Mark Jacoby, another convicted Republican who received nothing more than a slap on the hand.
Read this juicy nugget from Brad Blog:
What's perhaps most interesting here is what isn't mentioned in this story, as written on the Los Angeles Times' "L.A. Now" blog. First, here's their entire blog item...
The owner of a voter-registration company pleaded guilty Tuesday to voter-registration fraud, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.And what they didn't bother to mention in that story?...Amongst other things, the fact that Jacoby and Young Political Majors were hired by the California Republican Party to head up their voter registration efforts in the state. Jacoby had been arrested for Voter Registration Fraud last October, smack dab during the media's orgasmic heights of last year's phony GOP ACORN "Voter Fraud" hoax, even as Fox "News" (and the other news outlets who similarly fell for the scam) was going wall-to-wall with unsupported insinuations about voter fraud by ACORN, Democrats, and Obama.Laguna Beach resident Mark Jacoby, who collects signatures for petition drives, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to three years' probation and 30 days of service with the California Department of Transportation.
Jacoby, owner of Young Political Majors, registered to vote at Los Angeles addresses that were not his own. State law requires petition circulators to be qualified voters. Jacoby will also be required to show proof he is registered at his correct address.
I heard the news about the arrest of Jacoby just as I was heading out for an appearance on Fox "News," so I was able to break the news on-air in my own "Fox 'News' Alert." (Video originally posted here, reposted at bottom of this item.)
Given the way the LA Times blog "covered" the story of Jacoby's plea --- not even mentioning the fact that this guy and his group were hired by the California state Republican Party --- I'd say it's a fair bet Fox wouldn't even have bothered to mention the original arrest at all had I not been on air and forcing them to do so myself. Much as they are unlikely to bother reporting Jacoby's plea today.
Ya think if the head of ACORN had made such a plea (or even been arrested at all) it might have been covered just a bit on Fox "News"?
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Here's the video from my appearance on Fox with inveterate GOP voter fraud hoaxster John Fund, on October 19, 2008. I broke the news of the arrest of the head of the CA GOP's voter registration outfit, which I had just received from the CA Secretary of State's office, in my own "Fox 'News' Alert"...
UPDATE: I hadn't noted it originally (though it's available in a number of the links in the story above), but though Jacoby pleaded guilty to the most benign offense, in fact, his company is alleged to have changed thousands of registrations from Democratic to Republican, assuring that those voters would not be able to vote, as expected, in the Democratic primary. When they didn't outright fake voter signatures on change of registration forms, they used tricks to get voters to give their signature, fooling them into thinking they were signing a petition against child molesters or for cancer hospital funding.
And since it's not clear to so many of the wingnuts linking into this post, allow me to underscore again that this was the head of the firm, which is also under investigation in three other states for similar activity. That all, of course, is a very different situation from ACORN where it was a handful of workers who were accused of registration fraud, and defrauding ACORN themselves, before being turned into official by ACORN themselves! Clear on that now, wingnuts? In the meantime, while voters were unable to cast votes at all thanks to Jacoby and YPM, there is not a single allegation of any actual voter fraud having been committed by, or at the behest of ACORN. They are, however, guilty of registering thousands upon thousands of low to middle income voters, who tend to vote Democratic, and thus, they continue to be the target of phony, baseless attacks from the desperate rightwing.
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Here's another good take on this from Paul Lehto at Alternet:
Here's What Vote Fraud Really Looks Like
California Republican Party's sponsorship of the firm YPM is a voter fraud oak tree compared to the innocent ACORN.
Extensive national media coverage of alleged voter registration fraud by ACORN has fanned fears of "voter fraud" by Democratic forces. Given this fact, it's more than a little remarkable that the media has not seen fit to present more balanced coverage. The media could easily do so by reporting, at the same level as ACORN, the far more serious, documented and provable story of election fraud by Young Political Majors, LLC (YPM). YPM's owner Mark Jacoby was recently arrested in California on two felony counts of voter registration fraud and two counts of perjury, as reported in the LA Times October 20. But these 4 charges are the tip of the YPM iceberg. The omission of YPM from the national debate is helping to set the general election on a course of confusion and disfranchisement -- consistent with YPM's undisputed record of disfranchising voters in primary elections earlier this year. As with the case of Tiffany Hofstetter, YPM's activities even include wholesale forgeries of real voters' registration affidavits, that results in them losing their right to vote.
Unlike ACORN's issues (which are almost exclusively the rejection of submitted registration applications that never actually make it onto voter rolls), YPMs frauds are not scrutinized, remain on the rolls, and are therefore far more serious. YPM also differs from ACORN in the following other respects:(1) YPM usually works directly for the Republican Party, usually in late summer and fall after the primaries are over, even though its main activity seems to be switching Democrats and Independents to Republican status;
(2) The California Republican party admits it knew of YPM's sordid history of alleged fraudulent practices when it hired them, which is available on the internet;
(3) YPM's un-scrutinized frauds continue to impact the voting rights of perfectly legal voters, limiting the ability of Democrats to Get Out the Vote of their own supporters.
(4) YPM in California has twice as many registrations accepted (70,000+) as ACORN has merely submitted (39,570 in California)
(5) YPMs registrations still affect the registration rolls, erroneously listing some voters as absentee who are not, changing addresses, and altering party statistics which influences fundraising for candidates, whether districts are considered "competitive" and influencing what election results mean or whether they are considered suspicious.
a comment from alternet puts it into perspective:
"Why haven't we heard of this organization before? Why haven't we heard of this allegations (and prosecutions) before?
ACORN was completely vilified for incomplete and inaccurate voter REGISTRATION but they haven't been formally accused (as in, by any government law agency) of voter fraud.
Yet, verifiable examples of voter fraud by the republicans is covered up? Way to drop the ball, liberal media. Too bad it's this late in the game to really make a difference.'
:snort:
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