Voting Democrat? You vote.. Yea, Nov /5th/, that's the one.

[SirNitram]

Link

A phony State Board of Elections flier advising Republicans to vote on Nov. 4 and Democrats on Nov. 5 is being circulated in several Hampton Roads localities, according to state election officials.

In fact, Election Day for voters of all political stripes remains Nov. 4.

The somewhat official-looking flier – it features the State Board logo and the state seal – is dated Oct. 24 and indicates that “an emergency session of the General Assembly adopted the . . . emergency (voting) regulations to ease the load on local electorial (sic) precincts and ensure a fair electorial (sic) process.”

The four-paragraph flier concludes by apologizing “for any inconvenience this may cause but (we) felt this was the only way to ensure fairness to the complete electorial (sic) process.”

However, no emergency action has been taken by the General Assembly, which isn’t in session, and furthermore, doesn’t have the authority to change the date of a federal election.

State Board of Election officials today said they are aware of the flier, but disavowed any connection to it.

“It’s not even on our letterhead, they just copied the logo from our web site,” said agency staffer Ryan Enright, noting the flier has been forwarded to State Police for investigation as a possible incident of voter intimidation.

Election officials did not specify in which Hampton Roads localities the flier had been spotted.

The State Police, meanwhile, are aware of the complaint and looking into it, said spokeswoman Corinne Geller.

Voter suppression now in full force.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

I'm sure if it comes to sufficient attention, ACORN will be blamed for using it as a distraction measure from the real voter fraud of registering obviously fake voters.

Apparently few people can see the difference between fraudulent registration that won't actually affect outcomes and intentional disenfranchisement. Probably because a plurality (majority?) of Americans operate under moral systems that don't discriminate on the basis of probability of outcome but rather on purity of ideology. I'm so glad I don't have that tension any more; now there's just the issue of the difficulty of determining what the best outcome is (in some cases, not this in particular).

[The Romulan Republic]

At least the media is finally getting their act together a bit. CNN is bragging about a hotline they've set up so people can report problems with voting.

Frankly, though, anyone who falls for this probably also gave away every cent they had to those other on line scams.

[Glocksman]

I can't recommend Rick Perlstein's Nixonland enough.
Read it right now, and you'll find the parallels between 1968/1972 and today to be informative.

Hell, Karl Rove got his start as a protege of Nixon's dirty trickster Donald Segretti.
For the record, I was born in 1967 and I recently came to the realization that I have no interest in being a pawn in fighting the Sixties cultural wars all over again in order to advance the agendas of the theocon and neocon right.

[MKSheppard]

Voter suppression now in full force.

You'd have to be a moron to fall for this. Perhaps we need to combine it with Mayabird's Poison Jar test for a double combo to eliminate morons from the voting rolls.

[Stark]

I hear it's okay to attempt to pervert the franchise deliberately if it's unlikely to work?

I mean, I planned to murder my boss, but it'll never work so who cares!

[Gil Hamilton]

I don't know, Republicans seem to do this gag every election cycle. Last election they were doing it with automatic callers.

[Admiral Valdemar]

This level of comic book style evil plotting in a national election is quite without equal where I come from at least. It may not be a GOP backed thing, nor countrywide, but it is alarming someone would try this stunt. Especially from a nation hell bent on democracy and honour.

Not that I imagine the people who'd fall for this would get through like without being taken for a ride by a Nigerian scam or too as well.

[Ariphaos]

It's actually a fairly common joke around here...

[Illuminatus Primus]

Voter suppression now in full force.

You'd have to be a moron to fall for this. Perhaps we need to combine it with Mayabird's Poison Jar test for a double combo to eliminate morons from the voting rolls.

You talk real big for a man once stripped of the franchise for your offenses against society.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Voter suppression now in full force.

You'd have to be a moron to fall for this. Perhaps we need to combine it with Mayabird's Poison Jar test for a double combo to eliminate morons from the voting rolls.

You talk real big for a man once stripped of the franchise for your offenses against society.

I thought he got his voting rights back, didn't he?

[Gandalf]

I thought he got his voting rights back, didn't he?

He did, but I don't think that's the point.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The point is he shouldn't be so judgmental about people's choices and careless mistakes when he was deliberately denied the right to vote for a time. I'm sympathetic to Shep, I am, afterall, the wishy-washy, weak-minded liberal between the two of us. But he should not judge them so harshly considering his own situation. I'm sympathetic to people with one-time run-ins with the law and to people who make careless mistakes.

[Big Phil]

Here's a question for people well versed in politics and political campaigns; why on earth do people fall for voter suppression tactics? Short of men with guns threatening me if I attempt to vote, I can't imagine anything that would keep me from voting.

[SCRawl]

Here's a question for people well versed in politics and political campaigns; why on earth do people fall for voter suppression tactics? Short of men with guns threatening me if I attempt to vote, I can't imagine anything that would keep me from voting.

Think about how dumb the average person is. Now realize that half of the people are even dumber.

(This is not true, strictly speaking, as the mean need not be same as the median, but you get my point.)

[General Zod]

Here's a question for people well versed in politics and political campaigns; why on earth do people fall for voter suppression tactics? Short of men with guns threatening me if I attempt to vote, I can't imagine anything that would keep me from voting.

That's like asking why do some people still believe Obama's a Muslim.

[CmdrWilkens]

Over and above this it comes back to voter involvement. Even the best of the US states at registering their citizens usually has somewhere between 15-20% of the eligible populace not registered to vote. Amongst those who are registered another 15-25% often as not don't vote. When more than a quarter of teh population will quite literally not even care about voting you start to understand how its entirely possible for a large number of people to have no idea when to vote.

The point of this kind of voter supression is to target the occasional or low-information voter. The idea is to go after folks who just don't care enough to double check infromation like this but might, if they do vote, vote for the other guy.

[SirNitram]

I hear it's okay to attempt to pervert the franchise deliberately if it's unlikely to work?

I mean, I planned to murder my boss, but it'll never work so who cares!

Federal crimes are, of course, not crimes if Shep approves of them.

[Stark]

Here's a question for people well versed in politics and political campaigns; why on earth do people fall for voter suppression tactics? Short of men with guns threatening me if I attempt to vote, I can't imagine anything that would keep me from voting.

In an election like this, even a single percentage point of the population thinking 'maybe that's right' or not thinking about it or being to busy to sit down and really read it can change an election. This shit probably won't work, but it's a shotgun approach where each has a tiny chance of swaying someone into not voting or voting wrong, and you're wearing down your opponent before the election.

Needless to say this shit would be massively illegal in any decent democracy, but in America people just say 'oh lol on the dumb people'. Guardians of democracy, I hear?

[DPDarkPrimus]

This happened last election as well.

[Patrick Degan]

Here's a question for people well versed in politics and political campaigns; why on earth do people fall for voter suppression tactics? Short of men with guns threatening me if I attempt to vote, I can't imagine anything that would keep me from voting.

A lot of people don't understand their rights under the law or the relevant election laws which makes this sort of shit illegal in addition to defining when election day actually is. The civics education most people get in America is piss-poor at best.

[Twoyboy]

Voter suppression now in full force.

You'd have to be a moron to fall for this. Perhaps we need to combine it with Mayabird's Poison Jar test for a double combo to eliminate morons from the voting rolls.

The biggest problem is, this eliminates morons from only one party line. To be fair, we need to remove morons from both party lines equally. If the election is close (which it is certainly not shaping up to be) then both sides will need all of their morons.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I hear it's okay to attempt to pervert the franchise deliberately if it's unlikely to work?

I mean, I planned to murder my boss, but it'll never work so who cares!

Federal crimes are, of course, not crimes if Shep approves of them.

Law and order is for those Mexicans, you pinko fuck, not Real Americans.

[pieman3141]

Wasn't there a college thing in the States about students needing to vote in their home... whatever (riding? district?) or else their financial aid would be cut off? When money's on the line, guess whcih people will try to save first.

[Big Phil]

Wasn't there a college thing in the States about students needing to vote in their home... whatever (riding? district?) or else their financial aid would be cut off? When money's on the line, guess whcih people will try to save first.

What are you talking about?