The 2009 primary election in Troy, NY attracted much attention for election shenanigans from Democratic officials who are associated with the Working Families Party. Well, yesterday, a grand jury issued indictments on 116 charges against a Democratic City Councilmember Michael LaPorto and Democratic Election Commissioner Edward McDonough. The Albany Times-Union and the Troy Record have been all over this.
Basically, those two Democratic officials have been indicted of forging absentee ballot applications and then actually voting those people in the Working Families Party primary. Almost everyone who was voted illegally by these officials were poor people living in housing projects. To make clear what this means: Democratic officials stole the right to vote from poor people.
The Troy Record said:
The charges against them surround some 50 voters who were allegedly deprived of their vote in the Sept. 15, 2009 Working Families Party primary election in Troy. Many were residents of the city’s housing projects.
At a press conference later Friday, Special Prosecutor Trey Smith said many of the alleged victims are the county’s “less fortunate.” Many do not speak English well, he said, while one is deaf and can communicate only in sign language.
The Times Union initially broke the story, pointing out that some people were shocked to find that they had voted.
The scandal was exposed by the Times Union in a Sept. 25, 2009 article that quoted a number of voters who were mystified to learn ballots were cast in their name during the primary.
The indictments resulted from an investigation launched in October 2009 by Smith after allegations arose that Democrats were forging voters’ signatures and casting fraudulent primary ballots.
The Times Union points out that the election official who was indicted learned his Democratic corruption at the knee of his father who was the Chair of the Rensselaer County Democratic Party and who went to federal prison for a municipal insurance kickback scheme:
For the McDonoughs, this is the second time in 20 years that a family member has been indicted. McDonough’s father, the late Rensselaer County Democratic Party Chairman Edward F. McDonough Jr., was indicted by a federal grand jury, convicted and sentenced to federal prison in 1994 for a municipal insurance kickback scheme that brought him $637,000.