Scroll for updates…Coakley’s last gasp…

I’ll be keeping tabs on voter fraud reports in the Mass. Senate special election today. Flag any reports you’ve seen/heard in comments or send me an e-mail.

1) Election Journal, the website that exposed the New Black Panther Party thugs’ voter intimidation tactics in Philadelphia in November 2008, is on the ground in Massachusetts today.

They’ve just posted video of a woman in Lawrence, MA, carrying around blank absentee ballots in Spanish today. She explains how she’s telling people to mark Martha Coakley’s name. The woman handing out the ballots identifies herself as “Isabel Melendez” and says she has a talk show in which she promoted Coakley’s candidacy.

The deadline to apply for absentee ballots for the January 19, 2010 special election for US Senate was Friday, January 15.

More on Melendez: She’s a “community activist” in Lawrence who has run for public office before.

Here’s a piece from 2003 on her involvement in aggressive voter registration campaigns:

Melendez, who said her fire for community activism was fueled by her own frustrations trying to make a good life for herself in Lawrence after emigrating from Puerto Rico, has been personally registering local residents to vote for several years. Now she hopes to take that a step further with a volunteer program that will go beyond registrations. Although the plan is in its infancy, Melendez said that in a nutshell, she envisions a team of volunteers on election days combing voter lists and asking those who haven’t voted to please come out.

“It will benefit the community as a whole,” she said..” Since my arrival here, I’ve noticed that the voter-participation percentage has gone down. And it ‘s not just Latinos; it ‘s everyone in Lawrence. I want to motivate everyone to vote.”

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2) The Gouverneur Times reports on the Bay State’s “notoriously plagued” electronic voting system.

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3) Steven Ertelt at LifeNews.com reports that phony calls are telling Massachusetts voters that MA Citizens for Life opposes Brown. Not true.

Behind in the polls to Republican Senate candidate Scott brown, supporters of pro-abortion candidate Martha Coakley have evidentially reached into their bag of dirty tricks. A Washington, D.C. based company is making calls to Massachusetts residents pretending to represent a prominent pro-life group.

The calls, from 202-461-3441, a Washington number registered to a company called SOOH, claim to be from Massachusetts Citizens for Life.

The caller claims the pro-life group is opposing Scott brown because of his stance against the health care bill, but as MCFL president Anne Fox told LifeNews.com late Monday, the opposite is true.

“Pro-lifers are receiving phone calls from people claiming to be Massachusetts Citizens for Life. The callers say that MCFL is not supporting Scott Brown because of his position on health care,” she said. “The truth is that Massachusetts Citizens for Life is supporting Brown because of his position on health care.”

The same number is also making calls to other state residents with various messages all attacking Brown.

“Pro-lifers are not the only victims of this scam. Our MCFL sleuths have found that this same number is calling people across the state claiming to be different groups with different messages — all anti-Brown,” Fox added.

Fox is hoping to get the message out to voters today that MCFL supports Brown and wants Coakley defeated because she is an extreme pro-abortion candidate.

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4) Electioneering is not allowed at polling places. Can someone alert the Coakley campaign?

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5) GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa is volunteering as an “election watcher.”

King is working with what he called a “band of constitutionalists” who have driven or flown into Massachusetts for the final push before tomorrow’s special election.

“There are about 12 different locations for the Brown campaign working across the state. There are phone-callers there; get-out-the-vote people; there are people who are poll watchers; there are people that are looking for something to do. A lot of Massachusetts people mobilized, too,” King said. “And I’m coming to the conclusion that there are more conservatives in Massachusetts than there are in Iowa.”

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6) Hearing from readers that voters in Malden were asked to identify who they were going to vote for before they were allowed to vote.

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7) Reader J. e-mails: “My mom, is an 82 year old election worker, at the Greenlodge School in Dedham, Ma..she came home for lunch today and told my dad of a large bundle of absentee ballots from the local nursing home (Care Matrix) that had been dropped off at her polling place…the poll workers were wondering how the ballots could be assured as authentic…I thought all absentee ballots were to be submtted to the town clerk’s office by last friday…hmmm…I sure would love to follow up on the nursing home vote…there are plenty of Alzheimer’s patients who can not possibly have the mental capacity to vote….who is it that ‘helps’ these people to vote?”

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8. MA Secretary of State William Galvin is investigating voter fraud reports in Cambridge and Brighton.

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9) Wonderful: A uniformed security guard waves a Coakley sign outside a polling place, via Election Journal:

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10) Coakley’s last gasp: She’s claiming voter fraud in lib-dominated precincts in Democrat machine-controlled Massachusetts.

Triple-snort-worthy.

Weirdly, her press release decrying claimed fraud is dated…yesterday. That was quick: They’ve already fixed the date…

Campaign Manager Kevin Conroy:

We’ve received several independent and disturbing reports of voters across the state being handed ballots that are already marked in favor of Scott Brown. This is obviously a serious violation, and our legal team is taking immediate steps to protect the integrity of this election.

ORDER IT NOW

We do not yet know why this is happening, but you and everyone you know needs to be aware of the situation so that you can carefully inspect your ballot. If a vote has already been marked, you must return the ballot to the elections official, demand a clean ballot, and call our Voter Protection Hotline at 617-351-6866.

Note how quickly the Coakley legal team acted…as opposed to the negligent behavior of AG Coakley in response to allegations of SEIU abuse of taxpayer-funded resources to campaign on her behalf.

Jim Geraghty shares a note from a media source:

Kevin Conroy, Coakley’s campaign manager, says “we have gotten several disturbing incidents from the polls calling the integrity of this election into question.”

Nobody’s taking this live; the word “desperation” is being tossed around this newsroom…

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11) Watchdog Group Raises Concern About Dead Voters on Massachusetts Rolls.