Ex-congressman investigating voter fraud gets precise details
Harold Ford Sr. is the brother of Democrat Ophelia Ford, who defeated Republican Terry Roland by 13 votes in the Sept. 15 special election for the 29th District Senate seat.
Roland, however, has repeatedly complained of election irregularities. His accusations were compounded when The Commercial Appeal newspaper reported that two Memphis residents who died weeks before the election were recorded as casting ballots.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation was called in to investigate following that report.
Meanwhile, Harold Ford decided to launch his own investigation after suspecting that Republicans may be behind any skullduggery.
He said he learned that certain poll workers’ initials appear on ballot applications filled out in the names of the two dead voters and that he discovered the names of voters on the other three suspected ballots — contentions that proved true when the records were released late Thursday.
Those records, obtained by The Commercial Appeal under the state’s open records act, had been withheld by election officials who said they didn’t want to jeopardize the TBI’s criminal probe.
Earlier this month, Shelby County election officials said a poll worker or someone with specialized election knowledge may have forged as many as five ballots. The newly released records show that the five suspected votes were cast in sequence at Precinct 27-1.
Harold Ford said Friday he learned details of the initials on the ballot applications from election commission member O.C. Pleasant, who confirmed he gave Ford the information.
“I didn’t see anything wrong with it,” said Pleasant, who argued from the start of the dead voter scandal that the ballot applications were public records that should be released.
The records don’t seem to offer any clue to Ford’s assertion of voting fraud by Republicans. Contrary to their contentions, the Memphis Democrat said he’s not trying to interfere with the probe, but simply get to the truth.
“I wanted to push an investigation to clear my name and the Fords’ name,” said Ford, who now works as a Miami-based lobbyist. “Thank God the TBI is going to investigate this now.”
The special election, which drew a total of about 9,000 ballots, was to fill the seat vacated by another of Ophelia Ford’s brothers, John Ford, a 31-year lawmaker who resigned in May following bribery and extortion charges in the FBI’s Tennessee Waltz investigation.
Roland is asking the Senate not to seat Ophelia Ford when it convenes Jan. 10. A Senate committee — which can throw out the election results or recommend seating Roland in place of Ford — is hoping to get the TBI’s report before then so it can review it and make a fair recommendation to the Senate.