The Stormy Politics of Vote Fraud

By John Hickey
West Virginia Secretary of State Betty Ireland’s new six-person voter-fraud unit and her hotline for election fraud (1-877-FRAUD-WV) have since August engendered multiple state investigations of election fraud in the state, which have thus far resulted in one indictment, of 2004 Republican House of Delegates candidate Fredrick E. Blackmer, Jr. Blackmer was indicted in Jefferson County after failing to file campaign finance reports even after they were requested by the Secretary of State’s office. Charges were dropped after Blackmer filed the reports, which showed no income and no spending. Ben Beakes of the Secretary of State’s office told the Chronicle that Ireland is more interested in ensuring compliance with election laws than in seeking convictions.

Beakes said that the hotline has received several dozen calls, about 20 percent of which have been complaints, and that a “handful” of folks have filled out the written forms requisite for any complaint to be investigated. He said that by law he could not be more specific about the number of written complaints, but he said that more than one election-fraud investigation is in progress. The state investigations augment federal election-fraud investigations that have resulted in convictions in southern West Virginia.

The investigations set sail in a storm of West Virginia family and party politics that has pitted Republicans against Democrats, Republicans against each other, and some West Virginia Republicans against President George W. Bush.

U.S. Attorney Kasey Warner, whose brothers Kris and Monty led the West Virginia Republican Party before the family’s downfall in some bruising Republican battles in the past year, mounted successful prosecutions in southern West Virginia as part of a nationwide push of the Bush administration to prosecute election fraud.

The U.S. Justice Department said Aug. 12 that Kasey Warner’s prosecutions had resulted in guilty pleas from four people in Logan County, including “the sheriff, the former chief of police and the treasurer of a candidate for state representative,” and that “five people have been indicted and are awaiting trial on charges of vote buying in Lincoln County.” The Lincoln County indictments include Lincoln County Assessor Jerry Weaver, Clifford O’Dell “Groundhog’’ Vance, and Circuit Clerk Greg Stowers, son of longtime Lincoln County Democratic Party Chairman Wylie Stowers. All of those convicted and all of those indicted were Democrats.

Republican 2004 gubernatorial candidate Monty Warner made election fraud a central issue in his campaign, and claimed inside knowledge that several individuals were being investigated “by the feds.” Three of those he named were in fact later indicted by his brother, U.S. Attorney Kasey Warner.

Secretary of State Ireland had been working with Kasey Warner on a federal-state partnership when Warner was abruptly removed Aug. 1 by President Bush with no explanation.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail asked Aug. 11, “Why was the top federal agent of this region mysteriously removed? West Virginians deserve an explanation for this abrupt and puzzling occurrence.”

Bush has not acknowledged that he fired Warner, but Warner told Charleston’s WCHS-TV Aug. 11 that, when the President “decides, for whatever reason – political reasons, other reasons, no reason at all – or just that it’s time for somebody else to move into a position,” the President “has the ability” to appoint a new U.S. Attorney.

Ireland told the Wheeling Intelligencer, “We were concerned that, with the departure of Kasey Warner, people would think that our fight against voter fraud in West Virginia would stop.” But on Aug. 4 she announced that the partnership would go forward with the new U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia, Charles Miller. In February she had announced a similar partnership with Thomas E. Johnston, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of West Virginia.

Ireland said that vote fraud in West Virginia is widespread. “In West Virginia, we have folks who sell their vote,” she said. “There are people who literally are oppressed by ‘Boss Hoggs’ who hold power over jobs ... and in some instances a decent way of life for our residents.”

Ireland has railed against “the political machines in some counties that control everything from who gets jobs to which roads get paved,” saying, “People are tired … of being enslaved by this system.” Ireland on Aug. 4 introduced her six-person voter fraud unit, including two former state troopers, a former police chief, two lawyers and an administrator, to carry out state investigations.

Election-fraud complaint forms can be obtained online at http://www.wvsos.com/forms/elections/election%20complaint%20form.pdf.