Update On 'Voter Outreach' Trashed Ballots Story
After nearly 24 hours for this story to pass through the media, few realize that the story is fake. The forgery of this story has been determined by a few individuals (including me), while many others have also found reason to suspect parts of the story. Also, any existing organization of a decent size seems to be listed in a google.com search. With the incredible number of people writing about virtually anything, it is very difficult for something not to appear on google.
Klas-TV, in Las Vegas (aptly nicknamed the "city of sin") has run three stories alleging that a group named "Voters Outreach of America" has deliberately destroyed registration forms made by democrats. Destruction of registration forms is illegal, as well as a potential dirty trick. Klas-TV, in its two earliest articles, claimed that Voters Outreach of America is also known as America Votes (the reference in the first article shortly after I emailed Klas-TV requesting that they recheck their facts, no other part of the article was changed).
Oddly enough, America Votes, which certainly does exist, has absolutely no relation to the RNC, and probably has absolutely no affiliation to any republican at all. America Votes was created by AFL-CIO, the Media Fund, moveon.org, and over a dozen other liberal organizations in order to coordinate the actions of the founding groups. The president of America Votes was Deputy Chief of Staff to Nancy Pelosi, a notable democrat (if not outright liberal). This information is from the official America Votes website, and is backed up by a credible non-partisan source (ww.opensecrets.org) as well. Klas-TV claimed that Voters Outreach of America is "largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee". It is certain that America Votes was funded entirely by the groups that its official website links to, none of which can claim to be right-leaning and are despised by the RNC. Additionally, there is no consensus on the name of this Voters Outreach, as some call it Voters Outreach of America while other refer to it as Voters Outreach for America.
Actually, let me quote the DNC itself for the Voters Outreach-America Votes link: "In Oregon, 'Voters Outreach', also known as 'America Votes,' has been linked to Sproul & Associates, a firm that has been paid some half a million dollars by the RNC. from here. This is part of a letter from Terence R. McAuliffe, Chairman of the DNC, to the chairman of the RNC. Additionally, the mere title of the article, “McAuliffe Letter Demands Answers from Gillespie On RNC Funded Voter Fraud” is innacurate. There is no “voter fraud”, as “voter fraud” does not nclude destruction of registration forms, to the best of my knoweldge.
Additionally, this story happens to coincide with an article here; “RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie issued the following statement today regarding a Kerry/DNC campaign document that instructs Democrats to make up charges of voter intimidation even if no signs or evidence of voter intimidation actually exist”. This story was also run by Matt Drudge.
When this story was first released, "Voters Outreach of America" and "Voters Outreach for America” had about four results in google.com, with at least one of those results being the news article. The closest things that can currently be found is a careerbuilder.com form here. Oddly enough the group that filed the form is in "US-MO-Springfield" (US standing for United States), while the Voters Outreach cited in the article is in Nevada. I am under the impression that the description under the form might not be entirely accurate, as that description ends with “Source - Reno Gazette Journal - Reno, NV”. I do not believe a normal description ends with a “source”, especially a media source.
But, there is still the question on Voters Outreach of America. A google search simply on "Voters Outreach" turned up few results. That was, at least, until a few hours ago. Since then, tons of people have been mentioning the group in story after story (including dailykos.com, which receives about 500,000 visits per day). One of the first results was National Voter Outreach, which claims no affiliation or relation to Voters Outreach of America and/or Voters Outreach for America.
This story has done exactly what I feared it did when I finished my last article: explode.
In only 24 hours, hundreds of websites have brought up this story, and it certainly looks like evidence is being fabricated (like that job application I mentioned earlier). I assure you, this ‘evidence’ did not exist 24 hours before I wrote this article.
Additionally, many have incorrectly connected the group mentioned in this story to another group falsely claiming to be America Votes in other states. I have no good reason to believe that Voters Outreach is connected to any of these other groups (one of which includes a prominent republican, the Sproul mentioned in the DNC letter). It seems that these groups were found when people searched for America votes controversies, and they were able to find several less-than-respectable groups that are unlikely to be involved in any nation-wide controversy.
I did, and still do, believe that this story is fraudulent. Since its release, it has exploded, and that explosion created ‘evidence’ that did not exist before. Many dots have been connected, though those dots have reason to be connected. I have found no evidence that Voters Outreach existed before Klas-TV published their article, with the exception of documents that are most likely fraudulent.
This story is still developing and expanding, so I can not hope to cover all necessary details after I publish this post. Many individuals, such as Michael John McCrae, have done excellent work checking this controversy, and they deserve quite a bit of credit. I must, however, note that this story is still developing and therefore quite prone to errors. Readers are more than welcome to share any new evidence in comments, and I can be contacted through the email address in the column on the right.
Klas-TV, in Las Vegas (aptly nicknamed the "city of sin") has run three stories alleging that a group named "Voters Outreach of America" has deliberately destroyed registration forms made by democrats. Destruction of registration forms is illegal, as well as a potential dirty trick. Klas-TV, in its two earliest articles, claimed that Voters Outreach of America is also known as America Votes (the reference in the first article shortly after I emailed Klas-TV requesting that they recheck their facts, no other part of the article was changed).
Oddly enough, America Votes, which certainly does exist, has absolutely no relation to the RNC, and probably has absolutely no affiliation to any republican at all. America Votes was created by AFL-CIO, the Media Fund, moveon.org, and over a dozen other liberal organizations in order to coordinate the actions of the founding groups. The president of America Votes was Deputy Chief of Staff to Nancy Pelosi, a notable democrat (if not outright liberal). This information is from the official America Votes website, and is backed up by a credible non-partisan source (ww.opensecrets.org) as well. Klas-TV claimed that Voters Outreach of America is "largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee". It is certain that America Votes was funded entirely by the groups that its official website links to, none of which can claim to be right-leaning and are despised by the RNC. Additionally, there is no consensus on the name of this Voters Outreach, as some call it Voters Outreach of America while other refer to it as Voters Outreach for America.
Actually, let me quote the DNC itself for the Voters Outreach-America Votes link: "In Oregon, 'Voters Outreach', also known as 'America Votes,' has been linked to Sproul & Associates, a firm that has been paid some half a million dollars by the RNC. from here. This is part of a letter from Terence R. McAuliffe, Chairman of the DNC, to the chairman of the RNC. Additionally, the mere title of the article, “McAuliffe Letter Demands Answers from Gillespie On RNC Funded Voter Fraud” is innacurate. There is no “voter fraud”, as “voter fraud” does not nclude destruction of registration forms, to the best of my knoweldge.
Additionally, this story happens to coincide with an article here; “RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie issued the following statement today regarding a Kerry/DNC campaign document that instructs Democrats to make up charges of voter intimidation even if no signs or evidence of voter intimidation actually exist”. This story was also run by Matt Drudge.
When this story was first released, "Voters Outreach of America" and "Voters Outreach for America” had about four results in google.com, with at least one of those results being the news article. The closest things that can currently be found is a careerbuilder.com form here. Oddly enough the group that filed the form is in "US-MO-Springfield" (US standing for United States), while the Voters Outreach cited in the article is in Nevada. I am under the impression that the description under the form might not be entirely accurate, as that description ends with “Source - Reno Gazette Journal - Reno, NV”. I do not believe a normal description ends with a “source”, especially a media source.
But, there is still the question on Voters Outreach of America. A google search simply on "Voters Outreach" turned up few results. That was, at least, until a few hours ago. Since then, tons of people have been mentioning the group in story after story (including dailykos.com, which receives about 500,000 visits per day). One of the first results was National Voter Outreach, which claims no affiliation or relation to Voters Outreach of America and/or Voters Outreach for America.
This story has done exactly what I feared it did when I finished my last article: explode.
In only 24 hours, hundreds of websites have brought up this story, and it certainly looks like evidence is being fabricated (like that job application I mentioned earlier). I assure you, this ‘evidence’ did not exist 24 hours before I wrote this article.
Additionally, many have incorrectly connected the group mentioned in this story to another group falsely claiming to be America Votes in other states. I have no good reason to believe that Voters Outreach is connected to any of these other groups (one of which includes a prominent republican, the Sproul mentioned in the DNC letter). It seems that these groups were found when people searched for America votes controversies, and they were able to find several less-than-respectable groups that are unlikely to be involved in any nation-wide controversy.
I did, and still do, believe that this story is fraudulent. Since its release, it has exploded, and that explosion created ‘evidence’ that did not exist before. Many dots have been connected, though those dots have reason to be connected. I have found no evidence that Voters Outreach existed before Klas-TV published their article, with the exception of documents that are most likely fraudulent.
This story is still developing and expanding, so I can not hope to cover all necessary details after I publish this post. Many individuals, such as Michael John McCrae, have done excellent work checking this controversy, and they deserve quite a bit of credit. I must, however, note that this story is still developing and therefore quite prone to errors. Readers are more than welcome to share any new evidence in comments, and I can be contacted through the email address in the column on the right.
posted by Chris at
6:44 PM
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