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| 1-9-2006: DuPage County Elections pai... |
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| Author |
Message |
    
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3151
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 8 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 6:03 pm: | 
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Frank Salvato, a Republican media consultant, acknowledged in a brief interview with Black Box Voting today that he received nearly $30,000 from the DuPage County (IL) Elections division in 2004. Initially, when asked what DuPage County was paying for, Salvato said "media consulting."
Salvato's bio from his Web site, TheRant.us, describes him as a political media strategist. "He supports and is affiliated with the Republican Presidential Task Force, the RNC's Presidential Victory Team, RightMarch.com, Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and is a GOP Team Leader," his site says.
Now, election fixing is most at risk from whatever party or insider controls a particular jurisdiction. When you take a quick trip down the freeway to Democratic stronghold Cook County (still reeling under the Hired Truck scandal), you'll find public officials rolling over on each other right and left in their hurry to cut a deal with the prosecutor.
Illinois is brutally competitive. The Democratic Party machine controls Chicago, with perhaps the most powerful Republican stronghold in neighboring DuPage County. When citizens oversee elections in partisan territory, one of the first things to look for is partisan assignment of election-related work.
"What, specifically, is your affiliation with the Republican National Committee and the Republican Presidential Task Force," asked Bev Harris, founder of Black Box Voting.
Salvato said the work done for DuPage County had nothing to do with his activities with the Republican Party.
"What did they pay you to do?"
Salvato said the DuPage assignment was a voter registration effort, equally targeted across all demographics and with resulting increase in voter registrations in all demographic groups.
"What is meant by the word 'affiliated' with these groups?"
Salvato said he was not formally affiliated, except in the sense that they "bleed him for money."
DuPage County elections chief Robert Saar did not return calls from Black Box Voting requesting further clarification of Salvato's role.
Aside from whatever Salvato did to receive approximately $30,000 from DuPage County elections, Salvato appears to have dual roles in promoting Republican politics and a conservative agenda.
He is Executive Director of the Basics Project; his wife Nancy is president of this group, which appears to be both a conservative think tank and political "education" group. Listed as nonpartisan and nonprofit, the Basics Project advocates a solidly conservative philosophy.
Salvato is Managing Editor for The New Media Journal.us and a contributing writer for GOPUSA, American Daily, and The North Carolina Conservative. His pieces are featured in The Conservative Battleline, American Enterprise, The Washington Times, US Politics Today. His Web site refers to him as a "GOP team leader."
Black Box Voting is seeking public records from DuPage County to determine whether federal HAVA funds were used to pay Salvato, to substantiate work done for the payments, and to determine whether it was, in fact, nonpartisan.
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BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3154
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 5 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 7:12 pm: |
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Frank Salvato:
I have enabled the ability to upload small images into your posts now. -- Bev |
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3157
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 8:01 pm: |
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Lawsuit by DuPage County citizens against elections division for public records violations:
http://www.citizenadvocacycenter.org/Freedom%20of%20Information%20Act%20Complain t%20Against%20DuPage%20County%20Election%20Commission.htm |
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3158
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 9:15 pm: |
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A note on public records in DuPage: Though required to keep federal election records 22 months, DuPage wrote us to say they had destroyed the records. |
Linda Gomez
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Kimmy
Post Number: 2
Registered: 01-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 10:11 pm: |
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Dear Bev,
sounds like more Republican tricks, just like Delay and the cabal of thieves who I believe and you keep reinforcing that stole the election(s) through deceit and fraud.
keep up the good work. |
Tom Rodeffer
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Vet69729
Post Number: 1
Registered: 01-2006
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 11:15 pm: |
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The Feds may want to know about corruption, but will not do anything about any of it. They have had plenty of this information, as well as the Attorney General,and both still have their hands in their pockets. Corruption runs rampant in DuPage County, headed by Joe Birkett, and favors are constantly the way everything in DuPage is obstructed.
Joe Birkett had an opportunity to clean-up the cesspool in 1998, but instead, joined the ranks of the corrupted Officials, by sitting on the indictments, of the County Administrator Don Zeilenga, and his Transportation Committee Board Members. This was part of the buried paint striper which led to the Public Corruption Investigation. This was never prosecuted! The EPA and USEPA were under the impression Birkett, was going to prosecute the case. It never happened! EPA and USEPA were on site to assist in the technical assistance that the taxpayers had paid for. Close to 187 million dollars went missing from an Emergency Reserve fund, about the same time, and Zeilenga lied to the taxpayers, informing them the contamination site had no contamination. He misused this money, covering up this corruption. Birkett most likely, agreed to sit on all indictments, on a sealed deal to run against Lisa Madigan in 2002.
Now he is running with Judy Topinka in the Governor's race for 2006. Too bad Judy! Birkett is a broke loser, and will drag her down. He is as corrupt as the Masters he serves on the County Board, that think they can use their influences, and are above the Laws.
http://www.tomrodeffer.com/judytopinka.html
need more go to Yahoo:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DuPageCorruption
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IllinoisPolitics
PS.
This information being sent as a courtesy to inform all, in order to cease corruption in Government. Birkett has failed to clean up his own backyard at DuPage, and his Platform with Judy Topinka is erroneous. He is only looking for a bigger playground to spread this infection. We can stop this on election day in March and in November.
This is all factual, and have witness statement who worked close to this investigation who was at liberty to give this to me, in order to get investigators interested. He has the name of the lead investigator. So far this has not happened as no one seems to want to bother with the "Boys Club" in DuPage. If anyone needs to know more, I would be happy to inform them on what I know, or you can go to my site at http://www/tomrodeffer.com
Tom Rodeffer
vet69@charter.net |
Pat A. Vesely
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely
Post Number: 2080
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 9, 2006 - 11:46 pm: |
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Hi Tom, welcome to BBV.org. Thanks for the local perspective. Perhaps if we can get some national exposure on some of the really bad local scenes we can start to force some action to clean these messes up. We can always hope so anyway.
Pat A. Vesely ;-) |
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3159
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - 5:42 am: |
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Tom,
Thank you so much for contributing this information. I was trying to navigate through a stack of news archive articles about DuPage County corruption yesterday. It was a DuPage guy, Scott Fawell, who was the right hand man of Illinois Governor George Ryan, correct? Sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison for diverting state resources to campaigns.
quote:The charges against Ryan are part of a federal investigation that began by focusing on bribes paid for commercial driver's licenses and branched into political corruption. Charges have been filed against more than 70 state employees or others, and more than 60 have been convicted or have pleaded guilty. Ryan, a Republican, was secretary of state - the official whose office handles motor vehicle licenses - from 1991 to 1999 and governor from 1999 to 2003. He gained nationwide attention as governor for his actions against the death penalty.
Ryan is charged with " racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud, tax fraud, filing false tax returns and making false statements. " The Judge also denied Ryan's request for a separate trial.
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007553.html
Birkett, by the way, accepted more than $100,000 in campaign loans in a single year from criminal defense attorneys who handle cases in DuPage County. Birkett also accepted a $10,000 loan for his Republican campaign for attorney general from a sitting judge in DuPage county.
In researching the book "Black Box America" which deals with the people & procedures behind American elections, DuPage will probably be used as an example. John Glennon, who was indicted on Chicago kickback scheme recently, was being paid to get loans for DuPage county and, at the same time was being paid commissions from the lender on the loans he lined up. Some of these double-dipped loans were used to buy voting machines.
Conflict of interest -- like public officials who assign work to their own companies -- appears to be a fine old tradition in DuPage.
This is also a county that flaunts public records laws.
I will object to the characterization that it's just Republicans up to their old tricks. A quick trip down the freeway gets you to Democratic stronghold Cook County, which is still reeling under the Hired Truck scandal, with public officials rolling over on each other right and left in their hurry to cut a deal with the prosecutor.
I should also mention that -- although it looks bad to have an obvious political partisan handling election issues -- there is no evidence that Frank Salvato has broken any laws or done anything inappropriate in elections. There is an appearance of impropriety. Jim March suggested an area to look into that may peel another layer off the onion, to determine whether Salvato's assignment was appropriate. Will fill you in on that as soon as possible.
Bev |
Edward Robles
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Tedeger
Post Number: 27
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 7:05 am: |
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Talk about "Checks and Balances!" Seems that DuPage and Cook sort of balance each other - the only question at the moment is the size of the checks, and whether the politicians in question are honest - - - "Oh - an honest politician stays bought." |
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3176
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 11:09 am: |
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LOL -- balanced, who wrote the checks? Great pun.
Here's a news article following up on this:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/17093.html
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Protect election 2006: 'Candid America' project. Don't leave home without your camcorder! What to do:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/15733.html
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3291
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 21, 2006 - 6:08 am: |
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Tom,
This, and other information recently posted here, are not really ready for prime time. We have to be careful to report publicly only those things for which we can show evidence.
This kind of information, when citizens are doing oversight of their local government, is best characterized as "leads" which need to be proven or disproven.
Here's what I'm going to do:
1) I'll enable you and others working in DuPage County for the members-only research and investigation forum.
I'll then transfer this post and others like it into that area, out of public view until the information can be substantiated with evidence (documents, videotaped or tape recorded witnesses). We know that DuPage County has many of the earmarks for corruption -- obstructiveness with records, violations of elections laws and procedures, with some of its key political figures embroiled in indictments and convictions of other politicians.
The only thing that can restore government integrity, when it has gone astray, is the citizens themselves, and for that reason I encourage you and your colleagues to continue to examine DuPage County carefully. Because DuPage County is a good example of what's wrong with elections in the U.S., we will help mentor you if needed, to show you how to find enough evidence to substantiate what you have so that it can be put out in public and given to the press.
For now, however, the information needs to be buttressed with more evidence, and there are ways to get that.
I'll enable you and Vern for the research & investigation section -- you'll be able to see it when signed in, after you are enabled. That will provide a workspace out of public view to develop what you have with coaching from other researchers.
I'm going to put this in Research Area 2, along with two other posts about DuPage County and some suggestions as to how to get the evidence needed to go further with it. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3506
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, February 3, 2006 - 8:20 am: |
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Just received DuPage County's response to our public records requests on this. They say they do not have any records pertaining to work product, payments, bills, or anything related to Salvato. They told us to contact the DuPage County Board of Elections.
We just got the DuPage County Board of Elections response. They say they cannot comply with the request right now because they are in the midst of an election, and have requested until Feb. 7 to file a response. |
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