Breaking: Young Political Majors (YPM) Arrested for Voter Registration Fraud {GOP}

(noon. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

First how reliable is ‘Brad Blog’, not a follower of it but have seen references to it plenty of times and have visited.

If reliable it has a Breaking Press release about this Arrest that apparently was posted only an hour ago

You can find the brief writeup here with apparently more coming.

Below I’ll place the press release:

DB08:100

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Kate Folmar

October 19, 2008 (916) 208-6521

Secretary of State Debra Bowen Announces

Arrest of Man Charged with Voter Registration Fraud

SACRAMENTO – The owner of a signature-gathering firm that works across California was arrested in Ontario today on suspicion of committing voter registration fraud, Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced.

Mark Anthony Jacoby, who owns the firm known as Young Political Majors (YPM), was arrested after allegedly registering himself to vote, once in 2006 and again in 2007, at an address where did not live. An investigation by the Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit revealed that Jacoby twice registered to vote at the address of a childhood home in Los Angeles although he no longer lived there.

The Secretary of State’s fraud unit and the Ontario Police Department arrested Jacoby near an Ontario hotel just before midnight Saturday. An arraignment date has not been scheduled yet.

“Voter registration fraud is a serious issue, which is why I vigorously investigate all allegations of elections fraud,” said Secretary Bowen, California’s chief elections officer. “Where there’s a case to be made, I will forward it to law enforcement for criminal prosecution.”

For his business, Jacoby traveled California and a number of other states collecting petition signatures and registering voters. Under state law, signature-gatherers must sign a declaration stating that they are either registered to vote in California or that they are eligible to do so. Jacoby allegedly registered to vote at his childhood address to meet this legal requirement.

Under California law, it is a felony punishable by up to three years in prison to register yourself when you are not entitled to vote and it is perjury to provide false information on a voter registration card.

On October 3, the Public Integrity Unit of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office charged Jacoby with four felonies: two counts of voter registration fraud and two counts of perjury. A warrant was issued for his arrest and bail was set at $50,000.

“This arrest wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work of the Ontario Police Department and Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley’s office,” Secretary Bowen said. “I thank them both.”

The Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit helps maintain the integrity of the electoral process by investigating allegations of election and voter fraud in California. Potential Elections Code violations brought to the unit’s attention are thoroughly investigated and referred to law enforcement officials for prosecution when there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing. The Secretary of State’s office does not disclose information about the status of ongoing criminal investigations, but the information from a case that results in a criminal complaint filed by a county or state prosecutor is a public record. Investigations can always be complicated, fraud investigations are the same too and if you are in need of a private investigator with regards to fraud then you should do some research online and then check out companies such as catalystpi to help you work through your fraudulent query.

Anyone who has witnessed a violation of the California Elections Code is encouraged to contact the Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit at (800) 345-VOTE or Elections Fraud.

This is another source that’s just breaking:

GOP voter registration fraud case leads to arrest

Mark Jacoby, who was arrested in Ontario and owns a firm hired by the California Republican Party, violated state registration laws, authorities say.

This follows, apparently, these very recent reports:

Report: Voters duped into joining GOP

And this one I placed in a couple of posts yesterday:

Tiffany Hofstetter is a student at California State University Northridge and a registered Democrat. But when she received her 2008 primary election absentee ballot while out of state, she was dismayed to find that she had been sent a Republican ballot.

“I didn’t have time to get a new ballot, so my vote didn’t count in the primary,” Hofstetter said.

When she investigated with the county registrar’s office, she found that her party affiliation had been switched.

“But when I looked at the registration form they had on file, it had all this wrong information,” Hofstetter said. “My birth place was wrong, the last four digits of my Social Security number were wrong and the signature wasn’t mine. Someone else had filed this registration form in my name.”

The form had been filed by a voter registration organization called YPM, which stands for Young Political Major. Any time a voter reregisters with the county, whether because of an address change or a move to new party affiliation, the registrar’s office is obligated by law to send out a notification to the registered voter. Hofstetter never received such notification and filed a complaint with the Secretary of State’s office.

Meanwhile, YPM activities have been brought under scrutiny in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. San Bernardino County Democrats recently demanded an investigation by the local district attorney when they discovered in a poll that 27 of 33 formerly registered Democrats they contacted were “shocked” to find that their party affiliation had been switched to Republican, according to local news accounts.

Hector Barajas, spokesman for the California Republican Party, confirmed that YPM was hired to work for the GOP in California and had been issued thousands of voter registration forms. But he insisted that there are in place several verification procedures to ensure that any voter registrations filed are valid.

“All our volunteers wear T-shirts clearly indicating that they are Republicans,” Barajas said. “And we send out post cards to new registrants, as well as follow up with a voice mail message to make sure they know they are registered with the Republican Party.”

County Board of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky expressed concern regarding Hofstetter’s case.

“We take allegations of fraud in our voting system very seriously,” Yaroslavsky said. “We’ve spoken to (county registrar) Dean Logan about this case and he is referring it to the District Attorney’s Office.”

Jane Robison, in District Attorney’s Steve Cooley’s office, confirmed that YPM is under investigation with the county Public Integrity Division.

There have been only a few posts about this GOP Voter Registration  Contractor, YPM, that I have seen in the last couple of days, and that’s a surprise, but it looks like the ACORN Crap may now disappear and this may Grow!

The reality is, if the reports coming from the registered voters are true, this group was Actually Practicing and Performing Voter Fraud!!