Votes for smokes?

This Rush Limbaugh fan at work insists that some Gore worker (a woman) in Wisconsin got caught buying votes from homeless people for cigarettes.
Now c’mon, I know they might want the cigs, but to go register and then vote seems like an awful lot of trouble.
Any Cheesehead dopers heard about this?
Please say it ain’t so.
Peace,
mangeorge

where the CRIME took place (and it was a crime, and it did take place, a television station caught it on video)
A campaign worker was rounding up street people and trading smokes for votes. The Gore campaign denies any involvment stating that the campaigner (an attorney from New York I believe) was acting on their own. Guilt by association I say.

I’m not from Wisconsin, but I’ve heard the story. Yes, some people do seem to let their good sense get away from them when they’re working for a cause.
A news story on it

I saw it yesterday on two networks (evening national news. One homeless “voter” was interviewed).
Give guy the presidency, he wants it bad!

Keep in mind that while the person taped offering the cigarettes in exchange for votes could be prosecuted, it is unlikely that any election results could be changed unless it could be proved that there were sufficient numbers of people who received this type of consideration. If more than 10-15 people voted because some guy him a cigarette.

Thanks, Saltire, for the link. :slight_smile:
Un-freakin’-believeable!!!
That a campaign worker could be so stupid. There has to be more to the story than that. That worker could go to jail.
Sheesh
Peace,
mangeorge

The story I heard on national news was that the campaign worker was doing this, but when the homeless person being interviewed on camera was asked if he was told who to vote for, he said no.

Assuming it to be the case generally, that those who received cigarettes were not told to vote for Gore (or anyone else), I’m undecided on the virtue of it.

No offense or intent to disenfranchise anyone, but how can the homeless even vote?

By definition they don’t have a residence. So how do you decide what ward/district they should be voting in aside from the fact I would guess most of them don’t have 2 forms of ID showing a current address?

Were the workers at the polls in on this whole scam?

This reminds me very little of how a lot of the absentee voters in Florida have not lived there for over five to ten years. In fact many of them maintain their resident status solely because of the fact that Florida has no state income tax. All you need to do is to get a Florida driver’s license and then head on down and register to vote. It’s that simple.

Isn’t it wonderful to know that the election might be swayed by a bunch of non-resident tax evaders?

Sledman,

You are right, of course. Gore campaign did not know that(homestead rules). Write to them and explain. So, next time they will offer cigarets to you, domiciled person. That campaign worker was very stupid, after all, but she knew how smart the shills were and that they would guess correctly what to do now and whom to vote for.
Where I live, they do not ask for any documents at all, whatever you say your address is. As I understand, a homeless person or anyone else can wonder all over the state and get registered. I do not know, whether is it PC of the local election volunteers or is it the law of the state.
Bob, keep in mind that the law does not specify the quantity of shills to be bought. Besides, unpunished small numbers will encourage big numbers. BTW, are you talking absolute numbers, or numbers per voting place, or per district, etc.? What are your personal cut off numbers? For Algore? For GWB? Any rules should apply to cigarette brands? Are cigars allowed? Tell us about your dream election rules.

I’m not saying that it was right or even legal for someone to offer someone an inducement to vote. However, unless you can prove that there were enough votes for one candidate through this illegal inducement, the election results aren’t going to be overturned.

During a particularly nasty 1996 House contest here in California, Bob Dornan lost his seat to Loretta Sanchez. Dornan claimed that there were numerous voters who hadn’t yet become naturalized citizens. (Most were in the process, but hadn’t been formally sworn in.) However, Dornan was never able to prove that there were enough to make a difference in the vote.

If Gore were ahead of Bush by 5 votes in Wisconsin and Bush can prove that at least 6 people voted illegally for Gore, then he should go to court.

The courts tend to look at this in terms of simple arithmetic.

On that note, what I was saying is that here in Wisconsin I needed to provide proof of residence. Albeit minimal proof but a driver’s license and something else with my address(or 2 piece’s of mail, not very identifying I know but at least they have an address to show residency) That way we could determine the proper ward for me to vote in. This was done on election day(night). The point being that you are not just voting for president you are voting for representatives of your district and if you aren’t a resident of that district you shouldn’t be allowed to vote for its representatives or its referendums.

How can a homeless person meet these requirements when by definition they do not have an address? Odds are they have no form of ID either. Do we just look the other way for the homeless?

A lot of homeless do have id. It can be state or county issued. But they usually have some form of id, especially if they ever tried to get social services or medical benefits. The address on the id many times is that of a shelter, relative, or the Salvation Army. But getting a simple id card is not hard at all.

.<< Do we just look the other way for the homeless<<

They are homeless when Algore crows about how he would finish homelessness in America or, at least, reinvent it. They are not very homeless to vote for him.
Bob, so you think, that any crime is OK if you fail to reach your goal or is it in the election fraud only? Pleasse qualify. Tx for the explanation.