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Re: Wisconsin Recall Petitions 

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Sat, 23 Apr 11 4:47 AM | 89 view(s)
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Msg. 28497 of 65535
(This msg. is a reply to 28470 by clo)

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In an effort to gather enough signatures to trigger recall elections of state senators in Wisconsin, some backers are turning to peculiar, unconventional and, it appears, even intoxicating means.

Wisconsin Homeless Reportedly Given Free Cigarettes For Gore Votes

Monday, July 07, 2008
By Jim Burns

(CNSNews.com) - A Milwaukee television station, WISN-TV is reporting campaign workers for Vice President Gore supplied homeless voters with packs of cigarettes and then gave them rides so the voters could pick up their absentee ballots in Milwaukee.

The Bush campaign says the Milwaukee County District Attorney's office is investigating the incident and the Wisconsin Republican Party will be filing a complaint with the state elections board.

Gore campaign officials said they didn't ask for that kind of campaign help and ordered those workers to leave Wisconsin. However, Gore campaign volunteer Connie Milstein told WISN-TV, "we've been pretty busy, going to the local shelters." The station reported that Milstein worked for the Gore campaign in New York and was brought in to "get out the vote."

WISN showed George Scharf, a homeless voter, explaining why he took advantage of the offer. "They had a couple of vans, and said they'd give us a ride. So I took a ride," Scharf said. Scharf said in the report that he had been planning to vote for Gore anyway, and that voters weren't told about the free cigarettes until after they were at the polls.

A Milwaukee Rescue Mission employee said in the television report that he had to ask Democratic campaign volunteers to leave the property after he caught them trying to bribe potential voters with cigarettes.

One voter, however, said he did not feel like he was bribed for his vote. "They just came and asked us to go and vote," Bob Socha said. He also said he enjoys voting and was already planning to vote for Gore.

Wisconsin State Representative Scott Walker, who heads up the Milwaukee County Bush campaign, said the tactics used by the Gore campaigners raise a few questions.

"Even aside from the law itself, I just think most people on a gut check level would say that's wrong. One has to question if they were going to be voting anyway. One has to question why would the campaign, the Gore campaign, be giving anything out, other than a ride to vote," Walker told WISN-TV.

A Milwaukee representative of the Gore campaign told the station that such bribery is not wanted. "This kind of activity described by Channel 12 is not the kind of help we ask for and it's the kind of help we flat-out reject. These volunteers were from out of state, acting on their own and this was not part of any official Democratic get-out-the-vote activity. They have left the state and we will not invite them to return," Susan Lagana, a spokesperson for the Gore campaign in Wisconsin said.

The Bush campaign contends that Connie Milstein, the worker caught on tape handing out the cigarettes is chairman of the Democratic National Committee's Major Supporters. Milstein is based in New York City.

"The woman who was doing this in Milwaukee was no ordinary Democrat volunteer. She's a senior member of the Democrat National Committee, obviously somebody who knows the vice president personally and is very involved in Democrat politics at a senior and high level," Bush Communications Adviser Ari Fleischer said.

"This is just plain and simply wrong. There is a right way and a wrong way to turn out the vote in this country and handing cigarettes to homeless people in an effort to entice them to vote is as wrong as wrong can be. It raises questions as to whether similar activities are going on at other places around the country," Fleischer said.

"It also raises as to how deeply the Democrat party adheres to its philosophy of fighting tobacco," Fleischer said. "Surely, she (Connie Milstein) knew what the vice president said in 1996 (on tobacco), yet she handed out cigarettes to homeless people to get them to the polls. It strikes me as an act of inconsistency and I hope the vice president will decry it."

The Bush campaign also wants to know who paid for Milstein's travel to Wisconsin from New York, how many cigarettes were handed out and who paid for the cigarettes.

Bush campaign legal counsel Ben Ginsberg said the action violates a Wisconsin state law entitled "election bribery."

"This morning (Monday) the Milwaukee County DA (District Attorney) announced that they are investigating the incident and the Wisconsin Republican Party will be filing a complaint with the State Elections Board on the civil side. We are concerned as to where this may be occurring elsewhere around the country," Ginsberg said.

Late Monday, Wisconsin Republican Governor Tommy Thompson criticized the Gore campaign volunteers for their actions.

"There is no place for this despicable brand of politics in Wisconsin. It is unconscionable that the Gore campaign would prey on vulnerable people such as the homeless by rewarding them with cigarettes in exchange for their votes," Thompson said in a statement.

Neither the Gore campaign nor the Democratic National Committee returned phone calls Monday seeking comment.




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Liberals are like a "Slinky". Totally useless, but somehow ya can't help but smile when you see one tumble down a flight of stairs!




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The above is a reply to the following message:
Re: Wisconsin Recall Petitions
By: clo
in FFFT
Fri, 22 Apr 11 3:20 PM
Msg. 28470 of 65535

Wisconsin Recall Fight Heats Up As Democrats Complain Of 'Shots For Signatures' Deals (AUDIO)

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to gather enough signatures to trigger recall elections of state senators in Wisconsin, some backers are turning to peculiar, unconventional and, it appears, even intoxicating means.

The Wisconsin Democratic Party is planning to file a complaint to the state Government Accountability Board alleging that a Republican signature-gatherer offered alcoholic beverages to a group of women to get them to sign a recall petition against a Democratic state senator.

Although that's not illegal in Wisconsin, it is strongly discouraged and, Democrats argue, evidence that Republicans don't really have enough grassroots support for their recall campaigns.

Republicans have until early next week to file recall petitions against eight Democratic state senators, more than half of the caucus that left the state in February to protest and delay the GOP's budget repair bill, which included a provision stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights. So far, the state Republican Party has not filed any recall petitions, although they are reportedly planning to file two -- against state Sens. Dave Hansen and Jim Holperin -- on Thursday.

Meantime, Wisconsin Democrats have filed recall petitions against four Republican state senators and have until May 2 to get enough signatures for the four others, according to the state Government Accountability Board. The campaign will be a rarity for Wisconsin: there have been only four recall elections in the state's history.

According to a draft of the Democratic complaint to the GAB, obtained by The Huffington Post from a Democratic source, a woman who was at John's Main Event, a tavern in Burlington, Wis., with her friends on Feb. 27, "heard that someone was providing 'shots' to people if they signed a petition to recall State Senator Robert Wirch," a Democrat.

The woman, who signed the complaint, said a bartender showed her the recall petition and told her that if she signed it, she and her friends would get free shots.

The source also passed along an audio recording of the encounter, in which the woman says, "So you're going to get us -- one, two, three, four, five shots if we sign this?" A man responds, "That's right. ... I'll buy them." 

There are many questions that remain surrounding the recording, including whether the bartender was joking and whether the woman actually supported recalling Wirch or was just egging on the signature-gatherer. But it does demonstrate that a party's reliance on a network of unsupervised signature-gatherers can end up causing headaches.

The indication that it's a petition to recall a Democratic senator comes when the woman expresses frustration and says it's "bullcrap" that "they went out of the state," referring to the Democratic state senators who fled to Illinois during the budget standoff. She later refers to the "Democrat."

At the end of the recording, another woman asks, "What are we signing again?" The first woman replies, "To recall them again, because it's bullshit that they left. And you get a shot out of it."

LISTEN:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/21/wisconsin-recall-shots_n_851459.html

Reid Magney, a spokesman for the GAB -- which oversees the state's campaign finance, elections, ethics and lobbying laws -- said offering drinks in return for signatures doesn't actually appear to be illegal.

"Our attorneys have been unable to find anything in state law that would prohibit offering drinks or anything for signing a petition," Magney said, though he added that they "strongly encourage people not to do so because it taints the process."

Based on the above recording, Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesman Graeme Zielinski confirmed that the party may still file a complaint with the GAB challenging a possible Wirch recall petition on ethical grounds. Meantime, he said, the Democrats are working to make sure their own recall campaigns are ironclad.

"For our purposes, [on Tuesday] we filed against the fourth senator, Sheila Harsdorf," Zielinski said. "We filed about 23,000 signatures of about 15,000 required. In each case, we've been more than 140 percent of the total. In some cases, almost double of the total required. We scrubbed them pretty clean too, so they're going to survive any Republican challenge."

The Wisconsin Republican Party did not return a request for comment.

Both parties are already gearing up to challenge each other's recall petitions -- and fend off challenges to their own. Democrats have scheduled a Thursday morning conference call with reporters to discuss what they described in a press release as "the fraudulently pursued, deliberately hidden and dangerous Republican recall racket against three Democratic senators."

On the Republican side, lawyers for state Sen. Dan Kapanke (R) have filed a complaint challenging the recall petition targeting the legislator, arguing it should be thrown out because of missing paperwork. According to the Associated Press, "The organizers have five days to file a rebuttal to Kapanke's challenge. Kapanke then has another two days to respond. Election officials will then have 14 days to either approve or reject the petition."

Groups or individuals can challenge either entire petitions or particular signatures. They have 10 days after a petition has been submitted to file a challenge. The GAB then considers those challenges when reviewing the petitions to determine whether a recall election is called for, in which case the incumbent legislator will face off against other candidates.

UPDATE: 11:48 a.m. -- The Democratic rebuttal to the GOP challenge to the Kapanke petition can be found here.

UPDATE: 3:12 p.m. -- A Huffington Post reader -- a resident of Burlington and someone who frequents John's Main Event -- passed along a screenshot of the bartender's Facebook page, in which he talks about his signature-gathering that on Feb. 27 and makes fun of the protesters who showed up:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/21/wisconsin-recall-shots_n_851459.html


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