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How the Right’s Building a ‘Poll Watcher’ Network for November
Bill Ouren, True the Votes national elections coordinator, is presenting before a group of about 50 recruits in Boca Raton, Fla. He stands beneath a banner bearing his organizations name, alongside that of the Koch brothers SuperPAC Americans For Prosperity, and the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integritys Citizen Watchdog, a rightwing group that teaches people how to become investigative journalists. Hes telling the story of how True the Vote grew from a small posse in Harris County, Texas, in 2009, to a deployed army of over 1,000 poll watchers across most of the state the following year. Ouren brags that the 2010 recruits reported over 800 individual incidences of voter
irregularities.
Irregularities is not a common term in the True the Vote vocab. Usually, its just called fraud. Seeing that the wording change has brought confusion to some of his audiences faces, Ouren offers an explanation. I use the word irregularities because we dont know if people did it intentionally or if they just didnt know better. That kind of logic isnt normal for the group either, so he immediately adds, So for those people who say voter and election fraud doesnt exist, Ive got 806 answers to that. It absolutely does in one election.
Ouren and Americans for Prosperity gathered these recruits in Boca Raton in July to instruct them on how they could become empowered vessels for True the Votes poll watcher program. True the Vote is most widely known for its advocacy of restrictive photo voter ID laws. But while that might garner headlines, the groups real focus is on policing the act of voting itself. As Ouren declared during the groups national summit in April, and repeated again in Boca Raton, his recruits job is chiefly to make voters feel like theyre driving and seeing the police following you. He aims to recruit one million poll watchers around the country.
Thats an ambitious goal, and its easy to conclude Ourens eyes are bigger than his organizing stomach. But when you consider all of the eyes in True the Votes rapidly growing network, the goal may not be so far-fetched.
http://www.indypendent.org/2012/08/27/how-right%E2%80%99s-building-%E2%80%98poll-watcher%E2%80%99-network-november
Irregularities is not a common term in the True the Vote vocab. Usually, its just called fraud. Seeing that the wording change has brought confusion to some of his audiences faces, Ouren offers an explanation. I use the word irregularities because we dont know if people did it intentionally or if they just didnt know better. That kind of logic isnt normal for the group either, so he immediately adds, So for those people who say voter and election fraud doesnt exist, Ive got 806 answers to that. It absolutely does in one election.
Ouren and Americans for Prosperity gathered these recruits in Boca Raton in July to instruct them on how they could become empowered vessels for True the Votes poll watcher program. True the Vote is most widely known for its advocacy of restrictive photo voter ID laws. But while that might garner headlines, the groups real focus is on policing the act of voting itself. As Ouren declared during the groups national summit in April, and repeated again in Boca Raton, his recruits job is chiefly to make voters feel like theyre driving and seeing the police following you. He aims to recruit one million poll watchers around the country.
Thats an ambitious goal, and its easy to conclude Ourens eyes are bigger than his organizing stomach. But when you consider all of the eyes in True the Votes rapidly growing network, the goal may not be so far-fetched.
http://www.indypendent.org/2012/08/27/how-right%E2%80%99s-building-%E2%80%98poll-watcher%E2%80%99-network-november
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How the Right’s Building a ‘Poll Watcher’ Network for November (Original Post)
SecularMotion
Sep 2012
OP
Rachel Maddow did a program on this organization. If they come up and bother you you can
southernyankeebelle
Sep 2012
#1
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)1. Rachel Maddow did a program on this organization. If they come up and bother you you can
call a police officer. What they are doing is intimidation.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)2. Voter intimidation, pure and simple. Dems
have to educate and inform--let everybody know that they cannot be cowed this way.
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)4. Yes indeed.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)6. Yes, it is and the baggers have been intimidating people nationally.
Flashmann
(2,140 posts)3. If it were allowed
I wouldn't object to a teabagger coming in the booth with me and watch while I voter D right down the line......I guess that's not altogether accurate,since I skip over any race where an R runs unopposed....Otherwise D,from top to bottom.....
SnakebiteSnakebite74
(25 posts)5. monitor the monitors
let's build an organization to monitor the monitors. anytime one shows up at a polling place, we send someone to monitor them back.
what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander