If the criminal Mitt Romney wins the looming presidential election, True the Vote will have made the entire difference.
True the Vote is a Tea Party group that claims to fight voter fraud. The Houston-based group's activities are nationwide in their scope. But so far, this organization has seemed to do little more than falsely accuse voters of using vacant lots as an address. In all cases, these "vacant" lots are actually occupied by houses where said voters live. True the Vote has yet to uncover a single instance of an improperly registered voter.
But as early voting gets under way in some states, we're about to see how much violent thuggery True the Vote is capable of.
True the Vote plans to place poll watchers at polling places to harass voters. This is voter intimidation, and it's illegal. They plan to tell voters that police will arrest them if they have outstanding traffic tickets. This is voter intimidation, and it's illegal.
Fans of True the Vote's Facebook page are now threatening to make citizens' arrests of voters. That too is voter intimidation, and it's illegal.
If a True the Vote thug lays one hand on me while I'm at the polling place, they will find themselves spitting teeth. That's a fair warning. I've fought too hard for my rights to have some Nazi take them away.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Tea Party group threatens citizens' arrests of voters
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Bandit, you better sit down before you read this one.
ReplyDeleteIt could be way worse than you think. The pretextual "hunt for voter fraud" goes beyond registration purging and poll watchers. In states where poll watchers are more heavily regulated, True the Vote and their affiliates/allies are recruiting and training people to be actual election judges. One organizer went so far as to say "Being an election judge is even better than being a poll watcher as you are actually running the election."
So do you think that driver's license makes your vote safe?
Any liquor store clerk knows how easy it is to get a fake. Do we expect TTV not to be aware of this fact in their training? Does the state provide adequate guidance for election judges in determining whether an ID's picture sufficiently matches the person standing before them? What about the signature matching requirements?
These subjective judgment calls concerning a person's right to vote a regular ballot may end up in the hands of someone trained to be paranoid rather than reasonably vigilant. See http://www.ragingwisdom.com/who-watches-the-poll-watchers-part-ii/ for some of the flaws in Ohio's laws protecting voters on election day, and here
http://www.ragingwisdom.com/who-watches-the-poll-watchers-part-iii/ for Florida which has a horrific defect in its voter challenge law that is not getting enough attention.
In the key swing state of Florida if a paranoid poll watcher sees that you have a different haircut than the picture on your ID, they can challenge you. An honest election judge does NOT have the power to call bullsh*t: you must vote a provisional ballot. Provisional ballots are not "counted" on election night and are not adequately estimated when the media "calls" the election in the state.