Early last year, Josh Marshall was on top of the allegations of phone jamming in tight races in 2002. At least one shoe has fallen: The AP is reporting that the former GOP Marketplace president Allen Raymond plead guilty today to deliberately jamming Democratic phone lines in New Hampshire in an effort to stifle voter turnout and frustrate election day telephone calls from Democratic offices.
I can’t find any updates regarding the NJ indictment Josh refers to, nor are there any mentions of Raymond and/or GOP Marketplace after February, 2003. Seems to have kept a low profile.
Raymond will be sentenced in November.
Let me preface by saying I think criminal acts shouldn't go unpunished and what these folks did was wrong and unethical.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't understand is how one equates phone calls and phone jamming to "preventing voters from voting". I mean, unless we're talking American Idol voting by phone, or slashing tires on cars - I just don't see the proximate cause.
Jason - didn't claim he prevented people from voting. But what he did do was deliberately engage in a practice designed to frustrate efforts to turn out the vote. Very different issue.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, many in the country take voting for granted. And both parties regularly employ election day phone banking designed to encourage people to get out and vote - including rides to polling places, etc. And when those organizations are prevented from making their phone calls, the result is that their vote turn-out will almost certainly be lower than it would otherwise have been.
The guilty plea was concerning harassing phone calls, not interfering with voting. That the latter happened because of the former was the design, of course, but hardly the crime.
I agree that voting should never be messed with. As such, I'm curious what you think of the concerted effort by some Democrats to challenge Ralph Nader's existence on many states' ballots in November. For a group who feigned such outrage in 2000, claiming their actions were "just so everybody had the chance to vote for his/her candidate" - it sure seems like they're doing everything they can to prevent many Americans from being able to vote for their candidate of choice - Nader.
ReplyDelete