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Year-long vote fraud probe in Miami County finds no crime committed

Investigation dealt with the handling of ballots from 2008 presidential election.

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By Nancy Bowman, Contributing Writer 8:33 PM Thursday, November 5, 2009

TROY — A year-long investigation into possible voter fraud involving Miami County absentee ballots found that no crime occurred.

The sheriff’s department on Thursday, Nov. 5, released results of the investigation into the ballots from the November 2008 presidential election.

The “most logical explanation” was the problem resulted from processing the ballots at the elections office, sheriff’s Capt. Dave Duchak said.

“There was no criminal intent. The positive thing is they caught it, and immediately had an investigation done to protect the integrity of the election,” Duchak said.

According to the report, Steve Quillen, elections director, told investigators some ballots possibly were stuffed into return envelopes by accident, sent to the post office, then returned without actually going to the voter.

Thursday, Pam Calendine, deputy director, said a more likely explanation was how envelopes are scanned, and the potential misreading of the return address instead of the labels used by the elections office.

A similar problem with the postal equipment reading of the envelopes was encountered with a few absentee ballots this fall, Calendine said. A meeting with postal officials is planned.

Quillen said new procedures as to how the absentee ballots are handled are being put in place.

Those changes include keeping all mailing materials until after an election’s results are certified. Before, mailing materials were discarded as returned absentee ballots were opened at the elections office.

The office had more absentee ballots to process than usual in November 2008 because of the presidential vote, which led to the election of the nation’s first black president.

The probe was initiated in October 2008 after election officials began receiving complaints from people who said they had not received requested absentee ballots.

Elections staff, while reviewing ballots returned by the post office and set aside because they had no required signature on the envelope, found returned ballots from some of the same people who said they had not received a ballot.

In the end, the investigation involved 57 ballots that had been returned unmarked.

Investigators included the sheriff’s office, postal representatives and the FBI.

Duchak said he didn’t have a cost for the investigation, which included fingerprint and DNA testing.

The crime lab under the sheriff’s office contract performed that work. The investigation took months in part because of the Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab testing, he said.

Elections board Chairman Roger Luring said he received the report late Thursday.

“There were no voters disenfranchised. All people (who did not receive the requested ballot) had the opportunity to vote,” he said.

Prosecutor Gary Nasal reviewed the case before it was closed and the report was issued.

“It seems the evidence and statements of people involved would indicate it was human error of some sort as opposed to intentional wrong doing,” he said.

Contact this reporter at nancykburr@aol.com  or (937) 339-4371.

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After reading these off-the-wall delusional comments, I'm really glad I don't live in Dayton, the land of Rush Liebaugh and Faux News.

Ted

TJ
11:21 AM, 11/6/2009

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BTW, you think right wing is crazy? Baby Bam Bam is playing with this country like it's a toy. He's been trained and spent his time with left wing radicals, and he's bankrupting our country and his socialist czars are writing these crazy bills the Democrats are trying to rush and pass hoping we don't notice. We notice. It's funny that the Democrat party use to be thought of as the party of freedom. It's not, it's regulation, intrusive gov't, and restriction of freedom!

Shirley
8:00 AM, 11/6/2009

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There has been voter registration and voter fraud, and Jennifer Brunner let it go on purpose. As long as one fraudulent vote is counted, then who knows how many other fraudulent votes are in the system being counted, and thus, our system is broken. We should treat it with respect, and require in person with id registration instead of this ACORN corruption stuff.

Shirley
7:57 AM, 11/6/2009

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Jim,face facts OBAMA can't HANDLE the JOB!.Bush NEVER said a WORD about CLINTON EVER. MRS.CLINTON said it BEST SHE would have to GROW TWO SET'S OF BALL'S and give OBAMA A PAR,before he could EVER HAVE A PAR!.Tell you MAN to STAND FOR SOMETHING,not just fly around running your mouth off!

cdmertz
12:21 AM, 11/6/2009

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If we had any sort of legitimate media, The President would have been laughed off the podium every time he said “saved or created” and never would have been allowed to get away with making such a moronic statement. But, it went on for months and months without a peep. Of course, just about everything that dribbles out of the traitor’s mouth is either a lie or one of the dumbest public statements in history. It is incredible.

maverick
11:02 PM, 11/5/2009

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