Muskogee Daily Phoenix
August 1983
Testimony links various members of Girdner clan to vote fraud case
By Jim East
Phoenix Staff Writer
Once every neighborhood had its own grocery store. Then slowly, almost methodically they closed, making way for the huge supermarkets and discount houses.
Today the old-fashioned general store where you can buy on credit is found mostly in low-income areas of eastern Oklahoma, especially rural ones.
Down a two-lane Oklahoma 59 in southern Adair County such a store has existed for years. It has provided the hill people that live around Bunch and Greasy a place to meet, buy supplies and collect their mail.
It also was an easy place to vote thanks to a family that has become the focus of an ongoing vote fraud trial in U.S. District Court in Muskogee.
Columbus Asbill, a frail backwoods man from Greasy who can’t read, knows well of the Girdner clan. Ruth Ann Hembree, who runs the store once operated by her father, Barney Girdner Sr., will read Asbil his mail, then pen his answers.
She also helped him vote last year for Barney Girdner Jr. and Dan Draper II, Asbil testified.
The 73-year-old Asbil was one of several rural Adair County residents who testified Hembree, daughter of Dora “Mama Dode” Girdner, and other Girdner family members helped them register and then vote absentee.
Their testimony is the foundation of a 21-count indictment against two powerful state lawmakers-House Speaker Dan Draper and House Majority Floor Leader Joe Fitzgibbon- charged with conspiring with the Girdners to rig a 1982 election in Adair County for Draper’s father.
Last week in federal court the names of Girdner family members, both blood relatives and those connected by marriage, popped up repeatedly in testimony about voting irregularities.
Some have pleaded guilty. Others plea bargained with federal prosecutors. And others testified they were unwitting participants in a scheme to elect Barney Girdner Jr. to the state Legislature, and later support Dan Draper II for the same post.
No one has denied the Girdner clan “controlled” dozens of potential absentee ballots. None of the Girdners has denied they exercised that control.
The so-called control wasn’t limited to the store’s customers.
Chris Prewett, a Sallisaw liquor store owner, testified her sister, Betty Girdner, asked and received her absentee ballot. Girdner also received ballots from Sherry Martin, Prewett’s daughter, and Sherry’s husband, Donnie.
But all relatives weren’t as giving.
Lt. James Bliss, formerly of Muskogee and now at Fort Bragg, N.C., testified his ex-wife, Dana Girdner Bliss, voted for him while he was on military exercises in Egypt.
Another, Willinda Neale, went as far as to oppose her uncle Barney Girdner Jr. She registered voters in Muskogee for her uncle, but she also registered people in Arkansas to vote for the eventual winner, Larry Adair of Stillwell.
There has been no evidence Adair knew of any wrongdoing.
Neale, like most of the Girdner family, has not been charged with crimes. Instead they agreed to testify for the prosecution in return for their freedom.
So far two have been charged Barney Girdner Jr. have been charged. Barney Girdner Jr. has pleaded guilty to conspiring with Draper and Fitzgibbon, and his mother, Dora Girdner, pleaded guilty to obstructing the mails.
Both await sentencing.
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