Investigator alleges voter fraud in local election
An attorney hired by the Allegheny County Elections Board contends Democratic officials in Kennedy, including county Treasurer John Weinstein and his politically powerful father, engaged in a scheme to forge absentee ballots.
Attorney Robert Owsiany on Thursday urged the Election Board to conduct a more extensive probe or turn it over to law enforcement for prosecution.
"We need to carefully read the report and look at the evidence and decide where to go next," said county Councilman David Fawcett, one of two Republicans on the three-member Elections Board. "If the evidence is as powerful as has been suggested, we should refer it to law enforcement, and we have to do everything possible to ensure it is pursued."
Neither John Weinstein nor his father, township Treasurer Melvin Weinstein, responded to telephone calls. Other officials in Kennedy and the Montour School District did not return telephone calls.
Owsiany produced a 30-page report detailing his claims that Melvin Weinstein spearheaded an elaborate system to obtain blank absentee ballots. The report states Melvin Weinstein, his son and other township officials would fill in the blank ballots for favored candidates.
The report says handwriting expert Michelle Dresbold matched the writing on the suspected ballots to Melvin and John Weinstein.
The report states Dresbold concluded nearly one-third of the ballots cast in the 1997 general election, the oldest for which records are available, contained similar handwriting and had a "high degree of certainty" that at least 28 of the absentee ballots contained the handwriting or printing of Melvin Weinstein.
The report also contends:
The county requires voters to write in the name of the candidate on absentee ballots in municipal and school board elections unless the voter casts a straight party ticket.
Owsiany reported the Elections Division claimed it attempted to refer an internal investigation of the voting irregularities to District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. But nothing happened.
"For years this has been a bureaucratic back-and-forth," Fawcett said. "There are many people who get frustrated with government and for things like this."
Zappala, former solicitor for Kennedy, said yesterday that he had not seen the report.
"If there's evidence of wrongdoing, I'd be happy to look at it," Zappala said. "And if someone committed a crime, I'll prosecute them, no matter who it is."
County Councilman John DeFazio, the only Democrat on the Elections Board, said he was concerned that the statute of limitations may have expired for investigating the ballots. Brian McDonald, a spokesman for the Department of State, said nothing in the state election code sets a statutory limit in investigating voter fraud.
Records from the 1999 Kennedy primary, on which the original allegations of fraud were based, turned up missing during Owsiany's investigation. They are believed to have been destroyed during a routine purging of documents.
