In Pennsylvania, massive Republican crossover registration has been altering the voter balance in several counties.
Naturally, the Republican Party wants these crossover voters (including me) back.
However, I'm not sure that accusing them of fraud is the best way to persuade them. Unfortunately, that's what they are doing, if this news item is correct:
HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania Republicans outlined a strategy yesterday to reverse the tide of voters abandoning their ranks in favor of the Democrats.
Party leaders said they would launch a statewide voter-registration drive on primary day, April 22. The intensely competitive race for the Democratic presidential nomination has prompted many Republicans to switch parties.
Republicans will coordinate a grassroots voter signup effort with county chairmen, and the GOP has been been negotiating with a firm that would pursue cases of fraudulent Democratic registrations. The state GOP will provide lists of party-switchers for volunteers to contact, and officials said they expected to bring two out of five defectors back into the Republican fold.
"We do want them back," said John McNally, who is in charge of the initiative for the Republican State Committee. "I want to assure every Republican that our party plans to address this issue."
Fraudulent Democratic registrations?
What can he mean? Isn't that just a matter of degree?
When I was registered Republican I often felt almost as "fraudulent" as I do now.
I guess I'm a fraud no matter which party I join.
What, there isn't such a thing as a fraudulent Republican registration?
posted by Eric on 04.10.08 at 11:13 AM
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://classicalvalues.com/cgi-bin/pings.cgi/6454
Comments
Those of us in Ohio who participated in propping up HRC have been threatened in a similar fashion by the state election board. Apparently if you're changing your registration in anything other than "good faith" they don't like it.
RDub · April 10, 2008 12:35 PM
What I don't understand is how exactly is this a 'legal' question? Political parties are, at their core, free associations of private individuals. If I decide I want to join both major parties and they don't have internal controls to prevent that, well, bummer for them, it seems to me; it doesn't seem to be an issue that the government ought to get involved in, much as if I wanted for some odd reason to be a member of both the Yankee and Red Sox fan clubs.
Now, obviously, the D and R folks want to intimately tie their parties to the government so that they maintain their grip on power, and thus it is in their interest to criminalize this sort of thing and get their parties written in to law, and to a large part they have, but that doesn't make it right.
On a related issue, if the party officials can't control 'fraud' in the limited scope of their primary elections how are we to have any faith whatsoever that these very same officials will be able to prevent it when the elections are for real?
On a related issue, if the party officials can't control 'fraud' in the limited scope of their primary elections how are we to have any faith whatsoever that these very same officials will be able to prevent it when the elections are for real?
If only there were a candidate running from a major political machine city...say, Chicago. He should be able to sort such a thing out.
Sarcasm aside, that's a great point.
Anonymous · April 10, 2008 01:25 PM
Why is the number of Republican registrations of interest to the R party?
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Those of us in Ohio who participated in propping up HRC have been threatened in a similar fashion by the state election board. Apparently if you're changing your registration in anything other than "good faith" they don't like it.