How can this happen? File under R dirty tricks and ratfucking elections

[hootinholler]

From Mother Jones:

"What kind of shenanigans are going on now?" That's what Darin Robbins, a Green Party member in Corning, New York, thought when he learned that a stranger had circulated a petition to place his name on the ballot for a House race.

Robbins had no plans to seek office, so he was shocked a couple of weeks ago when a Green Party secretary called to tell him that a petition had been filed in his name to run against GOP Rep. Tom Reed, the vulnerable first-term Republican who represents the 23rd congressional district in upstate New York.

The story gets stranger. A Republican operative was behind the attempt to put Robbins on the ballot. Aaron Andrew Keister, a notary public who has worked as a video tracker for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the political committee dedicated to electing GOPers to the House, filed ballot access petitions—each bearing the signatures of about 75 registered voters—for Robbins and a second Green Party member. If Keister's plan had succeeded, it could have helped Reed—the Northeast regional chairman of the NRCC—by putting on the ballot a progressive candidate who would likely draw votes away from his expected Democratic opponent, county legislator Martha Robertson. But Keister messed up: Because he filed the Robbins petition late and got the other Green Party member's address wrong, neither Green will appear on the ballot for the June primary or the November general election, according to New York election officials.

Keister, a registered Republican, took advantage of state election rules to try to place the two Greens on the primary ballot in the 23rd district, which includes the cities of Ithaca, Jamestown, and Elmira. In New York, members of small political parties can petition to get on the ballot by collecting the signatures of 5 percent of their party members in the district. These signatures can be gathered by a member of the party, a notary public, or a commissioner of deeds. Because the 23rd district does not have many registered Green Party voters, it only takes 70 Green signatures to put a name on the ballot in the district's primary election. All Keister had to do was collect the John Hancocks of a few dozen Greens, sign his name at the bottom of each page of signatures, and file the nominating petitions with the state. Under state rules, a nominated candidate can request to take his or her name off the ballot, but only within four days of the filing deadline of April 10. Both of the Green Party members Keister tried to get to run for Congress didn't find out about the nominating petitions until after that cut-off date. If their petitions hadn't been ruled invalid for other reasons, they would have appeared on the primary ballot.

More at the link.



Edit to ask how is it that a candidate does not know they have filed for the ballot? Isn't their signature required?

[BeeBee]

1. Doesn't the "candidate" have to file papers? Something's wrong if anyone can be put on a ballot

without their knowledge.

[hootinholler]

3. Apparently it's can be done

at least in that district.

[rafeh1]

2. the next step in dirty tricks

the next step in dirty tricks would be for rethugs to secretly create a party lets call it "progressive greens" find a bunch of talkative hipsters put on it and place it on ballots to split the democratic vote..

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Some election laws need tightening in NY, and the Republican contempt for democracy

needs to be broadcast widely. Make sure the voters in that seat know the Republicans are ratfuckers trying to pass themselves off as Greens.

[Octafish]

5. Takes money to ''broadcast widely.''

That's the reason why Money, in politics, is speech.

And why the Koch brothers and Wall Street are so popular.