Virginia problems
There have been reports all day of voter intimidation in Virginia in the form of phone calls to voters claiming that they are registered in other States and saying that if the voter(s) in question showed up at the polls they would be arrested. That is false, of course, and it is disgusting that anyone would engage in this sort of behavior regardless of party.I do not think the George Allen campaign is behind this intimidation, but clearly someone is playing suppression politics. The reason I don't believe the Allen campaign is behind all of this is because the area codes for these calls are coming from States like Califirnia and Montana, so The World has been told by sources on the ground in Virginia. Whoever is doing this-you might think that you are helping conservative and Republican forces, but you are doing more to hurt the cause than anything else I have heard of in this election season. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Out-of-State threats on election day is the height of low-brow politics. The Virginia Senate election belongs to the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia and it is theirs to determine and to own, whatever the result-the same is true in Tennessee.
Labels: Elections
posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 3:06 PM
2 Comments:
David,
You're being rather nieve (sp?)about this. It's a question of money; anyone can hire a company anywhere to run calls anwhere in the country for any race and/or candidate.
Check out the ads in Campaigns & Elections. It's a monthly magazine - I pick them up at Broders Bookstore, but you can subscribe at their website: http://www.campaignline.com/
Very rarely does any campaign hire a telemarketing company that is in the same state. It's just the way it works. So the folks paying for this can be anywhere.
Personally, I think this portion of campaigning is next in line for some sort of regulation. There have been numerous violations of state "No Call" laws and, of course, this kind of stuff.
SteveMule
Steve;
I don't think I am being naive for this reason: These weren't campaign calls, they didn't claim to be...these people claimed to be election workers and were threatening people with arrest. Telemarketing had nothing to do with it.
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