Muskogee Daily Phoenix
Saturday, August 13, 1983
Draper didn’t see absentee ballots cast-notary
By Jim East
Phoenix Staff Writer
House Speaker Dan Draper was not in the back room of a rural Adair County grocery store when 24 absentee ballots were fraudulently notarized, the notary testified Friday.
Faye Newton, a government witness and Sequoyah 
County deputy court clerk, said he met Draper in the back room of the Girdner Grocery Store the night of Sept. 14, 1982, but after she had notarized the ballots.
Newton had been expected to bolster earlier testimony by John Girdner who said Draper entered the back room when ballots were being notarized by Newton and voted by himself, his father Barney, and aunt Ruth Ann Hembree.
Newton and Barney Girdner were indicted June 16 along with Draper and House Majority Floor Leader Joe Fitzgibbon. The charges against Newton were dismissed in return for her testimony and Girdner has pleaded guilty.
In other testimony in U.S. District Court:
-John Girdner testified Draper left the store Sept. 14 with a paper bag containing illegally marked and notarized ballots to be mailed to the Adair County Election Board.
-Draper went with Newton and Dora “Mama Dode” Girdner to a rural southern Adair County residence the same night to find out why someone hadn’t voted. The person had lost his ballot.
-Bob Parris, a former state legislator from Sallisaw, arranged for a notary public.
-And that Draper was aware federal officials were investigating absentee ballot irregularities in the Aug 24, 1982, primary election in Adair County.
Newton, a notary public, said when she arrived at the store near Bunch, several members of the Girdner family were present. After she notarized the 24 ballots, she and Hembree left to go to two rural residents to notarize more ballots.
Hembree and Newton returned to the store, but Newton left again with Dora Girdner for the same reason.
The ballots at the rural Adair County residences were legal since they were notarized in front of the voters. No voters were in the grocery store when those ballots were notarized, witnesses testified.
When Dora Girdner and Newton returned to the store, Newton said she went to the back room again.
“There was another gentleman there I didn’t know,” she said, “He was standing in the middle of the floor. I got an impression everyone was kind of standing around.”
She said the man came up and introduced himself as “Dan Draper, the speaker of the House.”
Later Draper, Dora Girdner and Newton made a trip to another area residence to find out why the resident hadn’t voted. When they returned to the store, Newton said she and Draper stood outside and he asked her how much he owed her.
“I told him I don’t know-I had never done that before-and he said he never had either,” Mrs. Newton testified.
Back
