{"id":961,"date":"2006-08-03T05:17:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-03T05:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/?p=961"},"modified":"2006-08-03T05:17:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-03T05:17:00","slug":"memphis-hotbed-of-political-corruption-part-infinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/memphis-hotbed-of-political-corruption-part-infinity\/","title":{"rendered":"Memphis: Hotbed of Political Corruption &#8230; Part Infinity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was a busy night in the newsroom. Lots of interesting stuff happening in and around town. I&#8217;ll get to that stuff in another post.<\/p>\n<p>This post I&#8217;m devoting solely to the deliciously naughty <a href=\" http:\/\/www.memphisflyer.com\/memphis\/Content?oid=oid%3A18260\" target=\"_blank\">election-scandal-in-the-making<\/a> that broke late last night.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\" http:\/\/www.memphisflyer.com\/memphis\/Content?oid=oid%3A18260\" target=\"_blank\">The Flyer<\/a> has this to say:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p> In an astounding development, the Flyer has learned, ballot materials, including a ballot box to be used for &#8220;off-machine&#8221; purposes (certain write-in ballots and provisional ballots) and other election-day supplies, were checked out of the Shelby County Election Commission&#8217;s operations center office at Shelby Farms Wednesday by an unauthorized individual.<\/p>\n<p>The person, apparently impersonating an accredited precinct officer, may have presented forged credentials to retrieve the materials intended for use at a county precinct station in Thursday&#8217;s election, according to sources. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is conducting an emergency investigation and has summoned Election Commission members and other commission personnel to the operations center.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Bwa ha ha, take <i>that<\/i>, democracy!<\/p>\n<p>From the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.commercialappeal.com\/mca\/politics\/article\/0,1426,MCA_1496_4889888,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">CA<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The day before an election all the officers in charge of the county&#8217;s 279 precincts come to the operations center and pick up metal ballot boxes and election supplies, said election commissioner Richard Holden.<\/p>\n<p>The supplies include things such as ballot applications, signs, and the poll book with the names of registered voters.<\/p>\n<p>When picking up their supplies, the officers are supposed to present an appointment letter and identification.<\/p>\n<p>Elections officials discovered the problem when the real precinct worker arrived at the operations center, Pleasant said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They said somebody had come by and picked it up on your behalf. She said, &#8216;No, I didn&#8217;t send anybody by,&#8217; &#8221; Pleasant said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The CA also reports that the TBI says it has the situation under control. They&#8217;ve got the polling place under surveillance all night to see if any funny business goes on. I can&#8217;t wait to see the idiot who gets caught tinkering (and I really, really hope this person gets caught).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The TBI action began late Wednesday afternoon as election workers made last-minute preparations for today&#8217;s vote, which features the largest ballot in Shelby County history with 141 races.<\/p>\n<p>Duckett said the loss of the precinct box and the investigation would not affect the integrity of the election.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some precautionary measures have been put in place to insure that the election will not be compromised,&#8221; Duckett said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Oh, good. I suspect the precincts will be setting up some of these to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.freerepublic.com\/focus\/f-news\/1541411\/posts\" target=\"_blank\">keep the zombies from voting<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nashvilleistalking.com\/archives\/breakglass.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Also, I can&#8217;t wait for the night to unfold:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be surprised Thursday night if the results are late coming &#8212; it&#8217;s the longest ballot in Tennessee history and most counties are using voting machines they&#8217;ve never used before,&#8221; said State Election Coordinator Brook Thompson. &#8220;I expect it is really going to be a late night.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Fantasmical.<\/p>\n<p>(Photo stolen from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nashvilleistalking.com\/archives\/2006\/08\/useful.html\" target=\"_blank\">NiT<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><b>UPDATE:<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.commercialappeal.com\/mca\/politics\/article\/0,1426,MCA_1496_4891126,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">It was all just one big mushy mix-up after all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was a busy night in the newsroom. Lots of interesting stuff happening in and around town. I&#8217;ll get to that stuff in another post. This post I&#8217;m devoting solely to the deliciously naughty election-scandal-in-the-making that broke late last night. The Flyer has this to say: In an astounding development, the Flyer has learned, ballot materials, including a ballot box to be used for &#8220;off-machine&#8221; purposes (certain write-in ballots and provisional ballots) and other election-day&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1jWWl-fv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}