Dirty Tricks Watch

by dday

Every year the Republican Party sends a flier into minority or poor neighborhoods telling people to vote on the wrong day. This one is even more efficient, because it claims that Virginia modified their laws to have Republicans vote on November 4 and Democrats on November 5. That way, they don’t lose one vote! Good work, Virginia GOP! There’s a copied logo from the Commonwealth of Virginia on the flier, too, making it look all official-like.

But as far as crude fliers go, this one from Wisconsin, distributed in a heavily white area, wins the prize.

“Change means…BLACK!” Mmm, that’s some delicious ratfucking!

And then there’s this, a pretty novel case of ballot-stealing.

Three Hialeah voters say they had an unusual visitor at their homes last week: a man who called himself Juan, offering to help them fill out their absentee ballots and deliver them to the elections office.

The voters, all supporters of Democratic congressional candidate Raul Martinez, said they gave their ballots to the man after he told them he worked for Martinez. But the Martinez campaign said he doesn’t work for them.

Juan “told me not to worry, that they normally collected all the ballots and waited until they had a stack big enough to hand-deliver to the elections department,” said voter Jesus Hernandez, 73. “He said, ‘Don’t worry. This is not going to pass through the mail to get lost.'”

Hernandez said he worries his ballot was stolen or destroyed. He and two other voters told The Miami Herald that the man was dispatched by a woman caller who also said she worked for Martinez. But the phone number cited by the voters traces back to a consultant working for Martinez’s rival, Republican congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

Martinez’s campaign manager, Jeff Garcia, has asked the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office to investigate.

Wow. That’s breathtaking criminality.

The Republicans are going to do everything they can to make sure that if you’re a Democrat, you don’t vote this year. Not all of it will work – the stories of young workers who probably need the money walking off the job at call centers rather than read smear call scripts against Barack Obama are inspiring. And the GOP is consistently losing in the courts. But they clearly have other means, as you can see above, and some will be effective. The best way to stop it is to bring them out into the sunlight.

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