Any who closely follows local politics knows that Wendell "Coach" Delaney is a regular voter harvester at elections.

Delaney is known to collect absentee mail-in ballots, having the voters sign the voter flap on the envelope that contains the ballot WITHOUT marking the ballot itself. Delaney fills in the absentee ballot that is in the envelope and all other needed information on the voter flap including the witness block on the flap. Then he delivers or mails the absentee voter envelope to the Registrar's office. This process is known as "vote harvesting" and it is illegal.

Delaney is known to walk the halls at certain nursing homes seeking absentee ballots. He also visits the homes of people known to him who receive absentee ballots. Most of these voters are elderly.

Reportedly, he was caught seeking an absentee ballot from a Shreveport voter at her home. The adult daughter of the lady interceded and stopped Delaney. This incident was recorded on a ring camera and the incident along with ring camera film was turned over to Shreveport Police. Since this is an active investigation, no information can be obtained from SPD.

A review of campaign finance reports for many candidates over the past ten years indicates that Delaney is a frequent recipient of campaign money for unspecified services for the candidate. One can suspect that Delaney was paid for vote harvesting reported as other services.

Louisiana law also limits the number of absentee ballots that can be witnessed by one individual.

Witnesses can only be on family member absentee ballots and one (1) non-family member voter flap.

The only way to prove voter harvesting is to examine the absentee voter flaps. In the Caddo court election trial Caddo Registrar of Voters Dale Sibley identified two absentee voter flaps witnessed by Delaney. The address on each flap was different, i.e. the voters lived in different residences.

This is not proof of voter harvesting because both of the voters could have been family members, or in the alternative one was a family member and the other a non-family member. Nonetheless, it did indicate that Delaney is "active" in witnessing absentee voter flaps.

These two voter flaps were discovered over a brief 90-minute review of the absentee voter flaps which are detached from the envelope containing the actual ballot. At the most 1500 or 7700 absentee voter flaps were subject to review on the day of the trial. Thus, it is likely that that there are more, probably many more, flaps that Delaney has as a witness.

Registrar of Voters Dale Sibley advised the Caddo Commission that more attention will be given to the flaps in upcoming elections including the March Sheriff election. There is some skepticism, and rightly so, that Sibley's office can competently handle this task in March which is also the presidential primary when the absentee voter number could grow from 7700 to 15,000. Sibley did say that the issue of voter harvesting had not been previously identified to him while he was Registrar.