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Petitioners prowling parking lots and community college campuses tricked dozens of young Orange County voters into registering to vote as Republicans, an Orange County Register investigation has found.

The con occurred at the end of January and the beginning of February at places like Cypress College and Golden West College, and outside of discount stores like Wal-Mart and Food 4 Less. It appears to be the same kind of voter registration fraud that engulfed Orange County four years ago and landed eight signature gatherers in jail.

Since mid-March, at least 99 written complaints have been submitted to state elections officials by Orange County residents who say they were registered to vote Republican without their consent. The Register found an additional 74 voters who said they were duped or coerced into registering to vote as a Republican by signature gatherers who initially asked them to sign petitions for causes like legalizing marijuana, fighting cancer or cleaning up beaches.

In all, the Register called 348 registered Republicans in central Orange County and reached 90 of them. Of those, only 16 said they wanted to be Republicans. The rest told stories of fast-talking petitioners, some advertising free sunglasses if they signed.

All of the voters identified by the Register are listed as under 28 years old; many said they knew little about politics or voting. A few, when told they were listed on the county voter rolls as a Republican, asked, "What is a Republican?"

The voters are all residents of the 34th State Senate District in central Orange County, where the Republican Party has high hopes of ousting incumbent Democrat Lou Correa in the fall. Unlike the Democrats, the California Republican Party has a controversial policy of paying signature gatherers who sends them new GOP voter registration cards and the Republicans are offering as much as $8 for each new GOP registration in that district.

Many believe the $8 "bounty" gives petitioners an incentive to commit fraud. In 2006, The Register found a similar fraud pattern in Orange County that was blamed, in part, on the bounty paid to signature gatherers. That year 167 voters complained to election officials that they were switched to Republican registration without their permission; The Register found another 112 voters who said they were tricked. Eleven signature gatherers were eventually convicted of falsifying registrations and other charges; eight went to jail.

The Republican Party isn't likely to benefit from this scheme because many of the voters contacted by the Register said they don't vote Republican. The only beneficiaries appear to be the signature gatherers themselves.

"I'm already anti-Republican and now they have people scamming people just to get money and just to get more voters?" said 25-year-old Bobbi Lee Smart, who says she was tricked into registering to vote as a Republican by a signature gatherer at Cypress College. "You guys suck."

http://www.ocregister.com/news/-244428--.html

These are varying shades of Old, but I thought I'd post them anyway. Going to pick up the camera again in the near future, though.




Mesa Verde national park, from 2007

Dear friend,

Ok, so you finally got a girlfriend again. Good for you. Why are you being insufferable? Yesterday, I was ready to throttle you for being such an unmitigated ass and the day before was the day you got together which the girl--I'm pretty sure there's a correlation because you weren't like this a couple days ago. I understand some of your cockiness because, well, she thought it was your knee. But I swear to god, I will punch you in the face if you ever say something like that again to me. We give each other shit all the time but that was over the line and I HATE the way you said it. I'm not easy to offend or hurt, but congratulations, you managed it.
Oh, and also? That comment you made to me yesterday when I almost fell over? Not ok. I am not an object and you will never reduce me to my body. More than it would go to waste if I died.

And then there's the matter of you taking up with this particular girl at all. First off, I'm pretty sure you aren't with her because you like her. You just know she broke up with her ex because he wouldn't put out. Plus, this girl is quite frankly abusive. I kind of doubt she'll do it to you, but you know exactly what kind of things she said to our friend the red head. You know how she treated him. And that you got with her at all is fucking low because you KNOW he hasn't been able to get over this girl since September. She also all but has a sign on her back that says BAT SHIT CRAZY. We've talked about this and you agreed with me last week--which was about three days before you found out she liked you. WTF.
I don't expect you to take this into account when selecting a girlfriend, but you know that A) I'm a pretty good judge of character and B) I don't like her. Hm. Let's count the number of times I've been wrong.

I'm going to be civil to her and I'm going to remind you I don't like her. And I'm going to enjoy hurting you. Little tiny jabs here and there until you stop behaving like a revolting jackass. Or maybe you never will. I don't know. But I do know that I don't want to be your friend if you keep this up.

What happened to the friend I've had for three years? My friend was sweet and had a sense of honor. He got mad when people made the sort of comments you did yesterday. Congratulations. You are now your father. Let me buy you some coke and find you a whore and you'll be all set.

Love (or maybe not),
  Kurys