Toledo Blade

Defiance County man arrested in alleged voter registration-crack cocaine scheme

A Defiance County man has been arrested for allegedly filing more than 100 false voter registration forms in exchange for crack cocaine from a Toledo woman working on behalf of the NAACP’s voter registration drive.

Chad Staton, 22, of Stratton Ave., faces a fifth-degree felony charge of false registration after sheriff’s deputies said he filled out the registration forms by himself — using either fictitious names or addresses — and gave them to Georgianne Pitts, 41.

Toledo police searched Ms. Pitts’ home and discovered drug paraphernalia along with more voter registration forms. Police said that Ms. Pitts admitted to paying Mr. Staton in crack cocaine, in lieu of cash.

Ms. Pitts, working on behalf of the NAACP National Voter Fund, submitted the forms to the voter fund, which in turn submitted them to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

Because the addresses on the forms were for the Defiance area, the Cuyahoga County elections board sent the registration forms to Defiance County’s elections board, with a note to check the signatures for fraud, said Laura Howell, the deputy director of the Defiance County elections board.

Ms. Pitts told police she had been recruited to obtain voter registration forms by Thaddeus J. Jackson II, of Cleveland, who is coordinating the Toledo area’s voter registration drive for the NAACP voter drive.

When contacted by The Blade this afternoon, Mr. Jackson said that Ms. Pitts was a “volunteer,” but said he had no knowledge of any fraudulent voter registration forms. He declined to comment further.

Citing the case, Ohio Republican Party spokesman Jason Mauk said in a statement this afternoon that there is “an effort to steal Ohio’s election” that is “being driven exclusively by interest groups working to register Democratic voters.”

You can't make shit like this up.

You gotta love Drudge...

Yeah...big surprise there...

I'm worried Toledo could wind up being like a few of the counties in Florida in 2000...it is so heavily Democratic around I can barely stand it.

And the NAACP wonders why Bush wont have anything to do with their fine, upstanding organization.

Wow that sucks.

Are you sure it wasn't Tyrone Biggs who was voting for crack? Tyrone Biggs will do anything for crack (at least  on the Chappelle Show)

thanks,
Ron

Hey, it worked for Marion Berry...

The one thing that amazed me is that the guy was white. If this was a Republican giving crack to a black man to do this, the whole fucking liberal media would be on this like crazy.

Ohio ... what a wonderful place ....