True the Vote observers barred from Franklin County polling placesA Houston-based group that wanted to monitor 30 Franklin County polling places for potential voter fraud was thwarted yesterday by the county elections board.
True the Vote - whose Ohio branch is called the Voter Integrity Project - was denied status as official observers because at least most of the candidates who supported the organization's effort withdrew their backing. State law allows groups of at least five candidates to assign poll observers, and the group originally had obtained signatures from a bipartisan group of six candidates for county office.
“The Franklin County Board of Elections did not allow Election Day polling location observer appointments filed by the True the Vote group," said board spokesman Ben Pisctelli in a statement. "The appointments were not properly filed and our voting location managers were instructed not to honor any appointment on behalf of the True the Vote group.”
There were charges yesterday that the candidates' names had either been falsified or merely copied on forms requesting observer status for the True the Vote at several Franklin County polling places. Many are in predominantly African American neighborhoods.
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