In his February 9 story on MSNBC's The Reid Report, headlined "Counted Out," network correspondent Zachary Roth offered viewers a misleading look at the plight of an Iowa woman -- now suing the state for restoration of her voting rights -- who "had been charged with illegal voting."
"For a lot of people, this sounds insane, the idea that this woman, that people would try to jail her for thinking she could vote again," anchor Joy-Ann Reid told Roth after the conclusion of his pre-taped segment.
But in point of fact, the woman in question, a convicted drug offender named Kelli Jo Griffin, was prosecuted last March for committing perjury by virtue of allegedly lying about her voting disqualification on a voter registration form.
Griffin was acquitted by a jury of her peers, evidently convinced of her insistence that she did not deliberately lie on the voter-registration form in question. The prosecutor in the case, Lee County Attorney Michael Short -- who happens to be a Democrat, a fact unmentioned by Roth-- argued that Griffin's leaving blank the part of the form which asked about prior felony convictions showed that her deception was intentional rather than accidental. "
During her interview with Roth, Ms. Griffin blasted the state of Iowa for "spending 200 and some thousand dollars to stop someone from voting, especially the small number [of convicted felons voting] they went after." But according to the January 22, 2014 press release by then Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz, Griffin was charged with "perjury, a Class D felony."
"A class 'D' felony is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of $750 to $7,500" according to CriminalDefenseLawyer.com. Indeed, on the State of Iowa's official voter registration form, that penalty information is prominently noted (click here for PDF of voter registration form), although in fairness, I'm not sure if that language was present on the form Ms. Griffin signed in 2013.
Viewers closely watching the B-roll on the story may have noticed an image of the Schultz press release noting Griffin's perjury charge (see image below), but neither Roth nor Reid made clear the distinction. What's more, in a teaser for the segment prior to commercial break, Reid rolled an ACLU video which showed Griffin lamenting her plight, with "arrested for voting" appearing in the lower-third bearing her name (pictured above at right).
