This made me laugh, from a WaPo chat (h/t reader J):
Q. I don’t see how anyone approaching that polling station would NOT be intimidated by that man with the billy club/baseball bat. He was dressed in “traditional” Black Panther garb, slapping the stick into his palm and, although I could never make it out, speaking to the prospective voters. He would certainly frighten me. For the Justice Department to NOT pursue this case is unconscionable, IMO. What do you folks think?
A. I spent a day interviewing voters in this ward and people told me they didn’t think that the men were “too exciting” and generally were not afraid. One of the members of the New Black Panther Party, Jerry Jackson, lives in the neighborhood and had been at the polling place on other occassions. Still, a call did apparently did go out from someone at the location reporting the presence of the panthers.
Sometimes things are so dumb that I can’t process them right away. Reading this over, it finally hit me: this entire “scandal” is about two guys dressed in “traditional Black Panther garb” standing near a polling place.
Allan
Perhaps we could start a group of Black Panther Party re-enacters. I hear that no one should be concerned with a little historical re-enactment.
Zifnab
So, Washington State has this neat thing called “Mail in Voting” where you just drop your ballot in the mailbox. Quick, clean, easy, and you don’t have to put up with any of this bullshit.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Allan:
Ha!
John - A Motley Moose
@Allan: That got a LOL out of me. Thanks, I needed that.
valdivia
wait. what is traditional black panther garb?
black clothes and cool glasses & a leather coat?
’cause I dress that way and want to make sure I am not reported when I go vote. or volunteer on election day.
RalfW
Yep. The entire New Black Panther party is two guys. Now, lets not underestimate the damage two guys can do: Dick Cheney and Karl Rove pretty much ruined America. So, uh, there ya go!
MikeJ
@Zifnab:When I see someone in traditional postal carrier garb I get nervous. I finally moved back to the US from Engerland because right hand drive cars reminded me of postal workers.
Linda Featheringill
@valdivia:
Beat me to it.
What is traditional black panther garb?
suzanne
@Allan: LMMFAO. Win.
JWL
Don’t tell me there’s no such thing as traditional Black Panther garb.
The first FBI agents that attempted to infiltrate the Panthers 40-odd years ago had their covers blown because of their spit shined oxford shoes.
You can look it up.
freelancer
@Allan:
You read my mind. How funny would it be for a bunch of white totebaggers to dress up in similar garb in OD green shirts, boots, and a black beret claiming to be The new New Black Panthers?
Cat Lady
@Linda Featheringill:
Apart from the bandoliers, it looks a little French.
Omnes Omnibus
@valdivia: It’s the berets.
valdivia
@Linda Featheringill:
because we are sartorially oriented and had a confused by the whole garb thing?
seriously: have I been an in the closet black panther and didn’t know about it?
Southern Beale
Ummm … context, people! This is in direct relation to the Texas Tea Party voter intimidation case … down to an exact re-creation of the intimidation tactics the Texas Tea Party group is accused of doing.
Typical right wing tactic. Do something horrible, people notice it and raise the alarm, right wing finds another case so they can say “liberals do it too!”
Welcome to bipartisan American. We bipartisanly suck in all things. Right is no longer right, wrong is no longer wrong. Everything is mushy and undefined because we no longer have a standard bearer of decency.
Martin
@valdivia:
Well, you can pretty much wear whatever you want. But the key identifying characteristic is that you need to make your skin dark.
Just a little public service announcement so you know what to wear to avoid being accused of being a panther.
debbie
If the frightened voter wants some real intimidation, let’s have them dress up in Muslim garb.
Nutella
Who wants to start a tumblog at blackpantherswearingthings.com?
David
Perhaps black anther garb is similar to the furries phenomenon:
http://regmedia.co.uk/2007/06/28/cat_furry.jpg
RinaX
@Linda Featheringill:
Any clothes being worn by “suspicious” black men. And by suspicious, I mean…well, just black men period hanging about in the general vicinity of white folks going about their business like it’s nothing!
Linda Featheringill
@JWL:
You can sometimes detect an FBI undercover by the combination of scruffy everywhere except for their perfectly filed fingernails.
Also, too.
[Yes, I have a checkered past. :-)]
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: Muslim garb like Gap sweatshirts and tiaras?
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
I think he must mean the beret. That seems to be the only common element to most Black Panther outfits.
RinaX
@Martin:
Heh, you got your reply in before mine.
garage mahal
Fox used to have these NBP dudes on all the time when they simply wanted to hear a voice from the black community. Usually Hannity as I recall.
Linda Featheringill
@Cat Lady:
Oui.
Svensker
But this is the most awful thing EVER, don’t you know that? It could topple the entire U.S. gummint and usher in Sharia, communism, sockalism and fascism all at once, with falafel! Or that’s what my wingnut rellies tell me anyway.
Omnes Omnibus
@Svensker: I’m kind of hungry. Falafel sounds good.
Cris
I think of the fundamental “black panther garb” as being open carry.
BGinCHI
Well fuck, this totally vindicates Juan Williams.
BGinCHI
Countdown till fucking Dick Fucking Armey founds the White Panthers.
burnspbesq
OT:
It’s a circle-jerk: ABC is reporting about what al-Jazeera is reporting about what’s going to be in the Wikileaks Iraq dump. Apparently al-Jazeera got an exclusive sneak peek.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wikileaks-dump-put-iraqi-war-death-toll-285000/story?id=11949670&cid=ESPNheadline
j low
Dear god let thousands of freaks in plush black panther cat suits descend on pollings places across the nation, alternately nuzzling and hissing at the teatards.
Redshift
Yes, presumably that’s why “The New Black Panther with the nightstick was escorted away by the police.” The extended conservative whining over this is because the charges against the people who weren’t carrying a nightstick were dropped.
I swear, one of the most annoying characteristics of wingnuts is their certainty that the simple literal meaning of a few words trumps any understanding of of serious legal and governmental concepts. “There was a guy there who was intimidating — voter intimidation!” (even if no actual voters were intimidated.) “Hate crimes mean that you can be arrested for thinking the wrong thing!” “The exact words ‘separation of church and state’ aren’t in the Constitution!”
snarkout
To be fair, traditional Black Panther garb is pretty intimidating.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@burnspbesq:
I can’t wait to hear what Andrew Sullivan thinks about Matt Yglesias’s reply to Clive Crook about this.
Omnes Omnibus
@j low: You owe me a keyboard. Please use the new internet you just won to send it to me.
BGinCHI
@Redshift: Where’s Jim the Foolish Literalist when you need him.
Jim?
Figurative vs Literal. Help the wingnuts out.
Cris
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: It’s Sullivan-Free Friday. Have you forgotten?
Cris
@snarkout: Intimidation foiled by distracting hooters
lamh32
Le sigh.
“black panther garb” , really!!
A few of my friends and I were talking about how after watching movies like “Glory”, “Roots”, “Alex Haley’s Queen”, “Miss Jane Pittman”, “Mississippi Burning”, the MKL story, etc, we just need to take a day off from work, to just let the “shit go”, just so we don’t just go off on some random person, for simple acts of ignorance, i.e. “do you and your sisters have the same father?” (yes I’ve been asked that once by a co-worker, cause all of my sisters resemble each other, but we are all different “shades of blackness” which is common in all AA families).
Now-a-days, with the abundance of stories about hidden racism/bigotry, and blatant racism/bigotry, etc that have been coming out in the open since Obama’s election, oh hell, since Obama’s election campaign, we don’t really have time to “let the shit go” before another story comes out.
Ugh, I’m reminded of a joke Dave Chappelle told on one of his stand-up specials:
Dave Chappelle – “somethings are so racist, that you didn’t even get mad, you just had to say “god damn that was racist”!!!
gwangung
@snarkout: Damn straight. Though, fornthe full effect, you needed the Galactus Plan to be seen as well….
Dennis SGMM
Personally, I always feel nervous when I get on a plane and see people dressed in traditional Black Panther garb.
gwangung
depends on who’s holding the bat….Ray Lewis or William “the refrigerator” Perry.
Martin
@j low: LOL. It might only come to life in an SNL skit, but a flashmob of people doing that in South Carolina would be fucking hilarious.
jl
@Redshift: Hmm, have any of the tighty whitey GOP ‘voter integrity’ people been lead away from the polls by police? Including those who verbally challenge minority voters (as very possibly the late Richard Rehnquist did years ago)?
After all, wouldn’t any minority voter be intimidated by some one who, by their dress, obviously wishes to be primarily identified as a White Man? And some one who asks aggressive and intimidating questions based on no evidence?
I think the legal and political tactics of the GOP and their Tea Peoples are more intimidating and dangerous than any random self appointed and self/identified/by/dress New Black Panther, or tighty whitey poll watchers.
Edit: does this mean the Reason glibertarian posse are New Black Panthers?
Jules
Don’t forget folks that if you live in the “inner city” and can vote early you, or the “inner city” Democrats around you, are probably committing voter fraud.
Of course this is according to fucking Dick Army….
But just you wait for the screaming if any TeaGOP Party candidate loses on Nov. 2nd.
ACORN and the Black Panthers!!!11!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh32: This from Blazing Saddles might help.
RSR
As a resident of Philadelphia (and the vicinity) for nearly my entire life, I’d like to point out that in Philadelphia, the real voter intimidation takes place during primaries, not general elections.
Dem on Dem crime is rampant some years. Occasionally the Republicans carry on a little, but not that often.
Dennis SGMM
@Jules:
Everybody knows that George Soros has been secretly funding the training of a force of Ninja voters who can cloud poll workers’ minds and thus vote again, and again, and again…
Redshift
@jl: Yep. And if they are just arrested by local police, and not subject to a federal voter intimidation prosecution, then they’ll have gotten off scot free by wingnut standards, and they’ll have nothing to complain about, right?
BGinCHI
@Jules: I honestly think Fox and the Teatards are going to go extra super crazy after 11/2 if they don’t swamp the election.
They’re going to feel especially bad that they paid damn good money for it.
(f dick armey)
burnspbesq
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
Well, I was there, too.
And you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!
Mark S.
I would fall over dead if any of these talking heads would just once call Dick Armey out as the racist fuckstain he is.
El Tiburon
For wingnuts and teatards, this is all you really need to start a scandal. A black person, really, regardless of garb or location is all you really need for these people.
But a scary black man (+1) with a BAT!! near a polling place? Why that is sweet orgasmic release for the Birchers.
jl
I am not a lawyer, but reading exchanges like this in the NY Times blog on this story, blows up my BS meter. I think this whole purported DOJ scandal is political propaganda designed to intimidate minorities and appeal to racists. I think it is clear enough that any honest media talking head should call it out as such.
Q.
Rare DOJ enforcement of Section 11b of the Voting Rights Act
The Justice Department has brought 3 or 4 cases under Section 11b of the Voting Rights Act since 1965. These are dismally low numbers. Two of those four cases (brought under Bush) were brought against blacks and on behalf of whites. Those statistics show that these cases are rare and difficult to bring. Those statistics also show that the Bush administration only used 11b on behalf of whites while ignoring dozens of complaints of intimidation against minority voters. Given those facts, it would seem that DOJ needs to strengthen enforcement on behalf of minorities in this area.
…A.
Jerry Markon writes:
Hi, thanks for the thoughtful question. You are correct that lawsuits under Section 11b (this is the section the New Black Panthers lawsuit was brought under) are rare. Part of that is because judges have imposed a high burden of proof and cases are just difficult to prove. As for the Bush administration, I can’t say how many complaints they received. I will say that there were allegations during the Bush administration that armed Mississippi state agents entered the homes of elderly black voters, during a vote fraud investigation, and asked who they voted for. I’m told that state officials acknowledged this in court proceedings, but that the Bush DOJ didn’t bring a lawsuit. I can’t say exactly why that is. Obama administration officials have said that the Bush DOJ did not pursue other allegations of intimidation aimed at minority voters as well. As the story says, there are differences over whether enforcement should focus on protecting minorities, or be race-neutral.
Note: emphasis added.
Mnemosyne
Wait. Hang on.
You mean to tell me that black people don’t automatically find black men as terrifying as white people do, so black people going to the polls in their black neighborhood weren’t put off from going in just because there were two black guys standing outside?
That’s crazy talk, dude.
The Republic of Stupidity
Yes… that’s all it ever was in the first place…
A complete non-event… except for the endless screeching and pants-soiling on the right side of the political spectrum…
Go back and look at the controversial video footage that triggered this whole embarrassing episode…
You can literally hear the balding, chubby, oddly-sexless middle-aged white man who took it puffing as he ran up to the polling place to capture it all on video.
No one ever came forward to say they were actually threatened…
The polling place was in a predominantly black neighborhood…
Apparently the New Black Panthers have about 12 members, to boot…
It’s my understanding that someone on the US Commission on Civil Rights even went so far as to say the case was ‘a fantasy’ and ‘a fraud’ the GOP hoped they could use to destroy Obama.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@jl:
You think?
KCinDC
James “Pimp” O’Keefe III says he’s holding a press conference Monday. I assume it’s to report on his infiltration of the NBPP wearing traditional Black Panther garb.
Woodrowfan
I bet he looked as authentic as Gene Wilder in “Silver Streak” trying to sneak onto the train with Richard Pryor.
Southern Beale
Is it just me or is making reference to “scary Black Panthers” analogous to railing against evul rock’n’roll music? A dog whistle that only people over 70 can hear?
soonergrunt
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: Holy Christ! The Army is full of Black Panthers!
jl
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: Yeah, I do think so, what are going to do about, White Man?
Edit: yeesh. That’s my thanks for digging up more evidence that you are correct, and even phrasing it in a way that demonstrates that Balloon Juice has very thoughtful and impartial commentariate.
I do and do and do for these kids, and what thanks to I get? Oy! And may the Holy Mother Mary have mercy on my soul? (Covering both Jewish and Italian grandmothers)
patrick II
When I voted in the Hamptons there was a guy standing outside of the polling place wearing a jacket, light blue shirt, khakis and penny loafers. Scared the s**t out of me.
danimal
@burnspbesq: Are there New Black Panthers in London? You can never go wrong with a Clash reference.
ruemara
Wait, I’ve been black for a while now and no one has told me about the traditional Black Panther garb. I know I never make it out to the lodge meetings, plus, I’m a gamer, but damn, you can’t get these updates out to me so I’m not ashamed to be seen in public?
ruemara
@Omnes Omnibus: I wear that all the time. While house cleaning.
@snarkout:
uh, Is it just me or is Storm looking MIGHTY FINE in that pic. Dude in the cat mask is ok, but Ororo Munroe!
spongeworthy
Just so we’re clear, it’s okay if I stand outside a polling place in a sheet swinging a noose, right? Not a big deal, just something the wingnuts blew up, say?
And if for some reason I were not prosecuted, say because of a policy that the law will be enforced, not on the basis of equal protection for everybody, but of protection for some, that is a good thing.
Am I following along? I want to be sure, like the rest of you, that I don’t say anything that’s outside anybody’s comfortable cocoon. I want to be certain I am liked by strangers on the Internet, and I am willing to sacrifice any intellectual honesty in service of that.
jl
@spongeworthy: I like some other commenters, have said or implied that is NOT OK for a guy in traditional Black Panther garb to stand outside a polling place holding a club. And I have not noticed any complaints here about the local police getting him out of there. If I am wrong please point out where some one has a problem with how it was handled by the police.
The issue is whether this is a big or exceptional enough deal to make a federal case out of it, or accuse the Obama DOJ of being more biased in its decisions about federal prosecutions that previous administrations.
OK? Try again.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Brown skin.
spongeworthy
jl, I’d challenge you the same way. Read back over the comments and tell me that if you substituted “me and another huge white guy in white robes” for “traditional Black Panther garb”–with every other circumstance the same, including sworn testimony that DoJ’s policy was race-based–that there’d be this same rush to comfort yourselves with the triviality of it all.
Redshirt
What’s really scary about this story is how starkly it illustrates how the MSM dances to whatever tune the Repuglicans want to whistle. They just make up a story, and wammo! It’s news, with legs, and might even live on as common coin in the “list of evil liberal deeds”.
It’s sickening/sad/infuriating.
El Cid
@spongeworthy: The ‘Panther’ in question could not be charged with a crime, after the GEORGE W. BUSH JUSTICE DEPARTMENT AND NOT OBAMA’S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT THAT’S GEORGE W. BUSH’S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT AND NOT OBAMA’S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, as the crime would have required someone come forward and testify that they had been intimidated. No such person could be found. Probably because no one had been intimidated.
So, if you want to go down to the polling station wearing your American Nazi Party or White Peoples’ Party outfit — certainly not sheets as a mask — and no one thinks you’re intimidating, well, there’s no criminal case there. Carry your flag, your decorative truncheon, a plastic wee-wee, what have you. Go for it.
Authorities did file civil charges.
El Cid
@spongeworthy: Why did no one come forward to say they had been intimidated?
jl
@spongeworthy: I think the local police should remove the white guys in robes, just as they removed the black guy with the club. Whether these two white guys should be charged with a federal crime, it depends. If they were just fools who did something very stupid that one time, then probably no, and I would say yes, it is trivial. If it was their hobby and an organized regular effort, then maybe it should be a federal case.
Bush didn’t prosecute state agents who decided it was a good policy to go armed into elderly black voters homes and question them about their votes, and this was admitted to be true by the state.
Is that more trivial than a few black, or white, fools acting stupid around a polling place in your mind?
El Cid
@jl: There could be no criminal charges filed because no one could be found to claim they had been intimidated. Civil charges were levied. No one blew this off. If anyone wants to stand outside polling booths in their American Nazi Party outfit, and swings the decorative SS truncheon or whatever around, and no one says they were intimidated, then the same will happen.
jl
@El Cid: thanks for clarifying the law for me. (For, I am not a lawyer).
El Cid
@jl: As long as you maintain whatever required distance and permission and access to public property, I think you can wear whatever outfits and swing whatever legally permitted object you want, unless, say, masked hoods are banned.
El Cid
@jl: This is my best recollection. I was too lazy to Google again.
Mnemosyne
@spongeworthy:
Are you standing outside a polling place in a black neighborhood in your hood and noose or a white one? Because the message coming from a white guy with that noose and hood in a black neighborhood is just a leetle different than it would be in a white neighborhood.
Which is kind of the point we’re making when we point out that these scary, scary black men were standing outside a polling place in a black neighborhood. Most of the residents are not going to be intimidated because the guys are standing around while black.
I have a feeling that most black people have quite a different view of the Black Panthers than most whites do and don’t find them nearly as frightening as you seem to.
Darkrose
And I just got my hair cut, too. *sigh* Now I have to start the ‘fro all over again. Or, you know, not.
joe from Lowell
@spongeworthy: Who has the New Black Panther Party ever lynched?
What an idiotic comment. Is there anything other than their race that makes New Black Panther Party d00dz scary, like Klansmen, to you?
Darkrose
@David: Dude, if I went to my polling place and ran into a bunch of furries, I’d be…well, not intimidated, but a little weirded out.
joe from Lowell
You can’t go to a polling place and appoint yourself security guard. That’s what these meatheads had to be removed.
This Negro Panic bullshit – they’re just the like the KLAN! – is pathetic.
joe from Lowell
@Mnemosyne: I don’t like your answer.
I’d be scared as hell of Klansmen at my polling place. The Klan have killed people.
The not-so-bright, wanna-be Maosit guys at the New Black Panther Party? No, not so much.
Kiril
I just want to take a moment to say that I’m actually coming away kind of impressed by the reporters on this chat, although I haven’t read the article.
Also, this:
Seems like a good idea…
Also, too, I guess it’s because I lived in a city for a long time with Nation of Islam people selling bean pies and Mohammed Speaks on the streets during the conscious rap era, but I guess if they showed up at my polling place, which is in a mixed neighborhood (I’m white), I would view them with more curiosity than anything else. I love seeing weird shit.
KCinDC
The Klansman with a noose is not at all parallel. Make him a good ol’ boy with a gun on his hip (in a place where open carry is legal) and you might have something. If such persons were standing outside a polling place acting a self-appointed security guards the way the NBPP folks were, then I’d expect them to be moved along, perhaps investigated. I would not expect it to become a federal case unless there was something more to it, especially if there was no evidence that anyone was intimidated.
burnspbesq
@danimal:
Are there New Black Panthers in London?
How do you think the guns got into Brixton? Certainly wasn’t the Provos.
Redshirt
I really do hope all this racist bull pucks is just getting burned out of our system, and in a few years peace and reasonableness will return to the realm.
However, also. Too.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Zifnab:
Washington’s Pierce County doesn’t have mail in voting. We here in Oregon are 100% into mail in voting. We are filling out our ballots this weekend and off they go! We even have drop-boxes for them so you don’t even have to pay for postage!
It’s a great system; no touch-screens to fuck up, no hanging chads, a paper trail for recounts, a clear and easy to understand ballot sheet, no going to election sites, it defangs the day before the election hit-jobs on Democratic pols since we can vote over a 14-18 day period (up to the date of the election), and it increases voter participation (we regularly have >80% percent voter participation). I know all of these things are bad in the minds of Republicans so I think mail in voting should be instituted across the country.
It works.
Mnemosyne
@joe from Lowell:
I was going to make it “standing outside a polling place in an all-white suburb in Georgia,” but I thought that might be too prejudicial.
ETA: IIRC, some people were killed by some members of the Black Panthers, but the organization didn’t exist specifically to kill people like the KKK did. I think sometimes the right wing’s memory gets foggy and they confuse the Black Panthers with the Manson Family even though everyone in the Manson Family was, you know, white.
Jay S
@Mnemosyne:
You do realize these were “New Black Panthers” with no relation to “Black Panthers” other than name?
maus
@spongeworthy:
also ban muslims and their muslim dress
PeakVT
this entire “scandal” is about two guys dressed in “traditional Black Panther garb” standing near a polling place.
If you think that’s crazy, imagine if the country was to launch an entire war against several hundred bad-tempered men with beards. Oh, wait, we did.
jake the snake
@BGinCHI:
About 42 years too late. Spinoff from the Old Black Panthers/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Panther_Party
Mnemosyne
@Jay S:
Yes, which means they’re actually a target of ridicule for most of the black community as far as I can tell.
No one takes them seriously except white racists.
KevinNYC
That precinct must be a tough place to work for Republican poll-watcher. Republican candidates get 10-12 votes total out of the precinct. So if you’re trying to intimidate Republican voters, you picked the wrong place.
My theory from the NBP guys were saying, was they had in their minds, that they were going to protect that precinct from any Republican hijinks….you know the flip side of the Republican paranoia of election hijinks.
Also the NBP guys may have been doing what they are accused of, but THERE’S NOTHING ON THE VIDEO, that shows that. The Republican who shot the video should have just kept shooting video until he had evidence of them interfering with any voters. Instead, he tried to frame the action, by making accusations. I’m sure any judge is going to consider as impartial evidence, some goofball with a video camera walking up to the alleged perpetrator and going “Do we have any problems here? What’s going on?” Perhaps the only thing the video shows, is they may have been standing where they shouldn’t have, but I don’t know that either.
Also how did the shooter of the video stay anonymous?
Mnemosyne
@KevinNYC:
IIRC, the NBP guys are pretty nutty and they actually went there to get people to vote for McCain because Obama sux. I can’t remember why they think he sux but, as I said, they’re nutty, so it’s not like they had anything resembling a logical reason.
JasonF
Here is an example of traditional Black Panther garb.
Allan
@Mnemosyne: They have also been guests on Fox News whenever scary Negroes are requested by the casting department, which is why I always smell a whiff of hot rodent lovemaking around them.
JWL
Hereabouts it’s 2 AM.
Full moon be damned. The view outside is garbed in goddamned Black Panther garb.
Cheney WAS right. The one percent doctrine IS sound.
So I’m moving out, shotgun in hand. Just playing it safe while I can.
May God forgive all Muslims if that rustling I hear is my neighbor’s new yapping Lab puppy.
Which is to say: if things do go wrong, it certainly won’t be my fault.
Because I love animals.
Still, better safe than sorry.
aimai
@spongeworthy:
Spongworthy, you seem to be under the impression that politicking and various inappropriate forms of political action don’t routinely take place at polling stations. We have laws about it becuase its so common. I’ve been the clerk in charge, and also lower level inspector at about four elections. We always have a police officer on hand throughout the day to explain and re-explain the election laws to the various picketers and protestors and candidate poll workers who get closer than the allowed limit of X number of feet. Always. These people are never arrested and never have charges brought if they move along voluntarily. The issue at the polls is an issue at the polls–voter intimidation, bribery, and other such things that happen outside the polls needs to be handled by other parts of the executive branch. The evidence gathering and witness interviews alone are a whole different kettle of fish.
aimai
BGinCHI
@jake the snake: Fucking Dick Fucking Armey is aware of all traditions.