427. Bluegrassed

There are always new ways to be corrupt.  That's the wonderful thing about it.  Like April, the cruellest month, treating yesteryear as so much mulch (after having the droghte of march perced to the roote), corruption is always springing anew with renewed newness.   And it's only going to get better after the Supreme Court rules that the Constitution prohibits criminalizing the money-making habits of rich white men.

From Clay County, Kentucky (searching Google for it brings up a sad little sponsored ad for "File for Unemployment"), which wasn't named after the Great Compromiser but his cousin with the unfortunately easy-to-visualize name of Green Clay (unless Wikipedia, not otherwise known for its sense of humor, is pulling our collective leg), comes this story:

The circuit judge in Clay County discussed how an election officer could steal votes in 2006 when the judge was trying to help his son-in-law win a county office, a witness testified Thursday.

D. Kennon White said then-Circuit Judge R. Cletus Maricle had backed White's wife, Wanda, to become an election officer in the Manchester precinct.

In the May 2006 primary, Maricle's son-in-law, Phillip Mobley, was running for property valuation administrator.

Maricle and others met with Kennon and Wanda White and said people would be confused about how to use the county's new voting machines, presenting an opportunity to steal votes.

The machines had a "Vote" button that allowed people to review their choices, but they had to push another button to record the selections and finish voting.

That allowed corrupt election officers inside the polling place to dupe voters into thinking they were done after pressing the first button, then change their votes, White testified earlier.

Why would anyone design machines like that except to allow votes to be changed?  (Aren't you curious to know what company made them?  Here's my utterly uninformed and irresponsible guess.)  The machine seems designed not just to facilitate not just switching votes, but to make it easy to confirm a purchased voter stays bought.  This is how it worked:

Typically, Day said, candidates gave large sums of cash to vote-buyers, who then approached people as they came to polling places and offered them money. If the voters agreed, the buyers sent them to a complicit elections officer inside, who looked to make sure they voted the right way, then signaled to the vote-buyer outside to pay them, Day said.

"Every election I ever worked, it went on," said Day, who bought votes at the Burning Springs precinct.

In Kentucky, the circuit court is the trial court of general jurisdiction, i.e., a real court. Former Judge Manicle - I'm sorry, but it just wouldn't seem right not to make some juvenile remark about that name - seems like he knew what was what, all right.  But the real political boss was a-settin' over at the school district HQ:

Kennon White said that when he considered running for jailer in the 2002 Republican primary, Maricle told him he would have to spend about $120,000 for a "sure thing."

White said he also checked with [then-school superintendent Douglas] Adams about the race, and Adams told him if he would put up $60,000 to buy votes, he could be in the group of candidates backed by the politically powerful school board.

In the end, White said, he stuck with another faction and spent more than $50,000 to buy votes, distributing it through a number of people, including Bowling and Bart Morris.

White lost his 2002 race. He said he was told Adams used his influence through the school system, a major employer, to turn election officers away from then-county Clerk Jennings White, and that sunk him as well.

Running for jailer?  The politically powerful school board? 

If the testimony is to be believed, they play for keeps in Clay County.  A one-time drug dealing witness testified that "former Clay County Clerk Jennings White" - relationship to Kennon White unknown, and perhaps unknowable -- "once asked him to plant drugs in Adams' vehicle to get him arrested."  Shades of Louisiana's Judge Bodenheimer.  (See post 78 and post 12.) 

That particular drug dealer claimed he had protection from the once and would-be future sheriff, Edd Jordan, a/k/a Unindicted Co-Conspirator - he's running to regain his old position - because of the zeal with which he bought votes for him.  What makes it especially easy to believe are the comments from Clay County, uh, activists on Topix (e.g., here and here). 

Comments

[BobbieBROWN]

According to my exploration, billions of persons all over the world receive the <a href="http://lowest-rate-loans.com/topics/home-loans">home loans</a> from different banks. Hence, there is good chances to receive a term loan in every country.