Howie Rich 2006 Voter Fraud
Michigan- 2006. NVO was hired by the Stop Over Spending campaign (a Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) initiative) in Michigan to circulate their petitions. NVO petitioners committed such ramped fraud that NVO owner, Susan Johnson, was forced to notify the police about her circulators. In the end so many signatures were thrown out because they were fraudulent or duplicates that the proponents didn't have enough to qualify. ("Company Blows Whistle on Fraudulent Petition Signatures," Contra Costa Times, May 30, 2006)
- 2006. The Howie Rich-funded campaign to put TASC (a TABOR initiative) on the Nevada ballot, hired Arno to circulate its petitions. The circulation of TASC in Nevada led to an affidavit from a circulator who stated that he and approximately 100 others attended a "fraud party" over Memorial Day Weekend where they were taught how to copy signatures onto their petitions and ways to avoid detection. Other cases of signature fraud were exposed by the group opposing TASC including: cases where the same person signed more than once, where multiple names were in identical handwriting, where signers' addresses didn't match their names or where petitions weren't properly notarized. ("TASC Opponents Seek Investigation," Las Vegas Review Journal, August 23, 2006)
- 2006. NVO was hired by Oklahomans in Action to put a TABOR initiative on the ballot. In July of 2006, Oklahoma's Supreme Court threw out the TABOR initiative because it was found out that more than 60 circulators were not Oklahoma residents and had used false Oklahoma addresses, which is against the law in Oklahoma. ("Petition Drive Compared to Watergate," The Oklahoman, July, 10 2006.)
- 2006. The Howie Rich-funded campaign to put TABOR on the Oregon ballot hired Arno to circulate its petitions. It was uncovered that Arno paid homeless people to gather signatures for the TABOR initiative, and paid by the signature, which is against Oregon state laws. Don McIntire, the head of the Taxpayer Association of Oregon and a chief petitioner on the TABOR initiative, said his campaign wasn't liable for the way its signatures were gathered and claimed that he made Arno sign an agreement that it wouldn't pay per signature. As a result of the scandal, Arno declared they will not be back in Oregon on account of the ban on pay per signature. ("The Price of Democracy," Portland Mercury, July 13, 2006)
