Richland County Robbery: A Smoking Gun

Two weeks after the S.C. Supreme Court upheld (without comment) the results of a rigged election in Richland County, S.C., evidence has emerged which directly links the county’s former elections director to an illegal shortage of voting machines.

Former county election director Lillian McBride – a bureaucrat with close ties to the pro-tax movement who was hand-picked for her job by the left-leaning Richland County legislative delegation) – specifically ordered the county to deploy 30 percent fewer voting machines than state law prescribed.

As a result of these shortages – which disproportionately affected voters in precincts opposed to the county’s $1.2 billion sales tax referendum – wait times of up to seven hours were recorded across the county, forcing thousands of voters to abandon their effort to cast a ballot. Thanks to this illegal voter suppression, the sales tax hike passed by a 52-48 percent margin – two years after it failed by just 600 votes.

“Last fall’s election mess wasn’t the fault of Lillian McBride,” anti-tax leaders said recently in response to the Supreme Court’s rejection of their bid for a new election. “It was the fault of a system that allowed it to happen … a system in which no one seems to be held accountable.”

That’s true … but the evidence also points to McBride having played an active role in the conspiracy.

For example, here is the text of an email sent by a Richland County voter representative to an undisclosed county employee on July 3, 2012 – four months prior to the November 6 vote.

I just talked with Lillian and she gave me a revised list of the machines needed for the Nov 6 Election. She got the number down to 605 for machines. She also told me that we need to prepare 20-30 machines for 2020 Hampton and the Township Auditorium, but the Township is not approve as of yet.

And here’s a pic of that email …

(Click to enlarge)

FITS is filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in an effort to obtain the identities of the individuals involved in this exchange, but it represents “Exhibit A” in what could wind up being the biggest election fraud case in South Carolina history.

According to former Richland County election board chairwoman Liz Crum the county had 970 machines on Election Day – 45 of which were inoperable due to various malfunctions. According to documents provided to FITS, to comply with state election law the county was supposed to have at least 864 of these machines deployed across the county – a figure McBride reduced by 259 (or thirty percent).

Not only that, it appears as though the voting machine shortages were most pronounced in precincts which historically voted against the $1.2 billion tax hike.

McBride repeatedly told members of the media that the county had “enough” machines to services the county – which is obviously a bald-faced lie. Now we learn this shortage was planned months ahead of time.

Rather than getting hauled off to jail in the wake of the “Robbery,” McBride has actually been rewarded with  another taxpayer-funded job – one which enables her to qualify for full benefits from the state’s pension fund.

Ah, the price of silence (which we’re picking up).

So … who can we thank for all this?

S.C. Senate President John Courson (RINO-Richland), S.C. Senator Joel Lourie (D-Richland), S.C. Senator Darrell Jackson (D-Richland) and S.C. Senator John Scott (D-Richland), along with S.C. Reps. Jimmy Bales (D-Richland), Mia Butler (D-Richland), Leon Howard (D-Richland), Joe Neal (D-Richland), Todd Rutherford (D-Richland), James Smith (D-Richland) and Nathan Ballentine (R-Richland) – all of whom were present when the decision was made to hand over the reins of Richland County elections to McBride.

We can also thank former S.C. Reps. James Harrison (R-Richland) and Joan Brady (R-Richland) – who were also present at that meeting – and S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley, who signed the legislation.

During his second inaugural address, U.S. President Barack Obama specifically addressed the issue of lengthy lines at the polls.

“Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote,” Obama said.

Additionally, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn told reporters that Obama would be bringing “significant resources” to bear on this problem. However, instead of investigating this “robbery,” Clyburn has been aggressively defending McBride – and accusing her detractors of being racist.

So much for all those disenfranchised voters, right?

As far as we’re concerned the “Richland County Robbery” is the most egregious violation of the public trust we’ve encountered in our ten years on the South Carolina political scene – a shamelessly transparent example of the Midlands’ political and bureaucratic elite manipulating the law and the electoral process to rob their constituents of $1.2 billion.

What’s even more shameless? The failure of those few elected officials who weren’t in on the scam to blow the whistle on it … or the Obama Justice Department to investigate it.

“It’s amazing that there still hasn’t been an investigation,” says Michael Letts, leader of the group pushing for a new election. “The solicitor, who just last year was paying big bucks to the same firm that was managing the tax increase campaign, has refused to even respond to our requests for an investigation.”

Amazing, yes … but par for the course in notoriously corrupt South Carolina.

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