The Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s column today on the awful Sarasota, FL, Supervisor of Elections, Kathy Dent — and the criminal complaint against her outrageous, unlawful Election Day, in-precinct campaigning against a 2006 ballot initiative to ban touch-screen voting machines in the county (the initiative passed, despite her best efforts, and carefully placed brochures on voter sign-in tables!) — is so good that I don’t want to quote from it.
I want you to read it.
As the Herald-Trib describes, as revealed in Dent’s interview conducted by the Florida Dept. of Law Enforcement, concerning her inappropriate (and illegal) placement of pro-touch-screen brochures in polling places, Dent admits she was aware of a voter’s complaint about it, but ignored it “because she had assumed it was from ‘one of the activists’ that had been criticizing her and her machines.”
The FDLE report on the matter, including their interview with the apparently-pathological Ms. Dent, as referenced in the column as “good reading”, may be downloaded here [PDF, 16mb].
Dent, of course, is the woman who also presided over the FL-13 U.S. Congressional election that same year, when 18,000 votes disappeared in her county only, and only on her precious, now-banned, ES&S Ivotronic touch-screen machines, as the Republican Vern Buchanan reportedly edged out Democrat Christine Jennings by just 369 votes.
If the linked column doesn’t give you enough of an idea of what a horrible, anti-democracy villain Dent really is, perhaps the following lovely, 30-second phone message — left on the voice mail of Tallahassee’ Election Supervisor (and democracy hero), Ion Sancho, moments after he appeared on a Fort Myers radio show, heard in Sarasota, in which he was asked about, and praised, the Sarasota citizen ballot initiative to do away with the touch-screens — will give you some idea:
[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/KathyDentCallsIonSancho.mp3%5D
Sancho adds that Dent was also scheduled to appear on the same program, but begged off, likely after she’d heard that he would also be a guest. Though when he got off the air and checked his cell phone messages, he found she’d called immediately after the program. So she was apparently available to listen to it, at least, even if she didn’t have the courage to come on and defend her views.
We hope to have more soon on Dent and this case — for which she’s (incredibly) been exonorated by the FDLE — in the not-too-distant future.
CORRECTION/UPDATE: We originally characterized the phone call from Dent to Sancho, posted above, as being in regard to the FL-13 election fiasco. In fact, Dent’s call to Sancho was made prior to the ’06 Election, in reference to his radio interview comments on the Election Reform initiative, as now explained above. We touched base with Sancho just now, and he had some additional thoughts about Dent and her inappropriate campaign to defeat the initiative in question. Said Sancho: “This woman knowingly campaigned against an initiative on the ballot. If she wanted to do that, at a minimum, she should have formed a political action committee to do so. Supervisors of Elections don’t give up their right to free speech, but they have to follow the law, particularly if they wish to influence anything on the ballot.”
KILLER audio, Brad! I’ve heard tell of it, oft/ knew it existed out there somewhere/was DYING to hear it–Wow. WHAT A GET! (and ain’t she, tho?) And can’t thank you enough for writing up this piece of interest on this DENT Piece of…work.
Mrs. Dent has now officially eaten through THREE of my computer hard-drives with footge of her year long campaign of mis-information, mis-direction, legal parsing, obfiscation, back-room bustling, and hours and hours of so many plain ol’ red-letter LIES.
I wrote to TOM LYONS, the author of the SARASOTA HERALD TRIBUNE article you linked to above, as I’m really surprised he wrote this up in the first place. I thanked him/ got an interesting but brief response re: Mrs. Dent’s “intent”…
I may post it here in this thread later, along with my responses, as I think it’s a VERY interesting insight into how our press tends to view, and “explains away”, these bastardizations of the RULE OF LAW in such cases. It’s the “benefit of the doubt” excuse, plain and simple.
The great unwillingness to simply see. I sent him some of our links with so many examples of Mrs. Dent’s “vexing blind spots” and pointed him to many revealing far worse from her. Here’s to hoping (and praying) Mr. Lyons will at least give them a glance…
Great workBradthankyouthankyou for shedding some light on this, our Wonky Wonder-Woman, the very strange KATHY DENT. She haunts and amuses me daily.
(SO FUNNY! “You stay in your corner of the world and I’ll stay in mine”…??!? See, what kind of a coo-coo, bonehead move is this–to LEAVE THAT AS AN ANSWERING MACHINE MESSAGE? If this isn’t a primo example of Mrs. Dent’s proclivity towards bad judgment, her proven track record of odd personal exchanges/just plain STRANGE behavior–if THIS isn’t enough, then what the hell else do we NEED? She shouldn’t be allowed to hold sharp PENCILS let alone be in charge of our COUNTY/ STATE elections…! I need a TUMS.)
Can she be recalled? Impeached? Arrested? Tried? Convicted? Jailed?
Nah. I thought not.
There is no justice in Sarasota County, Florida or Florida for that matter. The State Attorney, Earl Moreland, the FLDE, the FBI, and the Florida courts not only cover up election fraud, they also even cover up murders. See http://www.cohenmurder.com/ http://208.109.72.228/ and http://www.arcticbeacon.com/art...-Apr-2006.html
Of course, election fraud and corruption are rampant in Florida. For example, see http://thefloridabar.us/ and http://groups.msn.com/FloridaJu..._whatsnew.msnw
No one is even running against Earl “Cover-up” Moreland. http://election.dos.state.fl.us/cand/canlist.asp
At least a couple of people are challenging Kathy “Just Trust Me” Dent. http://sarasota.perfectvote.com/candidates.asp
She’s got the biggest SOE budget for a small countyI ever saw. The Sarasoa County taxpayers are getting ripped off.
Charlie (#2)
Righto, Son! None of the above. But she CAN run for RE-ELECTION…and IS.
I recently ran into her posse at the SARASOTA COUNTY FAIR, (and when I say “posse” I mean two retirees with a 50 cent clip-board and a soup can full of “VOTE KATHY DENT” pens) who were lobbying the unsuspecting locals strolling through the “Commercial Exhibits” thus sparing K. Dent the $7,000 application fee by getting enough signatures. No sign of Dent, and no sign of people signing…
The fellas were handing out glossy flyers that read–(and if you think I typed this with extra irony, just wait and see how much irony you add on your own just by READING it:)
“Kathy Dent’s unwavering dedication to election excellence is tried, true and fully tested….tested and proven accurate: every vote counted and counted correctly.” It even has a photo of K. Dent sharing a forced and awkward guffaw with two ladies who only seem just barely amused enough to be on payroll.
So…she can’t afford to spend 7 g’s on the app. fees as the INCUMBENT, but she can hire a dubious PR firm and print up hundreds of flyers full o’ lies (fLIARs), which is exactly how she got into this mess with the FDLE in the FIRST place.
I didn’t sign her petition. But I did take a pen. I use it all the time but I won’t say for what…
Look at who has contributed to Dent’s campaign http://sarasota.perfectvote.com...0367/00133.pdf
The list includes an attorney involved in the Cohen murder cover-up!!!
Dr. Who~! Wow!~okay…seems JOHN DENT fetches STAMPS as well as DIET COKES for Kathy D. I guess his dream was always to be the ‘good man’ behind an ‘upwardly mobile fascist’…
Who is the attorney you’re referring to? And what is the COHEN murder cover-up? …
(Great PDF, thanks! Will hold onto it for my records…)