Obama petitions.
"I think this helped uphold the integrity of the electoral system," the prosecutor, Stan Levco told reporters.
“Their verdict of guilt is not a verdict against Democrats, but for honest and fair elections,” he said.
The scheme was hatched in January of 2008, according to affidavits
from investigators who cite former Board of Registration worker Lucas
Burkett, who told them he was in on the plan at first, but then became
uneasy and quit. He waited three years before telling authorities about
it, but if revelations about any forgeries were raised during the
election, the petitions could have been challenged during the contest.
A candidate who did not qualify with enough legitimate signatures at
the time, could have been bounced from the ballot.
The case raise questions about whether in 2008, then candidate Obama
actually submitted enough legitimate signatures to have legally
qualified for the primary ballot.
“I think had they been challenged successfully, he probably would not have been on the ballot,” Levco told Fox News.
Under state law, presidential candidates need to qualify for the
primary ballots with 500 signatures from each of the state's nine
congressional districts. Indiana election officials say that in St.
Joseph County, which is the 2nd Congressional district, the Obama
campaign qualified with 534 signatures; Clinton's camp had 704.
Prosecutors say that in President Obama's case, nine of the petition
pages were apparently forged. Each petition contains up to 10 names,
making a possible total of 90 names, which, if faked, could have
brought the Obama total below the legal limit required to qualify.
Prosecutors say 13 Clinton petitions were apparently forged, meaning up
to 130 possibly fake signatures. Even if 130 signatures had been
challenged, it would have still left Mrs. Clinton with enough
signatures to meet the 500 person threshold.
Levco said a total of “100 to 200” signatures had been forged on Obama’s and Clinton’s petitions.
An Indiana State Police investigator said in court papers that the
agency examined the suspect Obama petitions and "selected names at
random from each of the petition pages and contacted those people
directly. We found at least one person (and often multiple people) from
each page who confirmed that they had not signed" petitions "or given
consent for their name and/or signature to appear."
Numerous voters told Fox News that they never signed the petitions.
"That's not my signature," Charity Rorie, a mother of four, told us
when we showed her the Obama petition with her name and signature. She
was stunned, saying that it "absolutely" was a fake.
Charity told Fox News that her husband's entry was also a forgery,
and that they have never been contacted by investigators or any
authorities looking into the scandal.
"It's scary, it's shocking. It definitely is illegal," she told us.
Robert Hunter, Jr. told Fox news that his name was faked, too.
"I did not sign for Barack Obama," he told us. As he examined the
Obama petition in his hands, Hunter pointed out that "I always put
'Junior' after my name, every time...there's no 'Junior' there
Even a former Democratic Governor of Indiana, Joe Kernan, told Fox News that his name was forged.
“This is a bitter sweet moment for free and fair elections,"
observed Ryan Nees, the Indiana born Yale “University senior who first
exposed the scheme in the independent political newsletter, Howey
Politics Indiana and South Bend Tribune.
Nees said the multiple guilty verdicts were "bitter, because a
five-person conspiracy succeeded in illegally placing two presidential
candidates on the ballot, but sweet because they were exposed, tried
for their crimes, and convicted."
Nees previously told Fox News that the fraud was clearly evident,
"because page after page of signatures are all in the same
handwriting," and that nobody raised any red flags "because election
workers in charge of verifying their validity were the same people
faking the signatures."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/26/officials-found-guilty-in-obama-clinton-ballot-petition-fraud/#ixzz2RaYjDzxt
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