Topic: WorldNetDaily
An Oct. 20 WorldNetDaily article by Drew Zahn reports on the arrest of a Republican activist for alleged voter fraud but reported only the man's defense, curiously omitting the evidence against him.
Zahn largely relies on the claims of Hector Barajas, communications director for the California Republican Party, in defense of Mark Jacoby, uncriticially reporting Baraja's claims that Jacoby was within his rights to claim his "childhood home" as his legal residence.
But that was not the charge against him; rather, that the address he put down as his legal address in California was not where he resided:
Authorities say Jacoby on two occasions fraudulently registered to vote at a California address where he does not live in order to satisfy a law requiring that signature gatherers be eligible to vote in the state.
Miller said investigators went to the Los Angeles County address he listed as home and spoke with the people who live there.
"They've never heard of him," Miller said. "They've lived there for years."
Jacoby's attorney, Dan Goldfine, said he has advised his client to decline interviews. But, Goldfine said, Jacoby's mother lives in LA County and that Jacoby was within his rights to declare her home as his residence. He said authorities had not revealed the address associated with the charges, though he suggested that Jacoby might have mistakenly put the wrong address on his registration form.
Zahn does not indicate that Barajas provided any evidence that Jacoby's "childhood home" is, in fact, the "legal residence" he declared.
Zahn buries the much more serious charge against Jacoby -- that, according to the Los Angeles Times, registrants were they were tricked by Jacoby's firm, Young Political Majors, into switching parties to Republican while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters -- by portraying it as a distraction from voter registration fraud allegations against ACORN. Indeed, five paragraphs of Zahn's article reference ACORN -- even though his article is not about ACORN -- while only two paragraphs reference the voter-duping charge against Jacoby's firm.
