True the Vote poll watchers barred from Columbus Ohio polls

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The Franklin County Board of Elections has rejected requests from True the Vote to place poll watchers at precincts around Central Ohio.

According to Ohio political blog Plunderbund, the Board of Elections met yesterday over suspicions that the organization’s forms had been falsified. It seems that True the Vote used candidate signatures from a previous set of forms filed in early October to fill out this recent set. The only problem is that all but one of the six candidates whose names were on the form have since withdrawn their signatures.

Board member Zachary Mainfold said he was “amazed that a group that goes to such extreme lengths to claim voting fraud in Ohio would knowingly forge or misuse signatures to try to gain access to Franklin County polling locations.”

The forms were rejected unanimously by both Republican and Democratic board members, barring the organization’s poll watchers from entering polling locations today. Some suspect there will still be observers posted outside the locations, though.

Plunderbund reported earlier this week that True the Vote filled out requests to place observers in polling locations in 28 precincts. The website confirmed that 20 of the precincts the organization targeted were predominantly black communities. African-Americans also made up more than 80 percent of the population in the top 12 targeted precincts.

Election officials have said there will be an investigation into the incident after election season has ended. The form reads that “election falsification is a 5th degree felony.”

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