DISTRICT 15 ELECTION IRREGULARITIES SENT TO DEPARTMENT OF LAW
Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux appears to have won her primary re-election.
The Aug. 28 count of absentee ballots has yielded 142 for LeDoux, and 33 for her Republican opponent, Aaron Weaver.
All things counted, she’s 87 votes ahead. That’s not counting 26 suspect ballots. All of those votes went to LeDoux but are not being included at this point.
100 votes is what LeDoux paid a man named Charlie Chang, from Fresno, Calif., to get for her as insurance for her election. She paid Chang $10,000 and plane tickets to and from Fresno to work over the Hmong vote in Muldoon.
[Read: LeDoux’s vote-getting scheme raises eyebrows]
[Read: Division of Elections: Irregularities in District 15]
District 15 primaries are low-turnout events, and this one was no different, so she wanted insurance to make sure nothing happened to bump her from office.
Yet on election night, she trailed Aaron Weaver by 3 votes, 294 to 291. But that was before all the absentees came in.
During the counting of absentee ballots, so many irregularities were discovered, that the Division of Elections has forwarded on information to the State Department of Law’s criminal division.
There were absentee ballots being requested by dead people, and phone numbers given on absentee ballots that were non-functioning. People voted who didn’t live in the district. People told the Division of Elections that they hadn’t voted, although ballots had been turned in in their name.
The Department of Law isn’t saying much, other than there is evidence of voter fraud.
IS CHANG A PART OF THE FRESNO DEMOCRATIC PARTY?
Chang was given the $10,000 vote bounty by LeDoux in late July to bring in the absentee votes throughout the Hmong community in District 15, where LeDoux serves as a House representative. The check went to his Sierra Vista address in Fresno.
Chang is a former president of the California Minority and Women’s Contractors Association, a now-defunct nonprofit registered to his address at 8437 N Sierra Vista, Fresno, California 93720.
But is he also the same Charlie Chang who is a Democrat activist in Fresno, the head of the Fresno Democratic Party’s Hmong Committee? Must Read Alaska found the group’s website, which shows:
Mission Statement
We, as Democrats, are devoted to advancing equal rights for all Hmong people regardless of age, race, gender, sexual preference, religion, national origin or economic status. We support the Democratic Party and those Democratic candidates who support our mission.
We will strive to realize these goals:
- To educate the Hmong community and others about the significant differences between the two major parties on issues of concern to this community.
- To encourage, empower and inspire Hmong to run for political office.
- To encourage members of the Hmong community to support and vote for Democratic candidates, especially Hmong Candidates who are committed to defeating prejudice.
- To lead the Central Valley Hmong Democrats to improve its record on issues of importance to our community.
- To work for the nomination of Hmong Democratic candidates at local, state and national levels of government who will be fully supportive of the struggle against bigotry and intolerance.
- To provide manpower, resources, guidance and training to support and provide Hmong political candidates the best experiences and opportunity.
- To provide Hmong elders and non-English speakers the support they need during elections.
- To work with other groups and individuals to promote these goals.
President: Dr. Charlie Chang
559-470-4788
[email protected]
Meets third Thursday of each month at 6 p.m.
Democratic Party HQ
1035 U St., Fresno
Great story Suzanne and hopefully the guilty person/s will be identified. Here is a Juneau Empire article giving some more information: http://juneauempire.com/2018-08-27/dead-alaskans-attempt-vote-anchorage
Step down now.
Lock her up.
Reports suggest that the state Republican Party intends to run a write-in campaign against her. Seems justified to me even without this occurring. If this gets some publicity, then a write-in campaign will get interesting.
As the ‘honorable’ thing to do would be to step down immediately, said action would indicate that LeDoux has honor. No way that is going to occur, to be sure.
I do find it interesting that Ms. LeDoux recruited a ‘ringer’ from California to ‘secure’ absentee votes in lil’ ol’ District 15 in Anchorage, though, and if Mr. Chang is shown to be the individual named in the article as the president of the local Democrat Party HQ in Fresno, well, that actually would make perfect sense, as LeDoux is no more a Republican than Governor Walker.
Do you make stuff up as you go, Randy or is your “‘honorable’ thing to do would be to step down immediately” from some other source besides Suzanne’s piece.
What is it LeDoux has done to warrant her stepping down?? Go ahead and give us what you know-I suspect you are just hoping, but we usually look for some illegal/political issue before pushing for someone stepping down.
Clearly, anyone found to be attempting to vote illegally should be prosecuted but you seem to be talking about something else. All we know, so far, is that it appears a few people have attempted just that but, due to our elections folks, it does not seem that anyone has actually been successful.
Thank you, Bill Yankee for your reply.
To be sure, I am simply espousing my own opinion within this regard, making nothing up. I am simply calling it as I see it.
Allow me to elucidate, if I may.
Within mine own way of thinking, there is honor within an individuals steadfast conviction, whether I agree with said conviction or not. I respect the conviction, such as with the conviction of Bernie Sanders. Even though I disagree within every thing Mr. Sanders stands for, I respect his conviction unto his ideology.
Which brings us unto Ms. LeDoux.
Ms. LeDoux, within mine own standards, and opinion, should have stepped down as a Republican candidate the moment she abandoned her supposed convictions and joined the Democrats so as to ‘sell’ her allegiance so as to gain power for herself, rather than simply represent the constituents that elected her as a Republican.
Going forward unto this primary, I believe she should have run as a Democrat, with whom she caucuses, rather than running as a Republican, and so should have stepped down as the Republican candidate, based upon her convictions, which would have been honorable within mine own mindset, but she did not, thus her stepping down would also, in my own mind, be warranted.
Finally, the hiring of an outside individual for the expressed purpose to target a specific demographic to gather votes from that specific demographic with the results of said action leading to questionable voting practices is, well, dishonorable within my own mindset, and is akin to directly buying votes from those one has shown not to respect, but rather one deems useful, which again, to me, is dishonorable.
That is my opinion, and while you may disagree with it, and you are fully within your realm to do so, I stand by it.
I do not trust one that sells their supposed conviction to attain a misbegotten position of power, and I never will.
I equate Ms. LeDoux with Mr. Walker. Both of them putting their own supposed convictions up for sale so as to obtain their own rewards.
Rambling done. Have a great day!
I dig it Randy. Perfect explanation. Turncoats the both of them – Walker and LeDoux. Puppets. Getting whiplash they turn their heads so fast to the next check or vote. Makes me sick.
I haven’t heard of a candidate getting ballots from tombstones since LBJ got the cemetery vote in ‘64. We should be calling her ‘Landslide LeDoux’
Thank you, Suzanne, for digging into this issue.
Here are a few disappoiments, concerns, and questions from this primary election:
1. Less than 1000 of my House Distict 15 neighbors decided it was important enough to vote (in-person tally showed less than 400 Democrats and 600 Republicans went to the polls). Disappointed.
2. How/why was Mr. Chang contacted for a specific demographic of voters? Has he been employed in previous elections? If so, were there “irregularities” in those elections?
3. $10,000+ paid for about 100 votes? Why go outside the state to hire someone and pay that kind of money. I am sure a team of UAA students on summer break could have used that money and spent it locally. If there are no Hmong students at UAA, isn’t that a concern you should have for the constituents in your district?
4. The chair of the House Rules Committee should act above reproach. I do not think this happened in this case. Disappointed.
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