As Sam Hemingway is reporting over at the Free Press, notorious conservative provocateur James O’Keefe has released a video documenting how trusting — I mean porous — Vermont’s voter identification laws are.

 

Using hidden cameras, the video shows a series of exchanges between individuals successfully obtaining ballots at Chittenden County voting places without showing identification. It contrasts those with scenes in which a bartender at the Vermont Pub and Brewery and a motel employee refuse to provide services to customers who fail to show ID.

“If people walked in to vote in the Vermont presidential primary and said the names of both living and dead people, could these people be offered ballots to vote for president without showing any valid identification?” the narrator asks.

Oddly, I was actually present for one of the exchanges documented in the video, which is part of O’Keefe’s “Project Veritas investigates voter fraud in America” series. It was somewhere around 11 a.m. on Town Meeting Day and I was dropping by my polling place at the Winooski Senior Citizens Center before stumbling in to work.

As I waited in line to vote, the man in front of me engaged in a weird back-and-forth with a poll worker. Still half asleep, I only tuned in to the conversation about halfway through, as the voter/videographer got all hot and bothered because the clerk didn’t want to see his ID.

This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2012.

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Paul Heintz was part of the Seven Days news team from 2012 to 2020. He served as political editor and wrote the "Fair Game" political column before becoming a staff writer.

8 replies on “Hangin’ With James O’Keefe — Or One Of His Henchmen — In Winooski”

  1. Yup, Condos is shown that voter had occurred due to lax regulations and his biggest concern is to get the guy that outed the scheme….

    Condos, your biggest concern should be how it happened and what changes may prevent it from happening again, maybe worry about catching people doing it.  Had the guy actually stayed and voted under a false name, you may have a leg to stand on, but your priority should still be on how to stop it first, catching the guy second. 

    Sad.

  2. We need to stop this assault on our voting system. In fact we need to open the door for local election to all people living in a community. Non-Citizen Voting rights will create a more just community. The 1% don’t want fair elections. The fewer the better is the attitude of the 1%. Fear your neighbor, fear the differences, that is the voice of the 1% Vince Brennan

  3. So Vermonters are trustworthy, but what good is a recount if voter fraud is as easy as asking for a ballot here? Is nobody worried about interlopers and primaries season? #wtf #vt http://t.co/bNeSUYiB

  4. “Non-Citizen Voting rights will create a more just community.”

    Excuse me, but are you insane? 

    So, if my company assigns me to work in France for a year, I should get to vote in French elections?

    No, better yet:  if I go to France on a student visa, and I don’t leave when my visa expires, making me an illegal resident of France, I should get to vote in French elections?

    I repeat:  are you insane?

  5. Calm down. Vince is just talking about local elections (second sentence). There are permanent residents who are committed to their cities and citizens who couldn’t care less. I’m not saying I support non-citizen voting in city elections, especially for those on temp visas, but it doesn’t warrant that reaction.

    I would agree unquestionably that state and federal legislators should be elected by citizens. On a side note, citizens of other Commonwealth countries living in the UK are allowed to vote in British elections.

  6. ” . . . but it doesn’t warrant that reaction.”
     
    Respectfully, yes it does.  I don’t want non-citizens voting in any US elections.  Even for Ward 3 dogcatcher.

  8. I’m going to agree with SuttonHoo.  The proposal that non-citizens are able to vote in any election is in fact insane.  Besides the outright violation of election laws why would having people, with no vested interested in the long term outcome, voting be a good thing?  Look at what the college students got us…Bernie Sanders, Clavelle and Kiss. 

    Moreover, Jess brings another great point, like electing Fred Tuttle. 

    Voting is one of the most important rights, AND CIVIC DUTIES, we are given in this country.  The fact that so many look at it with such lax attitudes is rather sickening. 

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