Did Rob Borsellino Vote In The 2006 Elections?

Updated below:



From Rekha Basu's column in today's Des Moines Register:

Every vote counts.

Many have said that since the 2000 election fiasco. We've seen proof of it in each election cycle since, as razor-thin margins squeaked a candidate into the victor's seat. Tuesday, the country waited breathlessly while close, pivotal races in Missouri, Montana and Virginia left control of the U.S. Senate in a toss-up before eventually landing it in the Democrats' lap.

These slim margins of victory are cause for some concern - about why we're so hopelessly split as a nation, and whether entering office that way gives you much of a mandate. But one thing they show unequivocally is the power of grass-roots organizing and get-out-the-vote efforts to affect election outcomes.

My son Raj witnessed that up close this week, and it's left him pretty pumped.

A college junior, Raj belongs to a campus Democrats group. He's been a political junkie from an early age. He goes to school in Massachusetts and votes in Iowa, but he wanted to do something to help get Democrats elected in other states to swing control of the U.S. House. It's safe to say he and his pals were fed up with the Iraq war and the Bush agenda. So on Nov. 7, Election Day, Raj led a team of four students across the state border to campaign for Joe Courtney, a Democrat who was challenging a Republican incumbent for the U.S. House from Connecticut's 2nd District.

The kids started their day at a polling place, where they noted addresses of people who had already voted, crossed them off their list of registered voters and then fanned out to the homes of people who hadn't. They knocked on doors and talked to potential voters.

Raj says he personally hit up about 150 homes. His candidate, Courtney, ended up with a 167-vote lead.

In all, 242,459 votes were cast in that race. Because of Courtney's narrow margin over incumbent Republican Bob Simmons, there will be an automatic recount.

Who's to say if the efforts of that college team actually gave Courtney the edge? But what an empowering prospect to think that they might have.

Um, is that legal?

Can a bunch of Democratic interlopers who aren't even registered to vote in Massachewshits or Connecticult just slip behind the desk on Election Day and thumb through the list of people who have and haven't voted?

I can't imagine how that would be legal.

Maybe they were going off lists of people who had already voted absentee? That's a more likely scenario, although Basu doesn't explain how her son Raj and his friend did it.

Another question: how does somebody obtain a list of people who have already voted absentee prior to election day? Can you (or political party operatives) just call up the county auditor and get that information in the days prior to an election?

Also, does anybody want to check with the Massachewshits or Connecticult Secretary of States to find out if Raj really isn't registered to vote there? Just fact checking, there.

And beyond that, does anybody want to check with Michael Mauro in Polk County to see if Rob Borsellino, Rekha Basu's husband, was still a registered voter in Polk County at the time of the 2006 elections? Borsellino died earlier this year, so it would be interesting to find out if he's still in the system.


Update: A reader writes:

To answer your first question, what Raj did is perfectly legal, although he probably did it in association with a party. When I worked for the IDP in 2004, they made a list of all voters they expected to vote Democrat, both registered D's and identified I's who we expected to vote D. Then, on election day, when someone votes, they fill out a form which produces three copies. One is given to each party and one is given to the county auditor's office. Every few hours during the day, the party takes this list of people who have voted and remove them from their list of expected voters. As such, the party can focus their efforts on driving people insane if they haven't voted yet, without doing it to those who have already voted. Poll watching in this regard is a pretty common practice, I'm pretty sure the Polk County Democrats had one at every precinct, and I'd guess something similar is happening statewide.

Thanks for the lowdown on poll watching. Shows you how much I hang around polling places on Election Day.

Rekha's son attends Amhurst, which costs $41,000 a year for tuition, room, and board. A few months ago the Widow Basu was bitching in her column about how Social Security benefits for ADULT children of a deceased parent do not cover college expenses, and got her knives out to skewer Ronald Reagan for that one. Typical elitist liberal crybaby bullshit. She wanted taxpayers to fork over money so her kid could attend a private college that costs roughly the same as the yearly median household income for a family in Iowa. Talk about out of touch.

I wonder if anybody's going to look into whether Rob Borsellino is registered to vote in Polk County. How long do the dead stay on the voter rolls in Mauro-land? I'm not being mean here, I'm actually curious. Shouldn't you be?