Robert William Beaulieu is 23-years-old, lives in Nashua, New Hampshire, and is a registered Democrat. He’s also very much not dead.
But you wouldn’t have known that if you watched the lastest undercover sting video from James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, which featured a man with an Irish accent attempting to obtain a ballot on behalf of a Robert Beaulieu who lives on Cassandra Lane.
That’s the home University of New Hampshire graduate Robert W. Beaulieu, pictured above, shares with his parents. Robert P. Beaulieu, unrelated, died a few months back at the age of 84, and is apparently the man Project Vertitas’ investigator intended to impersonate. By all appearances, they got the wrong guy.
“I found out they were actually talking about me and not the man who passed away in October,” Robert W. Beaulieu told TPM. “The funny thing is, if they’d done any research, they would have found out the guy’s middle name is Paul and the guy specifically goes looking for William.”
“There’s four of us, everyone is alive,” joked Beaulieu’s brother Timothy William Beaulieu, who first noticed that his brother’s name and address being used by a man with an Irish accent during a segment on Current TV this week.
“Yeah, he butchered our name,” Robert W. Beaulieu told TPM, adding that the fact that someone using his name was able to obtain a ballot doesn’t change his opposition to a photo ID law.
“I’ve heard Republicans try to spin it their way, but I don’t see [voter impersonation fraud] as a big problem at all,” Beaulieu told TPM, but said that the poll watcher in the video shouldn’t have helped the individual impersonating him out with his address.
But the crux of the O’Keefe sting, which apparently cost over $50,000, is that dead voters shouldn’t have been on the voting rolls and that anyone could be voting on their behalf without a voter ID law in place. Robert W. Beaulieu, being a living New Hampshire resident who’s been voting since he turned 18, should have been on the voting rolls.
Beaulieu said that he reached out to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office but said he was brushed off. “I think they just want it to go away,” he said.
The clip of the Project Veritas investigator obtaining a ballot on behalf of Robert Beaulieu is the first segment in this video:
Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.
Can we please be clear here, Thats no Irish accent, its English.
O'Keefe is guilty not only of voter fraud, but identity theft as well. That the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office "brushed" him off is a disgrace. Pressure should be placed on the AG's office to do an investigation.
IMHO O'Keefe conspired to commit voter fraud, conspired to deny (perhaps unwittingly) Robert William Beaulieu, of his (voting is a right) civil rights. It matters not that he may have had the purest intention, by his actions he should face a jury.
This is a crime and O'Keefe and his pocketball buddies should be arrested and tried on a felony for this crime. Particularly in this instance where they attempted to get the ballot of a living, voting American. Serial lying creep.
Just to re-iterate:
"By all appearances, they got the wrong guy." They confused a middle initial, yet they still got the right birth date of a very deceased man who was being allowed a ballot to vote by a live person.
Read the article again, please. They requested a ballot for Robert Beaulieu and were given the ballot reserved for the very live Robert W Beaulieu, not the deceased Robert P Beaulieu. The name is one they found presumably by combing recent obituaries, and it is probably the case that they were not asked "Robert P or Robert W?" because Robert P had in fact been removed from the voter rolls (or may not have been there to begin with-- not everyone registers to vote).
Not that you'd care.Truth obviously isn't really your thing.
On a lighter note, greetings from Hollywood-- where my local polling place is, so help me, the chapel of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Me, I smile and laugh "how convenient this makes it for the deceased to get to the polls!" but you, no doubt, will be able to humorlessly whup this up into some sort of big shocking scandal, as you have done here with O'Keefe's silliness. Happy wambulance chasing!
Because I can't resist a good gag-- here, I'll get you started, Lady:
Voting in a cemetery greatly increases the likelihood of fraudulent ballots cast in the name of a dead person. Why, a fraudster has only to take a brief stroll among the many graves to collect any number of names of dead people off headstones, and then cast a fraudulent vote in any of the names found.
"Okey-dokey: there, I've checked off your name, sir, and here's your ballot, Mr DeMille."
Chris Vosburg
What is it with you crackers...voting and DEAD PEOPLE?
it's almost SEXUAL.
"By all appearances, they got the wrong guy."Yes, appearances -- which is what this article is about. Never mind that he exposed the dead are indeed voting in NH, the appearance that he got a name wrong is what is important.Really?
LadyLiberty1885 "Never mind that he exposed the dead are indeed voting in NH"
Name one who has.
FawkesFOXLadyLiberty1885 Aaaaaand cue the crickets.
James O'Keefe is the poster child for Republican Anti-Intellectualism.
Book `em, Dano.
We have a situation with a contractor that stole our money and then declared bankruptcy. We are now figuring out how serve them with an arrest warrant. You are allowed to serve an arrest warrant on someone and there must be a court hearing once done. Then it is up to the courts to make a decision. But we have found out that most DA's only go after violent crimes.
I agree with those below that the young Mr. Beaulieu has a valid and quite winnable case of identity theft. Hello New Hampshire lawyers! Here's your big chance to make a name for yourselves!
beatbort Was your Law License expensive when you wrote away for it on the back of that cereal box?
LadyLiberty1885beatbort Ad hominem, first choice of the incompetent.
Forgive me if this has already been pointed out downthread, but the part I like best about this ridiculous stunt is imagining the look on the face of the "extremely generous" donor of the fifty large which, according to O'Keefe, it cost to put this stupid mess together, as he watches the video and says "That's It? That's all? Fifty thousand dollars, and all I got was this crummy candid camera video of a couple of frathouse dorks pretending to be dead people at the polling place?"
That'll teach you, pigeon. Next time blow it on something useful, like coke and hookers.
In the meantime, I'm wondering exactly how the money was spent. I'm betting fifty bucks each for a couple of O'Keefe's toady torpedoes to go to the polls and shoot the footage, and $49,900 paid to O'Keefe by himself to edit it. That about right, James?
So, what we have here is the first ever documentation of voter fraud. Mayhap Fox News will call for this perjurer to be brought to heel with the full force of the law.
Jonnan Oh, I can give you a ton of links for your edification. Start here:http://www.albanyconservative.us/troy_voter_fraud/...
The Crazy Torch Lady's right for once, sort of, Jonnan. Instances of voter fraud are extraordinarily rare, but nevertheless do happen from time to time. The "ton of links" claim is laughable bullshit, of course, unless she's talking about repeated coverage of the same handful of cases by different news sources-- and let's face it, she is, and she knows it.
And the questions remain, why is James O'Keefe not in jail? Why is FOX News still referenced for anything other than the latest on Murdoch's hemorrhoids?
Is there any recourse one could take against someone trying to impersonate them at the polls?
valgal23 I wonder if identity theft would apply or in the case of an election official denying you your ballot because you were beaten to the polls by the offender a lawsuit for denying your civil rights.
Oh that cute little scamp!
Adrian Browne Yea, he resembles Lee Harvey Oswald. Isn't he cute??
Time to put little Jimmy O'Keefe in jail where he belongs !
Can't he file a written complaint with the AG? If he formally requests an investigation the AG would have to do something, even if it's just to tell Beaulieu they don't investigate crimes committed by Republicans.
Frank Stanley
Excellent idea, O'Keefe should take his videos to a law enforcement agency and demand an investigation of voter fraud! :-)
johnw1141 O'Keefe isn't likely to flaunt the law more aggressively than he already has.It's not as if his objective is honest elections.
Sounds like identity theft to me.
Does Beaulieu have to go through the Attorney General? Although it may be costly, I'd guess that there would be plenty of attorneys willing to go pro bono on a case of tort fraud (or attempted) against O'Keefe and his accomplices? Granted, tort fraud has quite a lot of elements, but just glancing at it I'm pretty sure there's a prima facie case.
aperfectsonnet You are correct. There's a family of Torts under the title of "Invasion to Privacy" one of which is "Appropriation" which involves using someone else's name or image for commercial gain without their consent. In this case, the video was a publicity stunt and would most likely be used to raise further funds for their organization. Another tort in this family of torts is "public light of private fact". I'm not sure if this qualifies in this case, but, the actions of the perpetrators in this situation have essentially publicized the true fact that the person in question didn't vote in this election. Is that normally public knowledge? Would it be OK, for example for a newspaper to get a hold of the voter rolls after the polls close and publish the names of all the people who were registered to vote but didn't do so in a particular election? If not, then this is an additional legal theory under which these fools can be held liable.There's the tort of defamation which requires a publication of false information. If, in all this nonsense, O'Keefe's people have publicized something (spoken, written, video, whatever) in such a way that it could reasonably be interpreted to mean that the innocent guy was part of their scheme, then there's that.There are some others like "Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress" that are more tenuous. The perpetrators did act intentionally (an element) and their behavior was, "Outrageous and extreme" (also an element, but only if objectively so), but there's probably not adequate mental anguish on the part of the wronged man. Honestly, though, anybody can be sued for any reason, so, even if the court dismisses it before going to trial, you might as well throw that sort of thing in there see if the court agrees with the "extreme and outrageous part" and, better still, make the bastards explain their actions.
I read this more than once, Pkafin69; very nicely summed up: thanks for a much needed legal voice on this.
I speculated downthread about possible violation of the silver-haired poll worker's expectation of privacy in her conversation with prospective voters. First, I wonder if it's illegal to record without prior consent of both parties, but I wonder as well that she was not asked to sign off on the use of her image in the resulting video for public usage.
I doubt it, and I was wondering if you could shed any light on the legal ramifications of this.
Chris Vosburg It is indeed illegal in NH to record someone without their knowledge.
Isn't it a crime to knowingly impersonate a living or dead voter in an attempt to vote in his name?
LewG yes but I'll bet that one of the perps is probably the son of some high ranking official in NH (just like they were in Louisiana) and they'll make it go away or reduce the charges to something trivial.
hobodeluxeLewG Surely this man will be punished for this. Is he showing how it can be done so there will be a flood of copycats at the next election.
Voter fraud is such B>S>Can you imagine the amount of people it would take to change an election and get them all to apply at a voting booth.It was shown that of the millions of votes caste there were about less than a few hundred and most were just a simple error.These Fascist,yes Fascist would stop at nothing to win.Have the Repugs done anything since they gained control of the House to help the average citizen?If so please let me know!
goldenboy Or to put it another way, Rick Santorum would have only needed nine or ten of O'Keefe's friends pulling this silly stunt in Iowa to have come out the official weener...
Roger Hallmangoldenboy The votes are hand-counted in Iowa and you have to sit through the whole caucus to do it, so the mechanism is different and at the end, the delegates are split anyway. Santorum and Romney have the same number of delegates. It shows what a sham the caucuses are.
goldenboy http://www.albanyconservative.us/troy_voter_fraud/... there, smart guy.
Then hit CO for the 30k fraudulently registered there, then FL where absentee ballot fraud is rampant with 2 arrests already.. the hits keep coming. Try taking your fingers out of your ears.
LadyLiberty1885goldenboy "Then hit CO for the 30k fraudulently registered there..."
You'd understand how you've got that wrong if you actually cared. I doubt that any number of explanations would get you to stop citing it, though.
LadyLiberty1885goldenboy "http://www.albanyconservative.us/troy_voter_fraud/... there, smart guy."
Those were arrests for fraudulent acquisition of absentee ballots in a primary for the Working Families Party. Aside from that being a pretty obscure example, how do you make sure that an absentee ballot is used by the person it's supposedly obtained for? Or are you suggesting we do away with absentee voting to protect against that?
And, again, the few examples of voter fraud that have been successfully prosecuted have involved members of both parties and there haven't been enough of them to influence an election. Why the sudden interest in voter fraud? You guys never cared about it before you got your asses handed to you by a black presidential candidate. You've never show any interest at all in cases of election fraud where thousands of provisional ballots have been thrown in the trash, or where a voter registration drive by a GOP operative dumped hundreds of Democratic voter registrations in the trash. The large scale stuff doesn't seem to interest you guys that much. It's only the minutia.
Prosecute that little Okeefe s.o.b.
ows-now IMO O'Keefe is mentally ill and if not restrained somehow will do something that causes serious mayhem (as if destroying ACORN on false pretenses wasn't enough).
Dead Man Voting. Does that officially make the GOP the party of Zombies.
He may be a 23-year-old, but he's not 23-years-old. Gratuitous hyphens.
Something doesn't make sense to me. This report just grabbed anyone alive with the same name of an alleged dead person, and that's supposed to dispel any rumor of voter fraud? The real question should be where did O' Keefe get his list, and was the birth date in fact the same as listed on the ballot? We are getting hearsay from both O' Keefe and New Hampshire officials.
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