[davesimondotcom]

The Gephardt Campaign has sent letters to Joe Trippi of the Dean campaign to complain that the Dean camp has sent non-Iowans into Iowa to vote in the January 19th caucus.

This could make this race a whole lot more interesting!



EDIT: Link

[BlackGriffen]

Trippi's response.

I'll be completely honest, I wouldn't put it past Trippi. He's done some rather sneaky and creative things in the past, though never outright illegal (AFAIK).

The other issue is that with a decentralized campaign like they're running, it's quite possible that some volunteers do plan on doing just that. I don't know what Trippi can do to stop it, though, aside from admonishing against it.

My bet is this: Dean will win it by a narrow margin, but no matter the margin Geppy will try to smear him for cheating.

BlackGriffen

[thunderous_funker]

How exactly could non-Iowan volunteer canvassers get access to a ballot box in the caucus?

How exactly were they going to pull that off?

I susppose there is some vast conspiracy of organizers, county seats, party chairs, election board members, attorneys general, etc ad nasuem who are all party to this dastardly plan. There always is, isn't there?

Maybe some commie at the DMV is passing out bogus DL's like candy to anyone with a Dean bumpersticker?

And just how many out of staters do they think Trippi can smuggle into the state and magically get them on the voter rolls in the next 2 weeks? Does the Gephardt camp really think this thing will be decided by 3500 voters?

[Meneldil]

Here's a story about it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/07/opinion/07SAVA.html

username: macnn
password:macnn

As he mentions, they don't often bother to check IDs, and he also mentions the numbers issue.

[nonhuman]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
How exactly could non-Iowan volunteer canvassers get access to a ballot box in the caucus?

How exactly were they going to pull that off?

I think the way they do it in the Iowan caucus is that the people stand in various regions of the room to indicate what they want to vote on. This is what I hear from friends from Iowa anyway. Seems really stupid to me, but hey, it's Iowa (at least it's not Nebraska).

[BRussell]

There are also accusations of shenanigans in New Hampshire.

Over the past 2 days of calling, a number of older respondents registered as undeclared voters have reported that they have received telephone calls from a campaign informing them that they will not be allowed to vote in the Democratic primary because they missed the deadline to switch parties. A respondent discovered, however, that when she told the caller that she was thinking about voting for Howard Dean, the caller told her that she would be eligible to vote._

[roger_ramjet]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
How exactly could non-Iowan volunteer canvassers get access to a ballot box in the caucus?

How exactly were they going to pull that off?

I heard somewhere that all you need is to show a utility bill with your name on it. Don't know if that's true or not.

[spacefreak]

More Dean news regarding Iowa:

Dean criticized Iowa Caucuses 4 years ago

"If you look at the caucus system, they are dominated by the special interests, in both sides, in both parties," Dean said on the Canadian television show "The Editors."

"The special interests don't represent the centrist tendencies of the American people, they represent the extremes."

Talking about the time-consuming process of attending a caucus with neighbors as opposed to casting a ballot in a primary, he said, "I can't stand there and listen to everyone else's opinion for eight hours about how to fix the world."