XPost: dc.urban-planning, wa.politics   
   From: impeach_the_nigga@yahoo.com   
      
   While NAACP President Benjamin Jealous lashed out at new state   
   laws requiring photo ID for voting, an NAACP executive sits in   
   prison, sentenced for carrying out a massive voter fraud scheme.   
      
   In a story ignored by the national media, in April a Tunica   
   County, Miss., jury convicted NAACP official Lessadolla Sowers   
   on 10 counts of fraudulently casting absentee ballots. Sowers is   
   identified on an NAACP website as a member of the Tunica County   
   NAACP Executive Committee.   
      
   Sowers received a five-year prison term for each of the 10   
   counts, but Circuit Court Judge Charles Webster permitted Sowers   
   to serve those terms concurrently, according to the Tunica   
   Times, the only media outlet to cover the sentencing.   
      
   “This crime cuts against the fabric of our free society,” Judge   
   Webster said.   
      
   Sowers was found guilty of voting in the names of Carrie   
   Collins, Walter Howard, Sheena Shelton, Alberta Pickett, Draper   
   Cotton and Eddie Davis. She was also convicted of voting in the   
   names of four dead persons: James L. Young, Dora Price, Dorothy   
   Harris, and David Ross.   
      
   In the trial, forensic scientist Bo Scales testified that   
   Sowers’s DNA was found on the inner seals of five envelopes   
   containing absentee ballots.   
      
   This wasn’t Sowers’s first run-in with the law. Sowers   
   previously had her probation revoked for disturbing the peace at   
   a junior high school library, the Commercial Appeal of Memphis   
   reported in 1990. During a hearing at that time, Sowers played   
   the race card. She claimed to be the victim of “an attempt by   
   powerful whites to silence” her, the newspaper reported. It   
   didn’t work. She was ordered back to prison to complete the   
   remaining two years of a three-year sentence she received for   
   check forgery.   
      
   The NAACP has had other problems with voter fraud. The NAACP   
   National Voter Fund registered a dead man to vote in Lake   
   County, Ohio, in 2004. That same year, out of 325 voter   
   registration cards filed by the NAACP in Cleveland, 48 were   
   flagged as fraudulent.   
      
   But the NAACP’s voter fraud record doesn’t approach that of   
   ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform   
   Now. At least 54 individuals employed by or associated with   
   ACORN have been convicted of voter fraud.   
      
   Voter fraud, sometimes called electoral fraud, is a blanket term   
   used by lawyers that encompasses a host of election-related   
   improprieties including fraudulent voting, voter registration   
   fraud, perjury, forgery, counterfeiting, impersonation,   
   intimidation, and identity fraud.   
      
   And ACORN, which filed for bankruptcy last November, was itself   
   convicted of voter fraud in Nevada in April. Sentencing is   
   scheduled for Aug. 10 in Las Vegas. ACORN was also banished from   
   Ohio in 2010 when it settled a state racketeering filed against   
   it by the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, a project of the   
   Buckeye Institute. Under the settlement ACORN, which is now   
   reorganizing its state chapters under different names, agreed   
   never to return to the state.   
      
   Election experts say voter fraud is fairly common, but   
   progressive activists typically insist that the crime is   
   virtually nonexistent. Republicans, they say, routinely   
   exaggerate claims of voter fraud in order to whip their   
   political base into a frenzy and push for voter ID laws.   
   Liberals say such laws are unfair, and claim that they   
   discourage minorities and the poor from voting.   
      
   The NAACP’s Jealous said Monday at the group’s 102nd annual   
   convention in Los Angeles that photo ID laws are part of an   
   attempt to disenfranchise minorities through some “of the last   
   existing legal pillars of Jim Crow.” Such laws stem from “the   
   worst and most racist elements” in conservative Tea Party   
   groups, he said.   
      
   Stephen Colbert, the liberal comedian who portrays an   
   overbearing conservative Republican on his cable TV show “The   
   Colbert Report,” broadcast a segment this week ridiculing   
   Republicans for treating voter fraud as a serious problem.   
      
   Some Democrats, however, aren’t laughing. The office of District   
   Attorney Brenda F. Mitchell, a registered Democrat who serves   
   Mississippi’s 11th Circuit Court District, successfully   
   prosecuted Sowers. Mitchell was appointed to the post by   
   Republican Gov. Haley Barbour in January 2010 after the previous   
   DA resigned. She’s now seeking the Democratic nomination for the   
   office in a primary election scheduled for Aug. 2.   
      
   Mitchell doesn’t appear to be a conservative. She served as a   
   legal consultant to the far-left, New York-based public interest   
   law firm the Center for Constitutional Rights. That firm   
   represented ACORN in an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit   
   challenging the constitutionality of a federal law defunding the   
   activist group. Mitchell didn’t return calls seeking comment for   
   this article.   
      
   U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, is also no   
   conservative. But she won a conviction against Joshua Reed for   
   voter registration fraud in 2004 when she was the Hennepin   
   County, Minn. Prosecutor.   
      
   “It was very important for the public integrity of our electoral   
   system that somebody, if they do something like this, gets   
   charged, gets convicted and gets consequences,” Klobuchar said   
   at the time.   
      
   Democrats, including Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez   
   Masto, Pittsburgh District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr., and   
   Miami, Fla., State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, have all   
   vigorously prosecuted voter fraud cases.   
      
   ——-   
      
   Matthew Vadum is a senior editor at Capital Research Center, a   
   Washington, D.C. think tank. Vadum’s book, Subversion Inc., was   
   published in 2011.   
      
   http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/29/mississippi-naacp-leader-sent-   
   to-prison-for-10-counts-of-voter-fraud/   
      
                                                                   
                          
      
        
      
        
      
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