Occasionally, you’ll hear stories about misinformation being spread about polling places or times or voting eligibility. For example:
In Lake County, Ohio, newly-registered voters received a fake letter that appeared to come from the Lake County Board of Elections. The letter said that voter registrations gathered by Democratic campaigns or the NAACP were illegal and that those voters would not be allowed to vote.
. . .
In Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, a flyer designed to look like an official announcement from McCandless Township claimed that, because of expected “immense voter turnout,†the 2004 election would be conducted over two days. The flyer requested that Republicans vote on November 2, while Democrats should vote on November 3.
. . .
In Columbia, South Carolina, a letter purporting to be from the NAACP threatened that voters with outstanding parking tickets or unpaid child support would be arrested.
Sen. Breaux’s SB 358 would make such actions a Class D felony.
Provides that a person who knowingly or intentionally deceives another person regarding: (1) the date, time, place, or manner of an election; or (2) the qualifications for a voter or restrictions on voter eligibility at the election; commits a Class D felony.
Doug,
What saddens me about this story is that I’m afraid some readers of your blog think it is amusing, or “all in good fun”.
Suffering the consequences of one’s own ignorance is one thing. Being helped along through calculated acts of deception by others is quite another.
I fear the same folks who have no problem with the perpetrating such frauds on the electorate are some of the same ones who back “abstinence-only” sex education. After all, the latter can be rationalized as “omission” rather than “affirmative” deception.
Trouble is, it’s simply dishonest to suggest to anyone, especially children, that there’s no more to human sexuality than abstention from it.
The Quakers have this notion called the Testimony of Integrity:
I wish more Christians could find it in their hearts to embrace such forthrightness.
I don’t know nearly enough about the Quakers. And Richmond, Indiana, where I grew up is one of their major centers.
You stay classy Branden, stay classy.
Branden has opened my eyes!
I now believe the truth of the assertion “everything is about sex”.
WTH does this have to do with sex ed, Christians, and / or Quakers?
The writers of these letters could be a Christian pastor, an anarchist, a child molester, (or all three) or a bored 15 year old.
Am I missing something?
I don’t know. Whenever I think about election fraud I think of Quakers.
What do you call four Richmond voters in an election booth?
A box of Quakers.
OK I’ll stop now.
Jason,
It’s all connected, man!
Hmm, ya know, I don’t take illegal drugs. Maybe I should start. ;-)
More seriously, I was just combining what I figured the knee-jerk Dittohead response to this blog entry would be with the knee-jerk Dittohead response to Doug’s earlier sex ed entry.