Voter Fraud-- Republican Style: Meet Thaddeus McCotter... Again

These days when you mention election fraud, everyone immediately thinks of the shenanigans underway in Florida, as Rick Scott tries putting an anti-democracy infrastructure in place to steal the 2012 election in November. But Florida isn't the only state-- just the worst-- where Republicans who took over state governments in 2010 are trying to rig the system. Scott Walker in Wisconsin and John Kasich have, along with the incredibly unpopular Rick Scott, been most notorious. And Rick Snyder, the crook who slipped into the Michigan governor's chair. In fact, Michigan is a well when it comes to all the little ALEC schemes to undermine democracy. And that brings us to our old friend-- and pathetic mama's boy-- Thaddeus McCotter of Livonia, Michigan. The 11th district, in the Oakland and Wayne county suburbs north and west of Detroit, is a classic swing district. Bush won it with 51 and 53% and then Obama came in with 54% in 2008. In 2008 McCotter almost lost to a poorly-funded, virtually unknown candidate with just 51% of the vote.

So this year McCotter turned in hundreds of illegitimate signatures to get on the ballot. Michigan requires 1,000 but only 244 of McCotter's were valid! He was disqualified, although now he wants to run as a write-in candidate. He has a GOP primary challenger and two Democratic challengers, progressive physician Syed Taj and Bill Roberts, a deranged LaRouche freak who McCotter seems to have put up to the task of disrupting the Democratic process. And, possibly even more of a problem for McCotter is that the state's Attorney General, Bill Schuette (a right-wing Republican), is looking into what everyone thinks is an egregious case of election fraud.

While campaigns will often have some signatures invalidated, the sheer number of signatures that were thrown out suggests that people who collected them may have engaged in fraud.
A Detroit News review of the signatures found some of the pages were photocopied once or twice and attached to the name of a different signature gatherer.

McCotter wrote a column Tuesday in the Detroit News saying he will press on with a write-in bid and urging the state attorney general’s office to investigate.

“In honoring my vow to put my official responsibilities before politics, I delegated the same team that gathered signatures for me during the past decade to do so again, and I had no reason to doubt the competence or credibility of our petition gatherers’ assessment,” McCotter said, adding: “Now I feel like George Bailey after Uncle Billy admitted he lost the money. Like George, knowing my misplaced trust has negatively impacted so many people is heartrending. Unlike George, I am not tempted to jump off a bridge. Instead, I remember my late father’s rule: ‘You clean up your own mess.’”(Give McCotter this: He’s retained his legendarily wry sense of humor.)

McCotter expounded on that column in an interview on The Frank Beckmann Show this morning in which he suggested that a staff member had lied to him.

“At some point, for something like this to happen, I do feel like someone … lied to me,” McCotter said, according to the Detroit News.

There is one candidate on the GOP primary ballot: teacher Kerry Bentivolio. But McCotter’s biggest obstacle to re-nomination may be his name, which may be tough for some voters to spell.

The Oakland County Republican Party is in a total state of disunity-- and pissed as hell at McCotter. This is a real disaster for them and they're contemplating losing what they thought was a relatively safe seat (safe because they know how inept and disconnected the DCCC is). Michigan's director of elections, Chris Thomas, called the mess McCotter turned in, which included signatures from his 2010 petitions, "unheard of... "It's amazing when you sit and look, and it starts to dwell on you what they've done." The Secretary of State's office has turned over its findings to Schuette for what should be a criminal investigation.

Meanwhile, Public Policy Polling reported yesterday, that Michigan-- one of Romney's home state's-- is looking bright blue for November. And if Romney adds Gov. Snyder as VP-- his losing margin actually increases! Michiganders have grown sick of the anti-democracy move the GOP has been trying to institute in their state.

Barack Obama won't have to worry too much about holding Michigan for the Democrats this fall- he leads Mitt Romney 53-39 there, a lead little changed from PPP's last poll of the state in February when his advantage was 54-38.

Romney just doesn't have much of a home field advantage in the state. Only 24% of voters consider him to be a Michigander to 65% who do not. And only 35% have a favorable opinion of him to 57% with a negative view.

It's not just Romney's unpopularity helping Obama in Michigan though. Obama's own approval rating is at a record high in our polling of the state with 53% of voters giving him good marks to 41% who disapprove, including a 50/43 standing with independents.

Obama's crushing Romney on what will doubtless be one of the biggest issues in the campaign in Michigan- 55% think that he's been better for the automotive industry in the state to only 31% who say Romney wins out on that front.

Going inside the numbers Obama's winning over 13% of Republican voters while losing just 7% of Democrats, and he also has a double digit advantage with independents at 48-36. Obama's winning women by a 58-34 margin and significantly has a 10 point lead with white voters at 50-40.

There's been some talk about Rick Snyder as a potential running mate but he wouldn't help the ticket any- with him as the VP pick Obama's lead actually expands slightly to 53-38. That's because Snyder continues to be an unpopular Governor with only 37% of voters approving of him to 52% who disapprove. That's a regression for Snyder compared to February when he was at 40/47, largely because he's seen a drop with independents.

And that's good news for Dr. Taj-- and for other progressive challengers across the state, like Lance Enderle and Trevor Thomas. You can help Dr. Taj beat the LaRouche freak and the McCotter freak here on our ActBlue page.