Thursday, August 30, 2012

Voter ID unlikely to pass in NJ despite ‘rampant’ voter fraud, RNC delegates say

Voter fraud is “rampant” and “commonplace” in parts of New Jersey where greater vigilance is needed to safeguard the ballot, according to key figures in the state’s delegation attending the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.
Even so, they said it is unlikely that the state will pass a voter identification law similar to what is now operative in neighboring Pennsylvania and in other parts of the country.
New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith singled out Mercer County as an area where there is a strong potential for voter fraud to occur.
When he first ran for Congress in 1978, Smith lost to incumbent Democrat Frank Thompson, but prevailed in a 1980 re-match, the same year Ronald Reagan was elected president. Smith identified Mercer County as an area where there was, and probably still is, a strong potential for voter fraud.
“We need a clean democracy with clean elections and more vigilance to protect the ballots,” he said. “The people who commit fraud should be held accountable. We had 2,000 ineligible voters on the rolls in 1980, and I don’t think the situation has improved since that time.”
Smith recalls that Thompson’s campaign went to court to keep voting machines open in Trenton, where the campaign claimed people had trouble getting to the polls as a result of bad weather.
“They were just trolling for votes to see how much [was] needed to win,” Smith said. “I noticed they didn’t try to keep the machines open in Hamilton.”

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