Thread: New mayor of Mo. city met by police, suspended over alleged voter fraud

Originally Posted by Judy

Not really. Think about it. Those people could have been registered from that address from years ago and moved. Were they registered from that address in the last election? Apparently someone had been living there since they did find a jar of pickles and two empty oxygen tanks. Maybe they were poor and elderly and went to the hospital or a nursing home or died and other family members who had been living there with them moved out. A candidate who wins an election doesn't lose the race because registered voters moved away. I've never heard of such a thing.

Your argument is theoretical in nature. We don't have enough facts to make a judgement one way or the other (IMO). With such a small voting block, even one impopriety could bring the election results into question.

I didn't go saving all the articles that I have read on the issue to show. However what I remember person (secretary or some such) who normally swears in the new mayor had word of voter fraud with a tip and had it checked out. When checked they found 6 votes cast from a building that was supposedly vacant for sometime and neighbors said no one had lived there in at least a year. The official then seeing fraud refused to swear in the new mayor and had the votes checked. Supposedly it was found all 6 were for the new mayor and none of the people could be located in the town anymore as well.

I had also read they were investigating other leads on other fraudulent or mishandled votes as well.

Anyway you cut it the usual dirty politics in play and voter fraud. Even discounting only those 6 votes isn't a good solution as voter fraud of that sort doesn't happen without someone with direct connections having a hand in it which makes it deliberate on the candidate and their campaign.

This may be in and out of court for years as city, county, state and/or federal investigations are conducted, and people file lawsuits against each other and someone request a mental competency hearing for the woman who thinks she legally bought a four bedroom house for $9,000.

Originally Posted by ReformUSA2012

. . . I had also read they were investigating other leads on other fraudulent or mishandled votes as well. . .

From one of the articles:
On April 2, the city gave the Election Board a list of 27 names of people who it claimed were illegally registered
Alleging voter fraud, Kinloch refuses to swear in new mayor and alderman
Above.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

From one of the articles:
On April 2, the city gave the Election Board a list of 27 names of people who it claimed were illegally registered
Alleging voter fraud, Kinloch refuses to swear in new mayor and alderman
Above.

So out of the 58 votes cast, 27 may have been illegally registered?

Newly elected mayor locked out of Kinloch City Hall

Posted: Saturday, April 25, 2015 11:51 am
By Mariah Stewart Of The Huffington Post

(Huffington Post) -Just minutes away from Ferguson, its now-famous neighbor, is Kinloch, the first well-established African-American community in St. Louis County. Kinloch was once a flourishing town with some 10,000 residents.

Today, the population is less than 300. They elected a new mayor earlier this month: Betty McCray, 64, a seven-year veteran of the Kinloch Board of Aldermen. She won with 76 percent of the vote -- that is, 63 votes.

But the Board of Aldermen refused to swear her in, and now McCray can't get into city hall.

On Thursday, after she was sworn in by St. Louis County officials in nearby Clayton, McCray showed up at Kinloch's combination city hall and police department. It's in the former elementary school with the boarded-up windows and an overgrown playground. She was denied entry and handed impeachment papers by the city attorney, James Robinson. (The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a video of their encounter here.)

McCray told HuffPost that Kinloch officials have just “continued business as usual” since the election. “They don’t want to leave because they know I will find out everything that they’ve been doing,” she claimed.

Two years she resigned from the Board of Aldermen when Mayor Darren Small won office. She told HuffPost it was because “I knew it was going to be horrible.” She called the current regime "crooked."

Those at city hall see it differently, of course. They have alleged to county and state officials that 27 people who don't live in Kinloch were illegally registered to vote, according to the Post-Dispatch.

An official from the city of Kinloch did not immediately respond to HuffPost's request for comment.

As to the claims of voter fraud, McCray said those people still live in Kinloch even if their apartments appear to be in bad shape.

“We citizens of Kinloch have to live in horrible conditions. There is one apartment complex that hasn’t had trash pickup in a year and a half,” she told HuffPost.

She said the people of the town came out in “full force” on voting day because they were tired of “living in a dump.” There has not been an operating public works department for two years, according to McCray.

McCray has hired a lawyer and plans to file an injunction against the city.

Wherever the truth lies in the current battle, local government in Kinloch have repeatedly stumbled in recent years. In 2011, a former mayor was sentenced to 21 months in prison for spending tens of thousands of dollars in city money on his own expenses.

This year, the municipal judge was disciplined for a “pattern of misconduct” in his private legal practice -- he was using client funds to pay his own bills. And a former interim mayor was recently cited for resisting arrest -- but she contends she was assaulted by Kinloch police officers.

Kinloch government has not always run smoothly in other ways as well. Prior to the April election, HuffPost tried to attend the town's traffic court, only to be denied access -- even though last summer a presiding county judge had ordered local municipal courts to stop limiting the public's access.

http://www.stlamerican.com/news/loca...c95541d27.html

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

This year, the municipal judge was disciplined for a “pattern of misconduct” in his private legal practice -- he was using client funds to pay his own bills. And a former interim mayor was recently cited for resisting arrest -- but she contends she was assaulted by Kinloch police officers.

This looks like a place where the economy has completely collapsed. People are mad at everybody, and nobody really knows what to do.
**************************
Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

Kinloch mayor accused of vote buying by opponent she beat

13 hours ago • By Steve Giegerich




Kinloch city attorney James Robinson blocked the door into the building on Thursday, April 23, 2015, at the Kinloch City Hall. Photo by J.B. Forbes, jforbes@post-dispatch.com


Alleging voter fraud, Kinloch refuses to swear in new mayor and alderman


City attorney confronts mayor with impeachment papers. She calls allegations absurd. Read more

Who owns City Hall in Kinloch? Land deals leave answer unclear


City Hall and other properties are apparently sold to salvage yard owner, but officials say they can't track money. Read more


KINLOCH • The former mayor of this embattled north St. Louis County community claims the opponent that bested him in April promised residents of a city-owned apartment complex they could avoid eviction proceedings by voting her into office.

Darren Small made the accusations against new Mayor Betty McCray in a St. Louis County Circuit Court petition seeking to overturn the results of the April 7 balloting and order a new election.

As part of larger allegations of widespread voter fraud, the petition charges that McCray, once in office, “would use her power as mayor to force the withdrawal of the eviction process” initiated by Kinloch to remove residents from city-owned properties.

Small additionally accuses McCray of promising “potential voters jobs, employment and rewards for their votes.”

The contentions are also embedded in the multiple articles of impeachment drafted late last month by three Kinloch aldermen intent on blocking McCray from taking office.

McCray denies all the allegations, said her attorney Chet Pleban.

On Thursday, Pleban sent a letter on McCray’s behalf requesting that Aldermen Helen Jones-Fryer, Darryl Dixson and Evelyn Carter allow Small’s legal challenge to run its course before pursuing further measures to keep the mayor out of City Hall.

Pleban characterized the request as an opportunity for Kinloch to “do the right thing” by permitting McCray to defend herself against what he labeled “bogus” charges.

The attorney said he will seek an injunction to open the City Hall door to McCray if the aldermen fail to heed a plea that the “articles of impeachment be immediately withdrawn against Mayor McCray and that she be given access to City Hall and all powers and duties of office.”

McCray tallied 63 votes to Small’s 18 in an election that saw 34 percent of Kinloch’s 239 registered voters cast votes in the mayoral contest.

The mayor-elect’s attempt to take office on April 23 was thwarted when City Attorney James C. Robinson, impeachment papers in hand, blocked her access to City Hall.
McCray and newly elected Alderman Eric Petty — also the target of impeachment proceedings — were sworn in April 21 by a St. Louis County circuit court clerk after aldermen declined to swear them in.

Pleban called Robinson’s attempt to serve McCray with impeachment papers premature.

“The law does not allow you to impeach someone before they take office,” the attorney said. “It really is that fundamental and basic.”

In addition to allegations that McCray pledged to halt evictions in exchange for votes, Small’s petition for a new election contends the mayoral candidate benefited from ballots cast by “many persons” who were “not legitimate residents of the precinct where they tendered their votes.”

A number of the unqualified voters, according to the petition, resided in residences that lack a city-issued occupancy permit.
St. Louis County Elections Director Eric Fey said his staff acted on the fraud allegations by conducting a canvass of Kinloch residential units in late April. Fey did not disclose what the survey revealed.

The elections board turned its findings over to St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch. Spokesman Ed Magee said the prosecutor’s staff is reviewing the matter.

Pleban said in his letter to the Kinloch aldermen that the cash-strapped city can ill afford the legal costs of attempting to remove a “lawfully elected” official from office.

Ellisville, he pointed out, spent in excess of $100,000 in an unsuccessful 2013 attempt to remove its mayor, Adam Paul, from office. Pleban represented Paul.

“Unlawful efforts to keep this duly elected mayor from assuming her office may, unto itself, subject each of you to impeachment and removal proceedings,” Pleban warned the Kinloch aldermen.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/c...4a4d5ef6f.html

Originally Posted by ReformUSA2012

I didn't go saving all the articles that I have read on the issue to show. However what I remember person (secretary or some such) who normally swears in the new mayor had word of voter fraud with a tip and had it checked out. When checked they found 6 votes cast from a building that was supposedly vacant for sometime and neighbors said no one had lived there in at least a year. The official then seeing fraud refused to swear in the new mayor and had the votes checked. Supposedly it was found all 6 were for the new mayor and none of the people could be located in the town anymore as well.

I had also read they were investigating other leads on other fraudulent or mishandled votes as well.

Anyway you cut it the usual dirty politics in play and voter fraud. Even discounting only those 6 votes isn't a good solution as voter fraud of that sort doesn't happen without someone with direct connections having a hand in it which makes it deliberate on the candidate and their campaign.

Well, I guess we'll see how well that sets when it's our guy or gal and the Democrats find some evidence of "voter fraud" somewhere, check the secret ballots which obviously aren't private any more, and the Supreme Court refuses to swear in our new President.