Cheat the Vote! Part V: You Only Vote Twice

Okay, that title doesn't really apply to what I'm going to write about, but it's hard to find good fifth-in-a-series titles. It was between this and Assignment: Miami Beach.

Right, anyway. Somewhere in Ohio...

The caller interrupting a North Side couple?s dinner earlier this week said he was from the Franklin County Board of Elections.

He told the elderly woman that her voting site had changed and that on Nov. 2 she and her husband should cast their ballots at a South Side precinct.

Not bad, not bad. A good, subtle cheat.

At no time, Elections Director Matthew Damschroder said, does the board call voters...His office has received about a dozen calls since last week from voters checking on similar calls.

Damschroder said there are two scams: The caller tells voters their precincts have changed or the caller offers to pick up an absentee-ballot application, deliver the ballot to the voter and return the completed ballot to the elections office.

Well, this leaves me with some questions. How do the callers know which voters to call? Or is the person behind the calls just some vote-hating bastard who wants everyone to be equally disenfranchised? That would be hilarious. According to Talking Points Memo, the "recipients of the calls seem to be disproportionately elderly." Does that mean anything? I just...don't...know. In any case, the whole scam reminds me of something...

Lest I be accused of missing any stories from my home town that involve turning away black voters, here's a Cheat the Vote! bonus. Free!