I have personally approached five lawyers in Jasper County/Joplin, the county prosecutor's office and the Missouri Secretary of State's office and have presented my opinion. Each said, yes, in essence, there may be an action there or interesting theory. However, I live and work in Jasper County/Joplin and the school system is too powerful to go up against was insinuated in the case of the lawyers, and it is an election year was heard from the SOS's office.
In fairness to the Jasper County Prosecutor's office, they have been "looking" at this for three weeks and continue to "look." I am writing at this time because I fear there may be a time limit for appealing election results, and the prosecutor's office intentionally may be playing the waiting game.
Voter fraud has been committed by each of the voters who previously resided in the tornado zone, whose apartment or home was destroyed, who changed his or her legal residence to another location and then went back to a polling place based upon a previous address and voted. While the Jasper County Clerk, Bonnie Earl, has allowed this, it is my contention she and/or the county voter registration and elections office does not have the authority to override state/federal law.
The fraud was committed when these voters signed their names at the polling places, or in some cases when each affirmed to election officials, that (1) that was their correct name and (2) the address listed was their legal residence.
Folks, in almost all these cases the addresses represented lots that were vacant. The voters had no control about whether that apartment or house each had been renting, was going to be rebuilt.
It was the opinion of the county voter registration and elections office that if each of these residents said, "yes, it's my intention to return," then each could legally call the empty lot his or her legal residence and vote based upon the address of the empty lot.
It should be noted that in the case of the large complexes on 20th Street, no ground has been broken one year after the tornado. Also, as a side note, those whose legal residence now are the FEMA housing units are actually living in the Webb City School District and should not have been given voting rights for the Joplin School District Bond Issue.
This voter ruling probably allowed the school bond issue to pass. We will not know this until or unless the election is temporally put in abeyance and a total review of voter records is accomplished.
I do not advocate punishment for the voters as they were abiding by the wrong election information. However, I would expect their votes to be removed from the final count until this issue could be determined by proper authorities.
Our right to vote is an important obligation and it should not be taken lightly. It should be done correctly and fairly. In the case of the April 3, 2012 election it was not.
Commentary by Doug Joyce, Joplin, MO
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