Life in "Progress" City

From the city of Atlantic City, who hasn't had a conservative run the city since Brontosaurus roamed the land.........

Atlantic City Councilman Marty Small and 13 people who worked on his unsuccessful mayoral campaign this spring were indicted Thursday on charges they conspired to commit election fraud during the June Democratic primary through a variety of schemes involving messenger absentee ballots, state Attorney General Anne Milgram announced in Trenton.

The state Division of Criminal Justice obtained a 10-count grand jury indictment charging Small, 35, who is also director of after-school activities for the Atlantic City School Board, and 13 campaign workers. Small and the others are charged with conspiracy, four counts of election fraud, absentee ballot fraud, tampering with public records, falsifying records, and forgery. Four of the people are also charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution.

"Councilman Small and his co-defendants are charged with seeking to corrupt the election process," Milgram said. "We charge that they disenfranchised voters by destroying messenger ballots that were voted for Small's opponents and submitting ballots as votes for Small from people who never received them. This conduct is a violation of the fundamental right to vote and the right of the electorate to have their vote counted."

The indictment alleges that Small and the others conspired to commit election fraud through the following schemes, among others:

They allegedly solicited applications for messenger absentee ballots from individuals not qualified to receive them and had the voters not fill in the name of the messenger, so they could fraudulently designate themselves as the authorized messengers or bearers.

They allegedly obtained messenger ballots from the Atlantic County clerk and submitted them to the Board of Elections as votes on behalf of voters who, in fact, never received or voted the ballots or, in some cases, were given only the security envelope for the ballot and were told to sign it. Those people were not given the opportunity to vote in most instances.

What's so "progressive" about election corruption?

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