They may be nominally the more religion-friendly of the two major parties, but in the real world, nothing is sacred to the GOP. Based on this, I believe they would steal their own mothers into poverty to gain themselves even a slight political advantage:
TPMMuckrakerYou couldn't fine a Republican Party organization enough money to discourage them from doing the same thing again in a year or two. No, the only adequate punishment is the obvious one: Throw. Their. Butts. In. Jail. (But then they'd only be able to get better quality pot. Sigh!)
Report: CA Voters Tricked Into Registering As Republicans With Pot Petition
Justin Elliott | April 28, 2010, 8:39AM
Orange County authorities are launching an investigation into possible voter registration fraud after a local newspaper reported over a hundred cases of voters being tricked into registering as Republicans by petitioners who asked them to sign petitions for, among other causes, legalizing pot.
The Orange County Register reported last week that the Orange County District Attorney's office announced it would team up with the Secretary of State on the case, following a Register report that 99 written complaints were filed since March by voters who said they were registered as Republicans without their consent.
Another 74 voters reached by the Register said they, too, were unwillingly made members of the GOP.
In a lengthy investigation published earlier this month, the paper pointed to an $8 "bounty" offered by the California Republican Party for each new registration as a cause for the problems. It identified multiple petitioners who work for vendors "with ties to the California Republican Party." Back in 2006, a similar scandal led to the convictions of several petitioners.
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I just don;t get this registration as a Democrat or Republican thing. I'm a rev=gisteerd Labour Party member but that's because I pay my dues to teh party and very occasionally go to party meetings
ReplyDeletejams, in the U.S., party registration procedures vary state-by-state.
ReplyDeleteFor example, in Texas (and I'm claiming no particular virtues for this system), you don't register explicitly for a party: you register to vote in any election in which you are eligible... state, county, city; primary, runoff, general; whatever... then use the voter certificate you receive to vote in a party primary in your precinct. At that primary, they stamp your voter certificate "voted [party-name] primary," and that determines your party affiliation for a two-year period. A stamped voter certificate is your admission ticket to the party precinct convention, which is the first level of direct participation in choosing candidates, passing resolutions, etc.
If you're a fanatic like me, you can do more... in 2004, I went all the way to the Texas Democratic Convention, where I was (with reservations!) a delegate for John Kerry for president.
I no longer have the physical stamina to do that kind of thing, although now that I think about it, I had an injured foot at that convention, too. But I am still formally a Democratic Party member, entirely because of local and statewide races... the national party can go take a flying leap as far as I'm concerned given its recent behavior.
So that's Texas. For California, ellroon could tell you better than I could, but from the article, it's clear that CA, like many states, does original voter registration by party.
In Texas, a volunteer deputy voter registrar like me who was found to be engaged in defrauding registrants... in that way or any other... could find him- or herself facing felony charges. It is also a criminally bad idea to "lose" someone's voter registration form on its way to the county office... timely delivery is mandated by law.