On June 13, an attorney for the No Labels Party of Maine asked the Secretary of State to reveal the evidence that No Labels workers had tricked any voter into registering into No Labels.
Last month, the Secretary of State sent a letter to all 6,456 registrants in No Labels, asserting that workers for No Labels had tricked some people into registering with the party, and asking the recipient if he or she wants to re-register out of No Labels. In Maine, a party becomes ballot-qualified by persuading 5,000 people to register into the party.
Here is the letter, which says that what the Secretary of State did is unprecedented. To see the whole letter, click on the box in the upper right corner.
Actually there is a precedent. In 1979 in California, as the Libertarian Party was finishing up its registration drive for party status, election officials also asserted some voters had been tricked, and prepared to send a letter similar to the Maine letter to all the Libertarian registrants in certain counties. The California Libertarian Party sued in Superior Court to stop the letter from being sent out. The case was settled when the officials agreed not to send the letter until after the party had qualified. In California, when a party got enough registered members to qualify as of a particular date, it remained on the ballot even if its registration later declined below the required number. So postponing the issuance of that letter did not affect the Libertarian Party’s qualified status. The case was Libertarian Party of California v Eu, Orange County Superior Court, case 32-50-01, settled on December 19, 1979.
No labels did what I expected them to do. Now I guess we’ll see how widespread the alleged deception or fraud was. If it was widespread hopefully the people they hired who did it will face the consequences. If it was rare hopefully the SOS will lose her job, or better yet go to jail herself. Best of all would be if they both did wrong and share a jail cell. No labels and the liberal SOS both seem shady to me.
Some people likely were tricked, but it is a difficult thing to prove without video and audio recorded evidence.
Caveat elector – let the voter beware. A voter is solely responsible for whatever votes cast, or whatever petitions signed. There is no end to second guessing whether or not voters were informed enough in their choices. Even the most well informed voter doesn’t have perfect knowledge.
And – in fact – even the most well informed public official doesn’t have perfect knowledge. That’s why we have checks and balances, and rotation in office. Who is to judge whether or not the voters voted “correctly”?
NOOOO PUBLIC PARTY REGISTRATIONS
EQUAL NOM PETS/FILING FEES
Political fraud is still fraud. It’s not different just because politics is involved.