[Vision2020] Inmate on Idaho Presidential Ballot

[Donovan Arnold]

I wish more people with names on the ballot where inmates. That is where many of them belong. 
   
  Best Regards,
   
  Donovan

Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> wrote:
  From today's (April 16, 2008) Spokesman Review -

--------------------------------------------


Inmate on Idaho presidential ballot



Democrats upset at 'mockery of the system'

BOISE - Three candidates will appear on the 
Democratic ticket for president in Idaho's May 
primary this year – the two front-runners, Sens. 
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and a federal prison inmate from Texas.

"We got conned," said a somewhat embarrassed 
Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa. Keith 
Russell Judd, 49, who is serving time at the 
Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution and 
won't get out until 2013, qualified for the Idaho 
ballot by sending in a notarized form and paying 
the $1,000 fee. Thanks to a recent election law 
change that removed a requirement for collecting 
signatures, that was enough to put him on the ballot.

"We may rethink how we get on our presidential 
ballot next time," Ysursa said. "We'll take a 
look at it. We've got four years to think about it."

Judd declared as a write-in candidate for 
president in Idaho in 2004, which simply requires 
sending in a declaration. He didn't receive a vote.

Prison officials told the secretary of state's 
office that Judd sent out about 14 checks to 
states seeking to get on the presidential 
election ballot, and that half of them had been 
returned. While he's qualified as a write-in 
candidate in Kentucky, California, Indiana and 
Florida, it appears that Idaho is the only state 
where Judd's name will appear on the ballot.

"It's a mockery of the system, and it's too bad 
that this kind of thing can happen," said Chuck 
Oxley, spokesman for the state Democratic Party. 
He said the party is particularly miffed that 
Judd was able to get on the ballot, while Ysursa 
booted a Democratic state senate candidate in 
District 15, Matt Yost, because the candidate's 
voter registration was in a different district.

"We have this really good candidate who can't get 
on the ballot and this yahoo prisoner in Texas 
who coughs up a thousand bucks can," Oxley complained.

One big difference: Idaho's Democratic 
presidential primary vote doesn't count. It's a 
mere "beauty contest," because Democratic 
presidential delegates were apportioned in the 
state's party caucuses. There, Obama handily won.

"The good thing is the Democratic presidential 
primary has absolutely no legal significance," Ysursa said.

States can't place any limits on who runs for 
president beyond the requirements in the U.S. 
Constitution, which calls for candidates to be 
natural-born citizens at least 35 years old who 
have resided in the United States for 14 years.

Ysursa said Judd paid his fee with a U.S. 
Treasury check drawn on his prison account. Judd 
listed a campaign office phone number both in his 
declaration of candidacy and in his profile on 
Project VoteSmart, but the number is the city 
desk news tips line at the Beaumont Enterprise 
newspaper. Managing Editor Kris Worrell said, 
"Well, obviously it's not his number."

He also listed a number for a coordinator in 
Ohio, which proved to be an IRS customer service line.

The Beaumont Enterprise reported in November that 
Judd, a frequent writer of letters to the 
newspaper, landed in prison after he was 
convicted of making threats on the University of 
New Mexico campus in 1999. He told the paper that 
he grew up in Albuquerque, N.M., where his father 
was an atomic scientist at the Los Alamos 
National Laboratory and his mother taught high 
school English. A musician and former band 
member, he teaches piano to other inmates at the low-security federal prison.

--------------------------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"People who ridicule others while hiding behind anonymous monikers in chat-
room forums are neither brave nor clever."

- Latah County Sheriff Wayne Rausch (August 21, 2007)






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