MN-CD8: GOP Shenanigans or Honest Mistake?WRONG ADDRESS 4 CD 8

[kathy88]

Great find Titus. The campaign followed up in Alaska, this needs their attention as well. These guys are getting ballsier and ballsier to get their own way. Egotistical jerks.

 

[Barrex]

Mail Fraud is actually a harder issue to prove. The mailing element is easy supposing the person is caught. The scheme to "defraud" is possible, if the letters were sent deliberately to deter votes. Defraud is in quotes for a reason. Property is the harder element. Congress passed a law to include "theft of honest services" in the statute. Of course, theft on honest services is harder to prove. The public officials, the delegates, are still behaving honestly but with deliberately wrong information.

If it is argued that the votes are the property, that is not clear as well. Intangibles issued by the government have not been clear as property. Licenses to run a business are not property unless already in the hands of the victim of the fraud. Driver's licenses may be. Voting... I'm not aware of a case on point.


Minnesota has a statute banning this specific activity. The only issue would be proving who sent it and the intent of the person. The fact that the new location is a house that is for sale would suggest an improper intent.

I have included the relevant statute below.

Nothing in this post is legal advice.

204C.035 DECEPTIVE PRACTICES IN ELECTIONS.
Subdivision 1.Criminal penalty.

No person shall knowingly deceive another person regarding the time, place, or manner of conducting an election or the qualifications for or restrictions on voter eligibility for an election, with the intent to prevent the individual from voting in the election. A violation of this section is a gross misdemeanor.

Subd. 2.Reporting false election information.

Any person may report to the county auditor or municipal clerk an act of deception regarding the time, place, or manner of conducting an election or the qualifications for or restrictions on voter eligibility for an election. The election official to whom the report was made shall provide accurate information to the person who reported the incorrect information in a timely manner, and may provide information about the act of deception and accurate information to mass media outlets in any affected area. The county attorney may subsequently proceed under subdivision 1.

In these cases I always suggested legal action

Even if they fail they have positive effect.

 

[Titus]

Kathy, the campaign is going to have a harder time with this one. If I was the campaign, I couldn't do much with it. Yes, it is a problem under the Minnesota statute but the campaign has zero proof that this was done by a Romney surrogate or rather an overzealous supporter. That is the problem. If the person is caught, the Romney campaign could disavow the action as an overzealous supporter of which they had no knowledge. It was easier for Ron Paul in Alaska due to the systemic nature of the actions taken to deny delegates the ability to pay their delegate fees.

That being said, the post itself allows the contacting of mass media (with time) and an investigation by state officials. That's a good move to get more information if someone in Minnesota who got this could report that.

 

[Ninja Homer]

Mail Fraud is actually a harder issue to prove. The mailing element is easy supposing the person is caught. The scheme to "defraud" is possible, if the letters were sent deliberately to deter votes. Defraud is in quotes for a reason. Property is the harder element. Congress passed a law to include "theft of honest services" in the statute. Of course, theft on honest services is harder to prove. The public officials, the delegates, are still behaving honestly but with deliberately wrong information.

If it is argued that the votes are the property, that is not clear as well. Intangibles issued by the government have not been clear as property. Licenses to run a business are not property unless already in the hands of the victim of the fraud. Driver's licenses may be. Voting... I'm not aware of a case on point.


Minnesota has a statute banning this specific activity. The only issue would be proving who sent it and the intent of the person. The fact that the new location is a house that is for sale would suggest an improper intent.

I have included the relevant statute below.

Nothing in this post is legal advice.

Bottom of the letter: "Registration Fee is $45 per person if paid by April 10th. After April 10th Registration fee is $70.00"

I think that would constitute property and qualify as mail fraud.

 

[Titus]

NinjaHomer, that's not necessarily true if the information in the document is true regarding payment. The scheme to defraud must be attempting to gain the property illegally. It is not sufficient to have a scheme to defraud that mentions property.

 

[Ninja Homer]

OK, so if the registration fees for the convention are actually valid and it doesn't tell where to pay the registration fees, then it isn't actually defrauding. I guess that makes sense.

 

[devil21]

Any update on this?

 

[sailingaway]

OK, so if the registration fees for the convention are actually valid and it doesn't tell where to pay the registration fees, then it isn't actually defrauding. I guess that makes sense.

voter suppression.

 

[Titus]

Yeah Sailiing. It's a pretty clear violation of MN laws on voter suppression IMO (not legal advice). If we could get the envelopes these came in, an affidavit and march it over to the county attorney, that might be the start of something important/big. That's a long shot but we don't likely have the resources to track an envelope that was sent in the mail to who sent it.

 

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

Kathy, the campaign is going to have a harder time with this one. If I was the campaign, I couldn't do much with it. Yes, it is a problem under the Minnesota statute but the campaign has zero proof that this was done by a Romney surrogate or rather an overzealous supporter. That is the problem. If the person is caught, the Romney campaign could disavow the action as an overzealous supporter of which they had no knowledge. It was easier for Ron Paul in Alaska due to the systemic nature of the actions taken to deny delegates the ability to pay their delegate fees.

That being said, the post itself allows the contacting of mass media (with time) and an investigation by state officials. That's a good move to get more information if someone in Minnesota who got this could report that.

Statute says

No person shall knowingly deceive another person regarding the time...

It they can find who did it, and it was done maliciously, then it is that person who shall be taken to task for breaking the law, regardless of who they support, etc. And if that person were directed by someone (and it cannot be proven), then the directors will find it more difficult to find someone to pull dishonest tricks like that next time. So if there is a guilty party to be found, that guilty party should be pursued.

 

[Agorism]

But we won 2 of 3 in that district anyways?

 

[kathy88]

What we really need is 3 or 4 sent to Paul supporters and 3 or 4 sent to to others. If we catch different addresses on the same letterhead, signed by the same dude, mailed on the same day, that shoudl be sufficient to get something going, shouldn't it? We have to know someone in the "not Paul" camp who is at least dismayed at the thought of something of this nature that would help... Don't we?

 

[kathy88]

But we won 2 of 3 in that district anyways?

That is awesome, but not really the point. We need to really organize all the bullshit that has gone down in order of caucus/primary, document it in detail and get it to the campaign. I doubt they are even aware of how much and how often.

 

[JebSanderson]

What we really need is 3 or 4 sent to Paul supporters and 3 or 4 sent to to others. If we catch different addresses on the same letterhead, signed by the same dude, mailed on the same day, that shoudl be sufficient to get something going, shouldn't it? We have to know someone in the "not Paul" camp who is at least dismayed at the thought of something of this nature that would help... Don't we?

Asked some people on twitter who were in CD8 if they got the letter

 

[Titus]

Statute says



It they can find who did it, and it was done maliciously, then it is that person who shall be taken to task for breaking the law, regardless of who they support, etc. And if that person were directed by someone (and it cannot be proven), then the directors will find it more difficult to find someone to pull dishonest tricks like that next time. So if there is a guilty party to be found, that guilty party should be pursued.

Yeah. I totally agree, but a lone ranger is something that people may not want to track down frankly. The people with the resources to investigate just might not care. Regardless, the next step is finding who sent it. You are right.

 

[UtahApocalypse]

Is this a violation of the call so it can be rendered void and delegates from it not seated? We need to get a parliamentarian on that to find the cure.

^^^ this

 

[Titus]

That makes little sense to have a rule that would disqualify delegates from seating when the alleged suppression hurt the group that got delegates. It would only encourage people to commit voter suppression. If the suppression failed, then the delegates would be excluded.

 

[Michael Landon]

Don't worry, we good. 2 of 3 National Delegates, and 1 of 3 Alternates. That is simply amazing considering the corrupt nature of our Congressional District. If I could sum up our convention today I would do it like this. In a 12 round fight, by the 6th round we had taken a severe beating that I wasn't sure we could come back from but beginning in the 7th round we gained our second wind and in the 12th round we knocked them out.

We lost our first two motions, one was to follow the Party's State Constitution, which they ruled against. The second was to change the way we nominated our delegates, that, too, was ruled against. At this point we went to lunch and it wasn't looking good for us. We did everything we could to change things to help our delegates and failed, at this point it was entirely in their hands to pull out a victory.

After lunch, a great thing happened. For the first half of the morning a couple of us fought hard to enforce the rules and we kept pointing out where the Chair was violating them. We were looked at as trying to cause trouble, which is why the GOP brought in 8 sheriffs to watch over us. Anyway, after lunch, the delegates running got up to give their speeches and at this point a group of people started walking around passing out a "Conservative Unity Slate" sponsored by Romney and Santorum. On this slate was the Chair, Rep. Kurt Daudt, a State Senator and a former candidate for Congress. It was at this point the tide turned in our favor. In the convention call, the photo from page 1 of this thread, it stated that anyone running for National Delegate had to meet with the Nom-Com by April 10th to be considered. Well, the State Senator had met with the Nom-Com this morning before the convention. A delegate got up and made a motion that the State Senator be removed from the ballot because he didn't meet with them by April 10th. This delegate WAS NOT a Paul supporter by the way. Needless to say, he was removed after a lengthy discussion where the Chair was defending his bending of the rules to allow him on the ballot. I hesitated about getting up and discussing it because I had already angered half of the delegation because of my constant insistance that we follow the rules but I decided I needed to, once again, point out that we need to start obeying them. When I finished my speech the delegation erupted in cheers. They had finally had enough and decided to force the Chair to follow the rules. It was at this point a bunch of them started siding with us. He was removed and the vote was on. After 3 ballots we won 2 National Delegates and 1 Alternate.

The end.

- ML

 

[sailingaway]

That makes little sense to have a rule that would disqualify delegates from seating when the alleged suppression hurt the group that got delegates. It would only encourage people to commit voter suppression. If the suppression failed, then the delegates would be excluded.

In Portland Maine Ron had 70 delegates disqualified because the party people, Romney folks, messed up signing people in. In Nevada multiple caucuses were thrown out for similar reasons.