Fraud and More in New York. Did someone access Bernie's Voter Files?

Alba Guerrero was dumbfounded. She’d arrived at her polling place in Ozone Park, Queens only to be told that she had been registered as a Republican since 2004.

That was news to her. She remembers registering to vote for the first time as a Democrat so she could vote for Barack Obama in the general election in 2008. When she recently moved from Manhattan to Ozone Park, in Queens, she re-registered at the DMV, she says, and even checked online on March 9th to be sure she was registered at her new address.

But when she showed up to vote for Bernie Sanders at PS63 on Tuesday, she says she was told she couldn’t. New York is a closed primary, where only registered Democrats can vote in the Democratic Primary—and voters had to be registered by last October. She was told—very politely, she wants to make clear—by poll workers to take it up with a judge. She was given a court order in nearby Forest Hills.

Guerrero drove to the Queens County Board of Elections and pled her case, but Judge Ira Margulis initially turned her away.

“The judge tells me, ‘No, that’s it—2004.’ He shows me, I’m registered as a Republican. He says there’s nothing we can do,” she said.

But on her way out she saw a Board of Elections worker holding something with her name on it. It was her 2004 voter registration, replete, she remembers, with her name, her social security number, her birthday—and someone else’s signature.

“I said, ‘Excuse me, that’s not my signature,’” she said. “It’s not my handwriting. It showed completely different signatures.”

...Mistakes were made04.19.16 7:10 PM ET
Failure, Fraud and More In New York’s Punk Rock Voting Disaster
Voters across New York are telling horror stories about their inability to cast a ballot because of everything from broken voting machines to clerical errors over shared middle names.

Alba Guerrero was dumbfounded. She’d arrived at her polling place in Ozone Park, Queens only to be told that she had been registered as a Republican since 2004.

That was news to her. She remembers registering to vote for the first time as a Democrat so she could vote for Barack Obama in the general election in 2008. When she recently moved from Manhattan to Ozone Park, in Queens, she re-registered at the DMV, she says, and even checked online on March 9th to be sure she was registered at her new address.

But when she showed up to vote for Bernie Sanders at PS63 on Tuesday, she says she was told she couldn’t. New York is a closed primary, where only registered Democrats can vote in the Democratic Primary—and voters had to be registered by last October. She was told—very politely, she wants to make clear—by poll workers to take it up with a judge. She was given a court order in nearby Forest Hills.

Guerrero drove to the Queens County Board of Elections and pled her case, but Judge Ira Margulis initially turned her away.

“The judge tells me, ‘No, that’s it—2004.’ He shows me, I’m registered as a Republican. He says there’s nothing we can do,” she said.

But on her way out she saw a Board of Elections worker holding something with her name on it. It was her 2004 voter registration, replete, she remembers, with her name, her social security number, her birthday—and someone else’s signature.

“I said, ‘Excuse me, that’s not my signature,’” she said. “It’s not my handwriting. It showed completely different signatures.”

Sure enough, the signatures are strikingly different. Next to a box checked “Republican,” her 2004 signature is written in clear, deliberate, legible cursive and includes her middle name. Her more recent signature is a loopy, illegible scrawl. She insists she’s never changed it in her life, and says she can produce old tax forms to prove it.


LOTS MORE AT THE LINK.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/19/failure-fraud-and-more-in-new-york-s-punk-rock-voting-disaster.html