KY Election Officials Found Guilty in Massive Election Fraud Have Verdict Overturned

[BradBlog]

Source: BRAD BLOG

New Trial Ordered for Clay County, KY Election Officials Found Guilty in Massive Election Fraud Conspiracy, Previously Sentenced to 156 Years

Eight top election officials from Clay County, KY previously found guilty in a massive vote buying and selling conspiracy --- which prosecutors charged had been run over several decades and included the manipulation of electronic voting machines in 2006 --- have had their convictions overturned and a new trial ordered by a panel on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of appeals.

The eight co-conspirators --- which included the County Clerk, a Circuit Court Judge and the School Superintendent, among others --- had previously been sentenced to a total of more than 156 years in federal prison following their 2009 arrest and 2010 trial and conviction over fraud carried out in the 2002, 2004 and 2006 elections.

The BRAD BLOG had covered the arrest, trial, defendant flipping, conviction and sentencing of the Clay County, KY election fraudsters in some detail over the years as each step was happening.

The group had been found guilty of complex, endemic vote buying and selling schemes carried out over many elections over several years, often meant to game the Republican primary elections in the very rural, very poor, Republican area of the Bluegrass State in a location where winning the GOP primary was usually a guarantee for also winning the general election.

The schemes became more sophisticated over the years, according to prosecution evidence and cooperating witnesses, including in 2006 when poll workers participating in the conspiracy were said to have changed the votes cast by voters on touch-screen voting machines after they'd left the "booth" on Election Day. (The same 100% unverifiable touch-screen systems, the ES&S iVotronic, which allowed for the manipulation of votes in Clay County, are still in widespread use across the country today)…

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10144


Read more: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10144

[valerief]

1. No surprise voting justice has been Zimmermanized. Acquittals for all. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

3. They didn't need to.

It's one of those places where the REpublican always wins.

[blackspade]

6. Blue is relative here.

We have the best Dino Governor ever.
And our legislature is a joke, entirely captured by the coal and natural gas industry.

[blackspade]

10. I like it here too, but the politics are maddening.

[TransitJohn]

18. It says right there in the OP eom

n/t

[blackspade]

5. Just when I thought that Texas, Florida, and Virginia had teh stoopid cornered....

My state has to step up to the plate again....

What was the basis for overturning the conviction?

[BradBlog]

9. Click through to read the full article...

...for the answer to that question.

[kentuck]

15. Conservatively speaking....

Over 90% are probably connected to the drug trade. Do not be surprised if there is a murder of a judge or a witness in the near future.

[elleng]

17. See my post, #16.

[myrna minx]

7. Thanks Brad. K&R

[nahant]

12. IOKIYAR!

Yup repuke and no accountability.. IOKIYAR

[Rain Mcloud]

13. Henry Ford would sell you a model T in any color you wanted

as long as it was black.

Today in KY you can vote for a republican as long as you are white.

But at least the SCOTUS has declared that voter fraud is now over,but if you do plan to exorcize your one remaining right be sure to register to vote and make sure to bring along three forms of legal ID plus a credit report,birth certificate,video footage of your presumably live birth if applicable and utility bills that match the address of your current residence and drivers license,oh and do not forget last years state and local tax forms.
Come to think on it better bring a #2 lead pencil for the literacy test.

Hmmm,i wonder if Supreme Court Justice Uncle Tom Thomas has to register before he votes from the bench?
Oh that's right Jim Crow is dead,i kind of forgot SCCJ Roberts and Special Guests the Supremes said so at the Koch Brothers annual Aspen Retreat last week.

[kentuck]

14. This has been going on since before anyone on DU was born.

My hometown is in a neighboring county to Clay and Clay County also had the controversy with Richie Farmer, former Ag Commissioner and former KY Wildcat's Unforgettables. I have heard these stories all my life.

I can recall the story about two brothers who were for different candidates and one brother stabbed the other on election day. Their last name was Jones.

Like John Prine said in his song, "He voted for Eisenhower 'cause Lincoln won the war..."

[elleng]

16. 'So why did the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturn the original convictions this week

and remand the case for a new trial?...

According to AP, the appellate court found that "U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves allowed jurors to hear some evidence that should not have been admitted and erred in his handling of transcripts of secret tape recordings that an informant made during the FBI investigation."

"Writing for the court, Judge Karen Nelson Moore concluded the errors taken alone might not have hurt the defendants' ability to get a fair trial. But, Moore wrote, the cumulative effect of the mistakes tainted the legal proceedings."

"The court's ruling mainly turned on a prosecution decision to offer several witnesses to testify about a decade-old drug conspiracy. Moore concluded the testimony shouldn't have been allowed because there was no direct link between the drug sales and the vote buying allegations."

"Furthermore, the sheer amount of drug-dealing evidence that was presented is entirely disproportionate to its probative value, tipping the scales toward unfair prejudice," Moore wrote in her decision. "In sum, the evidence of widespread drug dealing in Clay County did not serve as a prelude to the present case or help complete the story of the offense."'

[blkmusclmachine]

19. IOKIYAR