Independent investigation needed for Board of Elections

The problems have already exponentially increased by having the local Sheriff do the investigation. As part of the “Monarchy of Montgomery County,” Sheriff Plummer has been been part and party to other questionable actions in office. Of course, regular readers know that his sister was making ridiculous money as an appraiser, and had been granted more money per appraisal than was allowed by law.

If the Board of Elections had one shred of integrity, it would call for an impartial investigator from outside the region, preferably, assigned by the Secretary of State, Jon Husted, who is the only elected elections officer in the state (sad, but true). If the fact that this Board of Elections tried unsuccessfully to have this Secretary of State called on violations of the residency requirements is an issue, there is always the ability to ask the Federal Elections Commission for an investigator.

That once again, we end up with another problem with a person who got the job through nepotism isn’t a piece of news- since EVERY SINGLE employee of the Board of Elections is there as a favor to some political party big wig or donor is exactly why we have these problems in the first place- from the DDN article:

“I trained dozens of poll workers and I know exactly what I said because I said it every day for three months,” said Kym Brush, a retired employee of the board of elections. “The two-page ballot was talked about in great detail. It was my perception that they understood what I was talking about.”…

“That will be determined by the sheriff’s investigation and reviewed by the prosecutor’s office,” he said.

via Sheriff’s Office launches investigation into allegations against elections board

As pointed out by a reader (“Are You Kidding Me”)  to this site:

Brush is the wife of Montgomery County Clerk of Courts Gregory Brush.  The Clerk of Courts is a unionized office that is represented by the same labor union (allegedly) that Board member Tom Ritchie works for.

Gregory Brush also employs his father at the Clerk of Courts office.

The whole elected body of Montgomery County, at both city and county levels- as well as those serving as state legislators have benefited at one time or another from help from the people at the Board of Elections- either through direct services such as pre-turn in petition signature checking from Board of Election employees on their “lunch hour” (which is paid since the BOE is open from 8-4) – where the elections chiefs send them out to the lobby to check them so it’s not done in their “official capacity”- or through the forced kickback of $125 per every $10k of salary to the political party machine.

Having anyone from inside this county do an investigation is a farce.

But, here it is from the above mentioned DDN article:

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation Thursday into allegations that election officials failed to report that some provisional voters in the November 2006 election did not receive full ballots.

The two-fold investigation also will focus on a document included in the accusation that was mailed to boards of election across the state that was removed illegally from the county office.

Sheriff Phil Plummer said he met with members of the Montgomery County Board of Elections on Thursday, who asked for an internal and criminal investigation.

“It’s very early in the game right now, but the investigation is officially under way,” Plummer said.

In the interest of making sure that no more incriminating documents are “lost”- the entire office should be shut down, employees put on other tasks- such as roadside trash collection, and the crime scene should have been sealed. One can bet, there have been other things sent to the shredder in the last three days- and that plans and plots to misdirect investigators have already been hatched.

 

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