Lynn Walsh

A story written for Texas Watchdog:

Video: Texas Watchdog reporter Steve Miller discusses the voter law loophole
Fri Feb 26 07:27:38 2010 CST
By Trent Seibert

Texas Watchdog broke a story this week looping at a gaping loophole in Texas election law. Essentially we found that people can cast ballots from a place of business — or even a vacant lot.

The potential for such registrations to affect elections is substantial.

This loophole, for example, opens the door to vote-stacking malfeasance. A business owner or law firm could curry favor with a candidate via a vow to have a number of employees use that business as a voting address, then ask those employees to vote a certain way on an issue that would benefit the candidate and, by extension, the business owner.

Watch our video of Steve Miller, the reporter behind this story, as he discusses his reporting and the implications of his findings.

A story written for Ohio Watchdog:

County Democratic Party Chair Indicted in $5 Vote Scandal
Posted by Lynn Walsh on December 1, 2009

Athens County Democratic Party Chair Susan Gwinn is facing two charges of election-related bribery. The charges stem from her alleged involvement in a plan to pay students at Ohio University $5 for every voter they brought out in November’s election.

It all began with an e-mail sent out by the Vice President of Ohio University’s College Democrats that encouraged fellow members to “march to the polls.” The e-mail not only encouraged voting but promised that if they brought a “friend from 4th ward they are more than a friend, they’re 5 bucks!” The fourth ward was the only contested Athens City Council race between Republican Randy Morris and Democrat Christine Fahl.

According to special prosecutor Dave Yost the OU College Democrats will not face any charges at this time. Yost is the special prosecutor in charge of the case and says the group has been cooperating with the investigation.

While no criminal charges are being filed against the student group Ohio University Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and
Dean of Students Ryan Lombardi said the incident is currently being reviewed by the University through the judicial process. Members of the student organization will have an opportunity to share their story with a hearing board before a sanction is issued. “Sanctions for organizations who violate either the code of conduct or the state law range from reprimand to removal from the university,” Lombardi said. Due to winter intercession at the University the judicial process will not continue until after the new year.

OU College Democrats have denied from the beginning that any payments were ever distributed to voters or members. “No member of our organization has ever paid a voter to vote. No member has ever accepted money for his or her own vote,” Communications Director Chris Mullen said in a response.

Gwinn has declined to comment on the new charges she is facing citing a gag order. Gwinn is already facing charges of falsification, money laundering, theft in office, and unauthorized use of property for allegedly mishandling political campaign funds.

An article written for Texas Watchdog:

Former North Forest ISD trustee fined $500 for election reporting violations
Wed Feb 24 19:19:08 2010 CST
By Lynn Walsh

A former school board trustee from North Forest ISD is being ordered to pay a $500 fine after the Texas Ethics Commission found he had violated Texas Election Code.

The Texas Ethics Commission order says Joseph Allen Provost missed key reporting deadlines and misreported amounts of money:

(Provost) was required to file 30-day and 8-day pre-election reports before the November 2007 general election. Although the respondent filed reports after receiving notice from a local prosecutor’s office, the reports were not filed by the respective deadlines.

For those reasons the Texas Ethics Commission found that Provost had violated the Texas Election Code.

The report says Provost has corrected the reports and said in a 2008 affidavit that he was confused about the campaign filing requirements:

(Provost) swore that once he learned of the errors, he took every step he was aware of to correct the problem. The respondent swore that any error that occurred was from lack of clearly understanding the procedures. 11. In April 2009, the respondent provided a second affidavit in which he swore that he was confused as to the reporting requirements for school board trustees.

This fine comes at a time when the North Forest ISD has been in the news for less-than-par performance. In 2008, the Texas Education Agency took over the school district in an effort to fix academic and financial problems.

The City of Columbus seems to have found itself in a tough spot; an $80 million budget hole on one side and citizens needs on another.  The solution, according to city leaders, is to raise the income tax.

According to the Economic Research Service the median household income in Ohio is $46,645.  In Columbus it is even less than that, $37,897.  The per capita income in the city is less still, $20,450.

City of Columbus employees are a little better off it seems.  The median income for the almost 10,000 people employed by the City is $53,059.34.  That includes overtime pay but does not include pension, retirement, or benefits.

Total overtime pay for City of Columbus employees in 2008 totals more than $28 million.  More than 150 employees made more than $25,000 in overtime last year.  Those same employees represent 65% of the total overtime paid by the City of Columbus in 2008.

In the spirit of transparency, the Buckeye Institute requested a salary database from the City for all City of Columbus employees.  The City Auditor’s Office answered our request with .pdf documents detailing salary information including total overtime and “other” pay.

To make it easier to navigate through, the Buckeye Institute has converted the file into a Microsoft Excel document that can be downloaded and searched.

http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/docs/XPP0947_YTD_2008.xls

The Buckeye Institute will be posting a series of stories related to the information found above in the hope of informing all Ohioans.