Allegations of Voter Fraud Surface in Shelby County

by Glynn Wilson

Just when I was feeling good enough about the election of 2008 to take a camping trip to Buck’s Pocket and spend a few days behind the view finder of a digital Nikon, the zany brother of Judge Greg Shaw started an e-mail fight and alerted me to the fact that the race for Alabama Supreme Court is not quite over.

There’s an indication that an automatic recount may be triggered by the closeness of the race, and there’s some indication there may have been voter fraud involved, specifically in Shelby County.

The details of this are still sketchy and we are just now beginning to work the story — thanks to the crazy e-mails from a character who must by dying for a nomination for the Billy Carter Diddly Award, given to the “most amusing political relative.”

Shelby County has a long history of political corruption anyway that hasn’t been investigated adequately since the death of an old crusading editor at the Shelby County Reporter many years ago.

I don’t normally involve myself in local matters, and certainly not in Shelby County, but these e-mail zingers sent up all kinds of red flags that the relative of someone who might soon sit on the state Supreme Court could be a wildly unbalanced and possibly corrupt individual involved in who knows what kinds of nefarious activities.

So far what is being reported about the Supreme Court race between Deborah Bell Paseur and Greg Shaw is this.

Dana Beyerle, the Montgomery bureau chief for the three New York Times company papers in the state, in Tuscaloosa, Gadsden and Florence, is reporting today that Republican Greg Shaw claimed victory Wednesday in the “bitterly fought” state Supreme Court race, but that Democrat Deborah Bell Paseur is not ready to concede.

Shaw and the Republican Party want Paseur to concede Tuesday’s election, which Shaw appears to have won by 12,000 votes out of more than 2 million cast.

But across the state, there may be as many as 10,000 provisional ballots still to be counted next week by local canvassing boards, votes that could affect more than just the Paseur-Shaw race.

With all but six of 2,843 statewide precincts reporting, Shaw had a 12,832-vote lead out of 2.025 million votes cast, according to unofficial results. Shaw had 1,018,894 votes to Paseur’s 1,006,062 votes.

Shaw’s campaign manager Josh Cooper repeated to me what he told Beyerle, that even if Paseur were to get all 10,000 provisional votes, she would still lose, and said he thinks she should concede.

“We do think she should concede because it’s mathematically impossible to make up the difference,” Cooper said. “There’s no reason to stay in this race.”

But an activist liberal blog in Alabama is now reporting that the recount may be on, “as a matter of state law.”

“According to state law, when the results of a race fall within one-half of 1 percent, a statewide recount is triggered,” said Marion Seinfels, Deborah Bell’s campaign manager. “This happens automatically and not at the discretion of the candidates.”

The latest info, attributed to Republican Secretary of State Beth Chapman, is that “there will be no decision on whether an automatic statewide recount will be triggered in the Supreme Court race until the state canvassing board meets later this month in Montgomery.”

On that day, the state canvassing board — comprised of Secretary of State Beth Chapman, Gov. Bob Riley and Attorney General Troy King (an assuring trio of Republicans) will meet to certify the election results, the word is. Preliminary to that, by next Wednesday, all ballots should be counted by legal deadline, including thousands of provisional ballots, absentee ballots which include the votes of soldiers overseas, and late ballots, including some allegedly from Shelby County.

The biggest controversy in the race has been who takes more money from oil special interests, which was briefly outlined in the only blog post we’ve done in this race.

The upshot is that a shadowy group just outside of Washington, D.C., that goes by the misleading name of “The Center for Individual Freedom” pumped a total of $1,274,815 into the Alabama Supreme Court race on behalf of Republican Greg Shaw, according to FactCheck.org and other Websites that document these things, outspending even the candidate’s own campaign.

There were also suggested links between a Shaw consultant and oil and gas lobbyist, who was ostensibly working with the shadowy group on a campaign to influence federal and state judicial appointments and races.

Greg Shaw’s campaign claimed that his hands were clean of Big Oil money and influence, but apparently never answered the charge about the $1 million paid to a Washington oil lobbyist to help run his campaign, perhaps because no newspaper reporter in Alabama asked, at least that I can find a record of on the Web.

The Huntsville Times had actually done a story on allegations about unpaid taxes and liens on the Shaw family oil business in Shelby County, Shaw Oil, back in October.

Meanwhile, the Shaw campaign denied that Judge Shaw’s brother, identified as Larry on the Shaw campaign Website, was officially associated with the campaign. Cooper apologized for his behavior and said nothing like those harassing e-mails would happen again.

If I hear another word out of the guy, I will publish them.

But it may be too late. The word has been spread far and wide to all kinds of local and national media outlets and investigators, and the investigation into voter fraud in Alabama is now on.

Buck’s Pocket will have to wait a few days, I guess : )

Meanwhile, our inquiry got the post on Shaw changed at Judgepedia.org, which had declared Shaw the winner.

This is worth looking at closely, considering how George W. Bush’s political swami Karl Rove mucked up the Supreme Court in Alabama in the 1990s by abusing key hot-button phrases such as “jackpot justice.”

Maybe we should coin another phrase for this race. How about black gold justice? He who has the most oil money wins a seat on the court?

Only in Alabamaland … or maybe in Alaska, also : )

Washington Money Spent on Shaw Outpaces His Own Campaign

A shadowy group just outside of Washington, D.C., that goes by the misleading name of “The Center for Individual Freedom” has now pumped a total of $1,274,815 into the Alabama Supreme Court race on behalf of Republican Greg Shaw, outspending even the candidate’s own campaign, according to the campaign of Judge Deborah Bell Paseur, his Democratic opponent in the election coming up Tuesday, Nov. 4.

More than $250,000 was added just this week. Though the Shaw campaign started five weeks earlier, CFIF has spent almost two hundred thousand dollars more than Shaw.

The campaign of Paseur renewed its call on Judge Greg Shaw to keep his campaign’s commitment to transparency in funding, as a new link between the Shaw campaign and CFIF became clear. Terry Benham, a Shaw consultant and oil and gas lobbyist, worked along with CFIF on a campaign to promote the appointment of certain federal judges.

On Tuesday, FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization whose mission “aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics,” added the following to its Website:

“It’s also the case that a top consultant to Shaw, to whose firm he has paid more than $300,000 in this campaign, is Terry Benham. Since August, 2006, Benham has been affiliated with federal lobbying reports. It’s not clear how much the oil and gas interests might have paid additionally for state and local lobbying, which is Benham’s specialty. And Benham’s biography on the LinkedIn professional networking Web site says that he “has interests…in oil and gas exploration.”

“CFIF has not yet filed as a PAC with the Alabama Secretary of State’s office, a clear indication that they do not intend to disclose their finances by Thursday’s campaign deadline,” said Marion Steinfels, Paseur Campaign Manager. “We are simply asking the Shaw Campaign to keep their commitment to make public the names of those funding their campaign. The people of Alabama have a right to know why this out-of-state group has pumped over a million dollars into Judge Shaw’s campaign.”

The officers and former officers of CFIF have lobbied Congress on behalf of oil and tobacco interests. CFIF has routinely refused to reveal its funding sources, running afoul of election laws while attempting to affect the outcome of judicial races in other states. Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled against them, keeping their television advertisements off the air in West Virginia.

Greg Shaw claims his hands are clean of Big Oil money and influence — so why has he paid more than $1 million to a Washington DC oil lobbyist to run his campaign?

Campaign finance reports filed Thursday show Greg Shaw has paid another $955,000 over the last month to a company run by oil lobbyist Terry Benham. Total payments to Benham have now topped $1.2 million.

Even more, the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Factcheck.org this week disclosed that Benham’s Washington, D.C., company pocketed $820,000 in payments from the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, ChevronTexaco, Shell Exploration, and other Big Oil interests over the last two years alone. The non-partisan group also reported that Benham discloses on a Website that he holds business interests in “oil and gas exploration…”

Alabamians know Shaw’s dishonest campaign is being paid for by oil interests. But the latest public disclosure proves that from Day One, Big Oil runs his campaign, too.

“Why is Greg Shaw paying an oil lobbyist to run his campaign,” said Marion Steinfels, Paseur’s Campaign Manager. “It’s time for Shaw to come clean and tell Alabama voters why he hired a political shill for Big Oil to run his campaign for the Alabama Supreme Court.”

This week radio stations across the state refused to continue airing false ads paid for by secret donors to Shaw’s dishonest campaign for Alabama’s highest court. They’ve spent millions attacking Judge Deborah Bell Paseur, but Shaw’s secret donors refuse to tell voters who is paying for their vicious lies and attacks.

It’s time for Greg Shaw to come out of the gutter, and tell Alabama voters why he hired an oil company lobbyist to run his campaign for the Alabama Supreme Court.

Despite intense scientific, ethical and public opposition to aerial hunting of wolves and bears in the vast Alaskan wilderness, Governor Sarah Palin continues to champion this despicable practice with financial subsidies and even spending tax money advertising the practice. Is that who you want for vice president?

Most of the Republicans I know from the American South at least give lip service to valuing the green of the environment as well as the green of money. Sarah Palin, whose husband works in the oil industry, likes to use the line “drill, baby, drill” in her campaign stops, supporting McCain’s position that all offshore drilling bans should be lifted, even though no one believes this will have an impact on gas prices in the short-term.

This video put together by the non-profit environmental group Defenders of Wildlife tells this story hoping to heighten public awareness. There’s more about it at LeftInAlabama.

Convenience stores across the Southeast are drastically raising prices and asking customers in 11 states to limit gasoline purchases to 10 gallons as Hurricane Ike shuts down some refineries on the Gulf Coast, according to the conservative Associated Press.

People are lining up at gas stations Thursday afternoon to top off their tanks, fearful that fuel could run out.

At the Jet Pep station across from the Center Point City Hall on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama, normally one of the cheapest stations in the area, cars were lining up out into the four-lane highway to pay $4.65 a gallon. That constitutes a jump of more than $1 in a day, since gas there was still listed at $3.51 a gallon as of Thursday morning, sources said. Perhaps the price-gouging investigation needs to look closely at the Cullman-Alabama-based company, as well as the CITCO down the street, owned by the Venezuela national gas company, not a privatized oil company.

According to the rumor mill, it could go as high as $6 a gallon over the weekend.

Is there a federal, state, or local government official who will step in to halt this price gouging? Stay tuned…

by Glynn Wilson

Senator John McCain accepted the Republican nomination for president Thursday night in a speech that was riddled with double-speak.

Surprisingly, he introduced a new theme of “fighting” for an “enduring peace,” while we know what he offers really is “perpetual war.”

McCain tries to woo he American people to vote Republican Nov. 4

His speech contained the message that he would resurrect the Cold War with Russia, for starters, and he called upon the typical Republican lies about reducing the size of ‘big government’ and reducing taxes (on business of course) that propelled George W. Bush into the White House in 2000 (with a little help from the Supreme Court).

Of course everyone who is keeping up knows what happened. The biggest new government program in history, the new bureaucracy of the Homeland Security Department, was created, where your tax dollars have been funneled to private contractors at an alarming rate. And that spending under Bush has created the largest budget deficit in American history, by far.

As the camera panned to McCain’s pick for Vice President at one point, when McCain promised to solve our energy crisis with more offshore oil drilling, the gun-toting redneck woman and small town hockey mom, Sarah Palin, gave the thumbs up to the oil company lobbyists in the hall, wearing hard hats sporting the slogan, “drill, drill, drill…”

A quick check of our redneck women focus group confirms, however, that at least for now, Palin has energized some redneck women to vote for McCain instead of Obama, although the polls show not many supporters of Hillary Clinton are identifying with her and switching their votes.

We suspect as the scandal stories keep coming out about Palin’s family problems, she may not even survive on the ticket for more than a couple of weeks.

If that sort of an implosion occurs, the GOP can hang up the election of 2008.

All indications point to a fairly sizable increase in the majority in both houses of Congress by Democrats anyway. The Bush Republicans have worn out their welcome in Washington. And after the debates, if things go as suspected, this race is going to be a route.

But let the pundits have their objective moment for now. Let the white Christian Republican base believe they have a chance. That’s the role of the “liberal media” on TV, after all…