Too little and over four years too late, the courts have found two Democratic political operatives guilty Thursday night, in a scheme that put Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana in the 2008 election, fraudulently. It only took three hours of deliberations to find the defendants guilty on all counts.
Former longtime St. Joseph County Democratic party Chairman Butch Morgan Jr. was found guilty of felony conspiracy counts to commit petition fraud and forgery, and former county Board of Elections worker Dustin Blythe was found guilty of felony forgery counts and falsely making a petition, after being accused of faking petitions that enabled Obama, then an Illinois Senator, to get on the presidential primary ballot for his first run for the White House.
Morgan was accused of being the mastermind behind the plot.
According to testimony from two former Board of Election officials who pled guilty, Morgan ordered Democratic officials and workers to fake the names and signatures that Obama and Clinton needed to qualify for the presidential race. Blythe, then a Board of Elections employee and Democratic Party volunteer, was accused of forging multiple pages of the Obama petitions.
The forged signatures for Hillary Clinton were not enough to have bounced her off the ballot, but the forged signatures for Obama, was enough to have kept his name off the ballot.
Prosecutors say that in President Obama's case, nine of the petition pages were apparently forged. Each petition contains up to 10 names, making a possible total of 90 names, which, if faked, could have brought the Obama total below the legal limit required to qualify. Prosecutors say 13 Clinton petitions were apparently forged, meaning up to 130 possibly fake signatures. Even if 130 signatures had been challenged, it would have still left Mrs. Clinton with enough signatures to meet the 500 person threshold.
How did they get away with it?
Nees previously told Fox News that the fraud was clearly evident, "because page after page of signatures are all in the same handwriting," and that nobody raised any red flags "because election workers in charge of verifying their validity were the same people faking the signatures."
Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic Indiana presidential primaries but Barack Obama did receive 34 of the 72 delegates for the state of Indiana.
Indiana was not the only state where the voter fraud alarm sounded about the 2008 elections with accusations of 1) Irregularities: Prematurely Taking Precinct Convention Packets by Obama Campaign, 2) Voter Intimidation: Lock-out of Clinton caucus goers by Obama Campaign and 3) There are numerous instances of Obama supporters filing out precinct convention sign-in sheets during the day and submitting them as completed vote totals at caucus. This is expressly against the rules. The sign-in sheets were copied by the Obama campaign from the Texas Democratic Party website and taken by supporters to various polling places to sign-up caucus goers prior to the start of the caucuses.
Hillary Clinton took the popular vote in Indiana, with 48 percent to Barack Obama's 47 percent.
According to Real Clear Politics, out of 4257 Democratic delegates awarded nationwide to Clinton and Obama, there was a 333 delegate count difference in favor of Obama.
Without further convictions for voter fraud, no one can claim with any degree of certainty that Hillary Clinton would have won the Democratic primaries....... but using the examples above, the 72 delegates in Indiana which would have gone to Clinton if Obama's name was not on the ballot the Texas where Clinton took the popular vote by 3 percent, over 100,000 votes, carried a total of 227 delegates, means there is a possibility that Hillary Clinton would have won the Democratic primary election and should have been the Democratic presidential candidate in 2008.
Other states in 2008 decrying voter fraud include Iowa, Hawaii and Nevada.
Iowa carried 57 delegates, Nevada 34 delegates, and Hawaii 29 delegates (Note- despite fraud allegations in Hawaii, Obama carried enough of a lead that Clinton could not have won the state)
As much as it pains me to say this, Clinton supporters who claimed and still claim that Barack Obama, the DNC and Obama supporters stole the primary by illegal means........ may be right.