For all the outraged Republican claims of rampant voter fraud we’ve seen in the last few weeks, it’s worth noting that authorities have had enough evidence to arrest only a tiny number of people in connection with the problem, almost all of whom were street-level canvassers suspected of duping their supervisors with phony registration cards in order to boost their bonuses.
But over the weekend, a professional political consultant, who owns a firm that’s been registering hundreds of thousands of voters and gathering petition signatures, was added to the list. The only problem: it’s a Republican firm that had contracted with the California GOP.
The LA Times reports:
State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that all signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California.
This is the second black eye for Jacoby and his firm, Young Political Majors (YPM) in the last few days. Last week, the same paper reported claims by dozens of Californians that they were asked by YPM canvassers to sign a petition to toughen laws against child molesters, then later found they had been duped into registering as Republicans. YPM, which was paid $7-12 for every Californian it signed up for the Republican party, denied the allegations.
The paper adds:
YPM has been accused of using bait-and-switch tactics across the country. Election officials and lawmakers have launched investigations into the activities of YPM workers in Florida and Massachusetts. In Arizona, the firm was recently a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit.
Ironic that, for all the GOP-generated sturm und drang over ACORN in the last few weeks, it looks like it’s in fact a Republican firm against whom there’s actual evidence of systemic fraud.