4um: Voter fraud cases leave Hale County, Alabama, wary

Last Modified: Saturday, March 22, 2008 at 11:16 p.m. GREENSBORO | It seems only natural that the arrest of former Hale County Circuit Clerk Gay Nell Tinker on charges of voter fraud would be the talk of the town.

Staff photo | Robert DeWitt Mike Jeffries, shown washing a pickup outside his detail shop in Greensboro on Thursday, says he doesn’t think the former Circuit Clerk Gay Nell Tinker did anything wrong and that the voter fraud investigation was racially motivated.But a lot of people in Hale County aren't talking.

Outside the Sawyerville Convenience Store, a middle-aged black man wearing a sport coat over a T-shirt just shakes his head when he hears the topic.

A middle-aged white man in jeans, a denim shirt and ball cap pauses over his meal at the Mustang Oil café in Greensboro and shakes his head in much the same way. He knows why he won't involve himself in the subject and thinks he knows why others won't either.

'Why? Because they're not going to do a thing to them,' he said, referring to the three people, including Tinker, who were indicted on voter fraud charges. 'They're going to walk free, and they're guilty.'

Tinker, Rosie Lyles and Valada Paige Banks, all black, have been charged with crimes stemming from alleged voter fraud. The indictments come after a tumultuous decade during which thousands of the county's absentee ballots became the deciding votes in municipal and county elections.

In that time, a bank where absentee ballots had been stored for the district attorney burned in an arson that remains unsolved and the Greensboro mayoral election was overturned by the courts. A judge issued an arrest warrant for the probate judge and an attorney general's investigator looking into voter fraud allegations was thrown in jail.

Opposing camps fired salvos at each other, one charging fraud while the other claimed racism. Alabama's secretary of state Beth Chapman made the county her poster child for election reform and civil rights activist Al Sharpton came to town to whip up support for Lyles and Banks.

Such events have left people feeling too sensitive to talk about it openly. Sitting at his table at the Mustang, Big Ray Duncan, who operates the local farmer's co-op, thinks he understands why.

'Anything we say may come across as racist in this day and time,' said Duncan, who is white. 'Nobody wants to cause any more trouble in a little town like this.'

Merchants, both black and white, are particularly sensitive. They say it would be bad for business to talk.

One young black man sitting outside his store is insistent that the store's name not appear in print.

'This isn't going to be in there?' he said, pointing up to the sign above him bearing the store's name.

For all their reluctance, people in Hale County are not unfriendly or uninformed. And some do speak up. Mike Jeffries shrugged and said he had nothing to hide as he washed a pickup at his detail stand.

'Back when this first happened, we had the same case with the white people,' said Jeffries, who is black. 'When that happened, we couldn't get anybody down here to investigate. When black people get into office they always find something wrong. You got all these people coming down here to investigate.'

Among the most outspoken critics of the voter fraud investigation is state Sen. Bobby Singleton, Tinker's ex-husband and a major beneficiary of absentee votes. He could not be reached for comment.

Down the street from Jeffries' detail shop, Verlie Campbell enjoyed the evening sun in a chair outside. An Ohio native, he said he was shocked at some of the things he saw going on.

'Folks going into vote and they find out somebody's already voted in their name, that's wrong,' said Campbell, who is black. He believes voter fraud is a serious matter and ought to be investigated.

'The majority of the people who vote over here are black,' said Beasley, who is white. 'All of the candidates involved are black. The vast majority of the people who vote over here, black and white, are Democrats. It's funny how they try to make this into something racial.'

'This is about right and wrong,' said Bonds, who is also white. 'Voter fraud is voter fraud.'

Bonds and Beasley are members of the Democracy Defense League, an organization founded to fight voter fraud in Hale County. They say the indictments are a start.

'It's significant in the sense that we may finally be seeing the criminal justice system get involved in this,' Beasley said.

Probate Judge Leland Avery, who has found himself in the center of the storm at times, agreed.

'I've been talking to the attorney general's office since 1998 about the way they do absentee ballots here,' Avery said. 'I'm grateful to Troy King that he'd come down and investigate.'

'Everybody has been waiting on them to do something about voter fraud,' Avery said.

'If the indictments don't get turned into a trial soon, people are going to say, ‘So what?' ' said Ronny Crawford, a member of the Democracy Defense League and chairman of the county's Democratic Executive Committee. 'When's it going to come to fruition?'

'A guy goes down here and sticks up a gas station and he's in jail in 18 months,' Crawford said. 'This has been under investigation for three and a half years.'

But Bonds observed the proceedings involved in overturning the mayoral election. It is by necessity a lengthy process, she said.

'There are so many facets to absentee ballots,' Bonds said. 'There are so many parts of it that have to be investigated. You have to get handwriting samples for forgery and all of these other details.'

That's why it's essential to change elections laws, making voter fraud harder to commit and penalties for committing it stiffer, Beasley said.

'The word ‘thug' is gender- neutral,' Beasley said. 'When some thug steals a vote that 1.4 million people sacrificed their lives for, that thug deserves far worse than the criminal justice system offers.'

The Democracy Defense League, which has both black and white members, has worked to expand statewide because they say voter fraud is a widespread problem. Complaints have come from Mobile, Baldwin, Jefferson, Monroe, Fayette, Barbour and other counties.

'The reason it's chronic over here is that some of the people who have used illegal means to gain office now sit in positions of public trust,' Beasley said. 'They're in position to make it more difficult to identify voter fraud and they're in position to make it more difficult to prosecute voter fraud.'

He wants any crime committed with the intent of altering an election made a Class A felony. Anyone convicted would serve at least six and a half years, said Beasley, a former agent with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation.

'This is not stealing a car,' Beasley said. 'This goes back to this country being a democratic republic. People have to have trust in their government. People cannot trust their government if they don't have faith and trust in the electoral process.

Only worth while if they inforce it. But they can't have the masses really vote now can they?

Voter Fraud Spreading in Alabama, Cradle of Civil Rights Movement

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Alabama was the cradle of the civil rights movement, where much of the battle for voting rights was waged more than 40 years ago, but now there are growing allegations of voter fraud across the state.

The claims have surfaced in eight counties in Alabama, and they include allegations that absentee ballots were sold and traded for cash, crack-cocaine and even piles of driveway gravel.

60;They get them, and say, ‘I will give you 40 or 50 dollars,’ so a lot of people are unemployed and will jump for that,61; voter Wanda Sanders said.

Some officials, though, are launching investigations in a move to make sure all votes are not only counted but counted fairly and honestly.

Alabama Attorney General Troy King, a Republican, seized absentee ballots from three primarily black counties after allegations of vote-selling surfaced in the June 3 Democratic primary.

60;We are not going to allow these people to continue to steal elections with impunity. It cannot be tolerated,61; King said.

One election under investigation was won by Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner Jr.

Turner thinks there is voting fraud in his county but denies having anything to do with it.

60;They don’t have one person to say they got paid by Albert Turner,” Turner said. “My work is what got me elected. I take care of my people. I fight for my people. That’s what got me elected, not money.”

Perry County District Attorney Michael Jackson said “some people don57;t see the harm” in selling their vote, 60;not understanding the history of what happened in the 57;50s and 57;60s.61;

In nearby Hale County, three people –- including a former county clerk -– recently were indicted on charges of absentee ballot fraud.

And there have been reports of similar absentee ballot fraud in at least a dozen states across the country in recent years.

60;How easy is it to steal an election using absentee ballots? Very easy, very easy,” said Faye Cochran, of the Democracy Defense League. “The absentee ballot box is the most vulnerable to voter fraud without changing the loopholes our laws allow of this.”

Since the investigations started there have been even more allegations of vote-buying and absentee-ballot abuse.

But Turner says the investigations are little more than a Republican witch hunt to suppress the black vote.

“You go after black people, you go after black Democrats 52; you prosecute them for vote fraud, boom.” he said.

King denies any political motivation.

60;The ability of a great number of Alabamans to participate at all was bought with the blood of the leaders of the civil rights movement in this very state where votes are being bought and sold,” he said. “And we will not allow their memories to be desecrated by anybody.”

If you have a voter fraud story you57;d like to report, e-mail voterfraud@foxnews.com.

FOX News’ Eric Shawn contributed to this report.