A few weeks ago, Obama senior adviser and seasoned Chicago operative David Axelrod joked on MSNBC about election corruption. Asked whether "vote early and often" scams had come to an end in his shady hometown, Axelrod snarked: "Well, certainly on the air." Yuk, yuk, yuk.
Behind the scenes, Democrats have been busy faking petition signatures, forging ballots and enlisting medical professionals to authorize fraudulent doctors' notes for liberal teachers-union operatives protesting Republican opponents. It's no laughing matter.
This week, four Democratic officials in Indiana were hit with felony charges related to petition fraud in the state's 2008 primary. The prosecutions are a result of the local South Bend Tribune newspaper's investigation last fall into "hundreds of county residents' signatures" forged on petitions used to put Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the Democratic primary ballot. At least two whistle-blowing government officials came forward to expose the forgery racket, which court documents say was formulated by Democratic Party officials inside local party headquarters.
A veteran county Democratic Party chair, Butch Morgan, resigned in October over the scandal; three employees in the St. Joseph County voter registration office reportedly helped Morgan execute the scheme. Among the hundreds of unsuspecting residents whose names were illegally signed to the petitions: the prosecuting attorney in the case and a former Democratic governor of the state!
That's the audacity of ACORN-style hoaxes.
Without the phony signatures, there's a significant chance that Obama would not have qualified for the primary ballot — throwing the validity of the entire election into question.
Dr. Deb Fleming, the county's Republican chairwoman, told the South Bend Tribune that the Democratic machine has dominated her backyard for decades. "They have 'a culture of corruption' here and throughout Indiana. 'I'm sure there are other things. They've just never gotten caught,' she speculated. 'Because they've been in control of St. Joseph County for so long, they felt they could get away with it.'"
It's a widespread culture of election corruption that has festered in Obama's Chicago, crossed into Indiana and bubbled up across the country.
On Tuesday, a New York judge set new trial dates for Democratic officials and political operatives accused of another ballot fraud conspiracy. A first round of prosecutions against Democratic Elections Commissioner Edward McDonough and his co-defendant, former Councilman Michael LoPorto, ended in mistrials last month. The two men also face separate voter fraud charges involving a plot by Democrats to win the radical Working Families Party primary back in 2009. The WFP is a front group for President Obama's dear old friends at fraud-plagued ACORN.
According to law enforcement authorities, the ring of Democrats tried to rig the primary election for city council and county legislature by forging absentee ballots and ballot applications to ensure that their candidates also won the Working Families Party primary line.
Fox News Channel investigative reporter Eric Shawn noted that a whistle-blower in the case, WFP employee Sarah Couch, told investigators that her bosses "asked her to issue a Working Families Party press release that would 'point blame at the Republican Party,' and she refused to do so." Another whistle-blower, Democratic operative Anthony DeFiglio, told police that "faking absentee ballots was a commonplace and accepted practice in political circles, all intended to swing an election."
Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, the state's Medical Examining Board decided last month to investigate 11 additional doctors for writing fake sick notes for public union teachers who ditched their classrooms to protest GOP Gov. Scott Walker. Nine other medical professionals have already received slaps on the wrist.
Primary petitions. Absentee ballots. Doctors' orders. Fraudulent signatures are becoming the signature of desperate Democrats who play the electoral game by one set of rules: By Any Means Necessary.
Yet, progressives in the media and White House continue to strike a see-no-election-fraud, hear-no-election-fraud, speak-no-election-fraud pose. And Team Obama's Axelrod supplies the laugh track. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
Michelle Malkin [email her] is the author of Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores . Click here for Peter Brimelow’s review. Click here for Michelle Malkin's website. Michelle Malkin is also author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild and the just-released Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies.
