I’m not a fan of our nonpartisan election system here in Washington where we don’t have to register by party to vote in the primary. But I had thought when the national scandal about GOP operatives dumping voter registrations.
A campaign worker linked to a controversial Republican consulting firm has been arrested in Virginia and charged with throwing voter registration forms into a dumpster.
The suspect, Colin Small, 31, was described by a local law enforcement official as a “supervisor” in a Republican Party financed operation to register voters in Rockingham County in rural Virginia, a key swing state in the Nov. 6 election. He was arrested after a local business owner in the same Harrisonburg, Va., shopping center where the local GOP campaign headquarters is located spotted Small tossing a bag into the trash, according to a statement Thursday by the Rockingham County Sheriff’s office. The bag was later found to contain eight voter registration forms, it said. The arrest was reported Thursday night by WWBT-TV in Richmond.
But maybe not as tough as I’d thought.
In Virginia, where the Pennsylvania man working for the state GOP was arrested Thursday, Chesterfield County’s General Registrar Larry Haake was seen explaining to Richmond’s CBS 6 in late September that he had received complaints of Strategic employees discovered doing the same thing in a library last month.
“They were responsible for people that appeared in some libraries in Chesterfield County, supposedly to conduct voter registration drives,” Haake said, “but they were asking voters for whom they are going to vote.”
Haake says he informed the GOP of the incident at the time, but, apparently, no action was taken.
If, in fact, Small, or the workers he is said to have supervised, were using the same technique of misrepresenting themselves to voters about being a pollster, rather than being a registration worker, it’s likely he would have been able to glean whether those registrations he was allegedly seen tossing into a dumpster were for Democratic or Republican-leaning voters.
I think this is what you get when people keep screaming ACORN, ACORN, ACORN. They think they’re just leveling the playing field.
Republicans cheat and lie repeatedly and ruthlessly because they know if they were fair and honest about their goals and values, they would lose.
ACORN was purely about disenfranchising black people. Period.
This schmuck was an extension of that – do what you can to destroy that essential part of America we hold sacred – the ability of all of us to participate, to vote.
It is extraordinarily telling that the Republicans resort to tactics like this, over and over and over, on massive scales. They are about power and money, concentrating both in the fewest hands possible, and willing to commit any profanity against democracy to see it done.
Not only do I think having to register for a party is bullshit, I think having you marked as voted or not voted is bullshit. If you vote and who you vote for is nobodies business but your own.
Liberal Scientist,
“ACORN was purely about disenfranchising black people. Period.”
Huh? Is this sarcasm? Or were you reading ACORN and thinking ALEC?
@4
Sorry, that should have been…
I was riffing off…
My initial use of ‘ACORN’ was the same as in that sentence, that is, in the voice of the right-wing hate mongers…but my meaning was not clear, sorry.
love it when Darryl has to correct his own posts….that’s funny
Linguist,
“love it when Darryl has to correct his own posts….that’s funny”
Huh? Is this sarcasm? I didn’t write the post, Carl did. Are you talking about some earlier post, or are you writing Darryl and thinking Liberal Scientist?
Why am I so perplexed by this comment thread?
Also, this post hasn’t been corrected. I’m always happy to correct when I make a mistake, but that hasn’t happened here. Also, is it funny when people correct their posts? I’d think most of the time it’s not. This is a funny correction, obviously. But it’s the exception, not the rule.
Let us never forget that southern racists, who are now owned by the GOP (which gladly took them off the Democrats’ hands when Democrats wised up and didn’t want them anymore), used to lynch blacks for trying to vote.
@6 The fact you’re amused when others own up to their mistakes says much more about you than it does about them.
Carl @ 8,
That IS a funny correction!
Reading this thread is like a dysfunctional run-through of ‘Who’s on First?’.
based on linguistic comparison on word choice and sentence structure, Lib Sci and Darryl seem to be very closely “related”. That’s all I’m saying :-)
@ 13
Lib Sci and Darryl seem to be very closely “related”
Clearly a serious case of hero worship on Lib Sci’s part. I doubt Darryl has time for sock puppetry, and Lib Sci’s been an excellent puppet for The One.
Lib Sci – HA’s Pinocchio.
@14
Wow, you’re just everywhere, Robert A.
@13, 14
That I might be considered similar to Darryl is only a complement.
I assume what you two find similar between Darryl and me is that we both use full sentences to discuss facts, no doubt an unfamiliar circumstance to those of you who revel in the wit and insight of Limbaugh and Beck.
Darryl, however, is far more erudite and polite than I.
@ 16
Darryl, however, is far more erudite and polite than I.
And Darryl’s nose is significantly less brown than yours, Lib Despair/Pinocchio.
WTF is that supposed to mean? Brown-nosing? To whom?
You make less sense than usual.
You are one nasty, snide, relentlessly noxious radiologist, Robert A. You grow more puddy-like every day.
Linguist @ 13:
“based [sic] on linguistic [sic] comparison on [sic] word choice and sentence structure, Lib Sci [sic] and Darryl seem to be very closely “related”. “
Is that right? Please show your work.
@19
Nice. You sic’d him. Quality work.