Election Rigging: the Tale of One County

    I am going to tell you a little story, about a little place in southeast Kentucky called Knott County. Knott county is predominately a democratic county, often there is not even a Republican on the ballot for some county positions. But when our Democratic Judge Executive went to jail for vote buying, Governor Earnie Fletcher (R) appointed Randy Thompson (R) as the new judge executive. Naturally, this was not a clean appointment, as the Bluegrass Report points out...

Fletcher picked Randy C. Thompson, 48, owner of Hindman Broadcasting Co., and founder and president of the Knott County Youth Foundation. That group is building a $7 million youth center and has hired a company headed by the governor's brother to oversee its design and construction.

Harold Fletcher Jr. is president of Kenar Architectural & Engineering Co. of Frankfort, which is scheduled to receive about $800,000 for its work, project documents say.

     But that is not all, of this story. Randy Thompson is the owner of one of only two radio stations in the county, and his wife is a very well liked chorus and band instructor at the public high school, making them well known and with plenty access to free advertisement for his campaign. But even that holds only so much weight in this true blue county. So Randy decided to use other means to sway the votes in his favor. Specifically, using county funds to pave roads to accumulate more support. That's right, essentially vote buying according to an affidavit .

    On July 10, Knott county's courthouse was raided by the FBI who were investigating this and 13.5 Million dollars in "Questionable costs", according to the 2006 county Audit report. Some of these questionable costs not only included the transportation and road paving issue, but also found that some contractors for that job were getting paid twice.

     Our county was not perfect before Randy was appointed as the Judge executive or since his 2006 election victory by a mere 66 votes. But this is a small scale of a bigger picture. A similar tactic we are witnessing on a national level. Fletcher, appointed Randy knowing tax dollars would ultimately be funneled back into his family coffers. Randy, used his influence in media, and our tax dollars to try and ensure republican victory in the county. Tax dollars that should have been used for the people in the county in a meaningful way, Perhaps by doing something about the fact that 27% of the population of the county lives in poverty. Instead, we see the same old republican tactic of using tax dollars to secure positions, and turning important positions in the government, even the small local ones, into tools for partisan political agendas.