Tuesday, November 03, 2009

HORSERACE

Talking Points Memo Lies, to the Surprise of No One (UPDATED)

In discussing a Campaign Spot post from a few days ago, a contributor to Talking Points Memo, in typical fashion, lies. It is not clear whether this is a result of deliberate dishonesty or merely a reflection of complete ignorance about the topic they’re writing about.

They write:

First, Jim Geraghty of National Review sounded the alarm last Thursday: State Democrats, he fretted, had asked that absentee voters whose signatures on their ballot request form didn't match that on their registration form — 2300 people in all — be given provisional ballots, rather than have their votes thrown out if they couldn't be contacted by local election officials (emphasis added by Jim). Geraghty warned: "Suspicious minds see the [Democrats' request] as an attempt to create a pool of emergency votes to be used if Christie holds a small lead on Election Night."

The letter from the New Jersey State Democratic Committee does NOT include the stipulation that provisional ballots be given to applicants if the local election officials can't reach them. I know this because I’ve read the letter. I have the letter. It’s not clear Talking Points Memo has the letter; if they did, they shouldn’t write that the letter says things that it doesn’t. Read the relevant section yourself:

Yes, "they want standard procedures of notifying voters" to be used, but the Democrats don’t want provisional ballots only if the county clerks can’t contact the voters; they want ALL of the applicants whose signatures don’t match to be given provisional ballots. For those with eyesight problems, and/or Talking Points Memo contributors, it says, "we propose that all VBM applicants subject to rejection on the basis of signature comparison alone receive provisional ballots by mail."

As mentioned in the original post, county clerks generally have a pretty lenient stance on what constitutes a mismatched signature; they understand that a person might have been standing, holding a clipboard, etc; to get rejected, the signature on the absentee ballot has to be strikingly different from the one on the individual’s original voter-registration form. And also as noted in the original post, there are existing provisions under the law to sort out mismatched signatures; the Democrats want to throw out those laws at the last minute.

Also unmentioned by Talking Points Memo, but mentioned in the original post, are two cases of indictments and guilty pleas to charges of election fraud in New Jersey using absentee ballots. That would seem rather relevant to anyone who wasn’t just throwing up a post trying to insist there’s nothing to see here.

If you’re going to criticize my reporting, get your G*****n facts straight.

UPDATE: The TPM contributor, Zachary Roth, writes in:

I didn't mean that the Dems' letter stipulated that provisional ballots would go only to voters who couldnt be contacted.  I was just trying to say that if the Dems request wasnt granted, these votes would be thrown out unless the voters could be contacted.  I can see how you could have read it differently, though.  Hence my update.  But there's no lying going on.

I appreciate him writing in and trying to clarify. But I think his original wording was pretty clear and pretty misleading.

11/03 11:55 AMShare