GOP video shows alleged violations of election buffer law at early voting site

The Buncombe County Republican Party is crying foul, claiming that members of the Democratic Party conducted campaign activities in violation of electioneering buffer requirements at a downtown early voting site. According to a statement, the “leadership of the Buncombe County Democrat Party was filmed electioneering with indifference to the poll distance marker at the downtown Asheville early voting site. Democrat candidates Jane Whilden and Susan Fisher can specifically be seen campaigning beyond the poll distance marker.” The Buncombe Republican Party is filing a formal complaint with the Buncombe County Board of Elections.

The law in question states that ”…no person or group of persons shall hinder access, harass others, distribute campaign literature, place political advertising, solicit votes, or otherwise engage in election‑related activity in the voting place or in a buffer zone which shall be prescribed by the county board of elections around the voting place…” Representatives of the Buncombe County Board of Elections have not yet replied to Xpress’s request for comment.

Below is a video made by the BCGOP showing the alleged violations:

 

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12 thoughts on “GOP video shows alleged violations of election buffer law at early voting site

  1. jmoosie

    As far as I’m aware, it is legal for ALL citizens to vote, including those who are running for office.

    Just like any other person they are allowed to take in slate cards and voter information into the polls with them.

  2. Dionysis

    What else can they do? They don’t have anything to really run on (protecting the world from socialistic terrorists just doesn’t resonate) other than the same old slogans (less tax for the wealthy…fewer environmental rules for big business, etc., freedom to worship Jesus Christ as you wish) then you pull stunts (rappeling to save democracy, driving a street-sweeper around). And when you run dry of platitudes and stunts, cry ‘foul’ over some ridiculous, perceived minor violation.

  3. Lamont Cranston

    What??? Where’s the whining about the now defunct ACORN, and voter fraud??

    These Tea Bagging/Republican “rubes” crack me up. Don’t any of these people ever read, or stop long enough from listening to Limbaugh and FOX to try critical thinking??

    I wish they could just be honest and talk about real solutions as opposed to the S.O.S. that got us all in this country into this mess starting with their “patron saint”, Reagan (truly the worst President ever).

  4. Goldenfig

    The candidates were simply in line to vote immediately after a get out the vote rally at pack square. They were not campaigning. You are allowed to wear stickers in the polling place and the papers they are holding are slate cards, also allowed!

  5. Lance Ball

    Seriously?! I get it that these people were across the no-electioneering boundary. They should have known better and/or been told to move back by monitors. But come on… that was completely innocent. It looked to me like these people were chatting with their friends who had come down to vote. Compare this video to the Tea Party rally where a woman’s head was stomped. Puhleeze.

  6. Daniel Withrow

    Honestly, in this case it looks like a legitimate, if trivial, complaint. Ms. Fisher et al should be more careful about the election buffer zone: it appears from the video that they violated them, however unintentionally.

    It’s trivial, however, because it relies on the classic Bizarro World argument: In Bizarro World Democrats Am Republicans and Republicans Am Democrats and Democrats Am Very Angry About Republicans In T-shirts. Unless Mr. Nesbitt is a theoretical physicist studying alternate universes, his hypothesis about events in such universes are completely irrelevant. If Republicans inintentionally violated a buffer zone like this, I couldn’t possibly get worked up over it.

    And if we’re hypothesizing alternate universes, I submit that if a Democrat were filming Tea Party politicians, the Tea Party politicians would attack the Democrat and beat her up. I have no evidence whatsoever for this claim, except that I, too, am not a theoretical physicist studying alternate universes.

  7. west asheville

    Yea, why should the libs follow the law. It doesn’t apply to them. Get off their case. If you don’t agree you’re just plain wrong….right Obama?

  8. LOKEL

    Since the Republican candidate(s) have no chance of winning all the local “party”, I mean Chad, can do is complain and participate in lame stunts for publicity.

    He is like the “boy who cried wolf” after so many outcries, folks just stop paying attention to him.

  9. Dionysis

    “Yea, why should the libs follow the law. It doesn’t apply to them.”

    Not one post claimed there was no infraction, although anyone with a functioning brain and two eyes (or even one) can see it was, at worst, an inadvertent stepping over a distance line. It evidently took a dry run by the local Republicans to figure out what the actual rule was, and now that they’ve learned that lesson, by golly, they’re going to make sure they focus on that egregious violation.

    When the Republicans lied by omission to the fire chief about the purpose of their comical ‘rappelling for Jesus, the GOP and hunting trips for children with cancer’, did you post any criticism of them? That was a blatant case of dishonesty, a bit more significant than someone stepping a few feet over a line on the sidewalk.

    Like I wrote, they have NOTHING to offer but stunts and trumped-up outrage. And moronic sloganeering.

  10. Perry Godfrey

    @Dionisis: “What else can they do? They don’t have anything to really run on (protecting the world from socialistic terrorists just doesn’t resonate) other than the same old slogans (less tax for the wealthy…fewer environmental rules for big business, etc., freedom to worship Jesus Christ as you wish)…”

    Got news for you. The democrats have NOTHING to run on and that is why they have either been slinging mud like crazy (Shuler) or just smiling and not saying anything (like Fisher and Keever). The liberals in this town can get quite pushy at election time. That is why it is imperative that voters be free to vote without illegal interference. Most of all, there needs to be honest vote counting and no ballot box stuffing like has happened in Minnesota with Franken, and in Chicago since the 1920’s gangster shenanigans.

    The republicans have the great advantage. The democrats in North Carolina, and recently in Asheville, have made a mess of things. The voters are hungry for change. This is what the republicans are running on. Change. Change that will progress us into the traditional values this country was founded on. Small government, individual freedom, low taxes, and the opportunity to pursue our own happiness.

    Go change candidates! We’re taking our country back!

  11. Dionysis

    “The democrats have NOTHING to run on…”

    If they’d remain true to their core convictions (assuming they still have them), and showed some backbone instead of caving on everything, but in terms of delivering anything meaningful, they have fallen short.

    “That is why it is imperative that voters be free to vote without illegal interference. Most of all, there needs to be honest vote counting…”

    I’m sure you’ve expressed this to the Republican supporting heads of companies like Diebold and ESS.

    http://blackboxvoting.org/

    http://www.truthinvoting.org/

    “The republicans have the great advantage.”

    Yes, a gullible electorate with short-term memory, unhappy that the mess the Republicans left the country in after Bush hasn’t been completely corrected yet, responding to the Pavlovian chants from the Borg, er, Republican collective. Platitudes and feel-good phrases, such as you have down pat, are the sum total of what is offered. Along with the usual hackneyed double-talk.

    “We’re taking our country back!”

    Here’s news flash: this country belongs to everyone legally here, regardless of views. It doesn’t belong to whoever you think the word ‘we’ represents.

    The Democrats seem to once again be pulling defeat from the jaws of victory.

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