Maine Republican Chairman Suspicious Of All Those Black People Who Voted
The Chairman of Maine’s Republican Party apparently thinks he’s uncovered voter fraud:
Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster is once again alleging possible voting irregularities, this time claiming that groups of unknown black people showed up in some rural towns to vote on Election Day.
Webster made the claim in a wide-ranging, post-election interview this week with Don Carrigan of WCSH-TV.
“In some parts of rural Maine, there were dozens, dozens of black people who came in and voted on Election Day,” he said. “Everybody has a right to vote, but nobody in (these) towns knows anyone who’s black. How did that happen? I don’t know. We’re going to find out.”
When Carrigan pressed Webster on where it happened, Webster provided no specifics or proof of his claims, but said the party would investigate further.
When asked about the issue in an interview Wednesday with the Portland Press Herald, Webster again refused to provide specifics.
He said his point is not that the new voters were black, but that they were not recognized by town officials.
“I’m not talking about 15 or 20. I’m talking hundreds,” he said Wednesday. “I’m not politically correct and maybe I shouldn’t have said these voters were black, but anyone who suggests I have a bias toward any race or group, frankly, that’s sleazy.”
Yea, this will help with that whole minority outreach thing, won’t it? The state party chair in Maine alleging voter fraud because of stories he claims to have heard of scary black people roaming the Maine countryside voting at whim. Yea, that’s entirely plausible.
To be fair, though, other Maine Republicans are criticizing Webster:
Webster’s comments come at a sensitive moment for Republicans, including many who say the election losses last week show that the party needs to reach out to minority voters.
Lance Dutson, a Republican strategist and former campaign manager for Senate candidate Charlie Summers, posted a statement on his Twitter account Thursday saying Webster should step down now rather than wait until his term ends next month.
“Webster’s statements should be cause for immediate resignation. Any GOP who values future of the party should demand the same,” he says in the Tweet.
Webster said he has identified five “pockets” of the state where he has concerns about voting irregularities. He would not identify those areas, but said he plans to mail “Thank You” cards to all of the newly registered voters. If a large number of cards are returned because the addresses are invalid, Webster said, he will know he is on to something.
Megan Sanborn, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Charlie Summers, said Summers was shocked when he watched the video of the interview on WCSH.
“Our office has not heard any complaints about Election Day,” Sanborn said. “Secretary Summers jealously guards the right of everyone to vote and feels that they should.”
Hallowell Town Clerk Deanna Mosher Hallett, outgoing president of the Maine Town and City Clerks’ Association, said she hasn’t heard about any Election Day problems from clerks around the state.
“If there is enough chatter out there, I’d hear about it,” she said. “Everything went smoothly.”
It’s people like Webster that give the GOP a bad name.
How rare do you think this sort of thing is amongst Republicans, Doug?
Do you really think that obsessions with ACORN and the New Black Panther Party and shariaphobia and Jeremiah Wright and buzz phrases like “welfare” and “food stamps” and “free stuff” and “can’t convince them to take personal responsibility for their lives” and “self-deportation” –do you really think that those became staples of the Republican lexicon by accident?
The modern GOP is the party Lee Atwater built:
http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy
Sorry, but a party whose major opinion leaders are Fox News and Rush Limbaugh has to lie in the bed it’s made.
The GOP has been elevating people like Webster for a long time. This is what today’s GOP is.
After the 2008 election, the wingnut faction of the Maine GOP took over. This guy and Gov. LaPage are part of the same group of Tea Party activists. It isn’t that people like Webster give the GOP a bad name – it is that people like Webster *are* the Maine GOP – or at least the faction in charge.
He didn’t become the Maine GOP Chairman in a vacuum, Doug.
Dammit – every single, solitary time us Dirty F*cking Hippies make up some terrible lie to tell about Republicans, they go and ruin it all by actually being that terrible.
I also want to point out that the current Secretary of State, Charlie Summers – who categorically denies that there is systemic voter fraud in Maine – was also the Republican nominee for US Senate who lost last week to Angus King.
He’s no angel, but he’s definitely part of the “Main Street” faction of the GOP, and has had to deal with these sorts of allegations from Webster in the past.
Rural Republicans who don’t associate with any black people? I’m shocked!
Maine’s final results:
Obama 397,754
Romney 290,437
Johnson 13,446
Stein 9,101
So let’s pretend for a moment that there really were “hundreds” of fraudulent votes (and of course they were all for Obama, because Republicans never get caught at voter fraud). Let’s be incredibly generous and say there were 999 extra votes, since any more and Webster would have certainly said “thousands”. Eliminating those extra votes, I get 396,755 to 290,437, and Obama still wins 55.90% to 40.92%, a change of about 0.06% for each candidate.
My point of this exercise: even with this imaginary voter fraud, you STILL LOST BIG TIME. Stop worrying about non-existent voter fraud for a moment, and start worrying about remaining a viable political party in the United States.
Yes, its sooo unfair that us liberals judge people by their actions, instead of the visceral reaction of warm paternalism that looking at a bunch of old rich white men is supposed to elicit in our inferior minds and hearts.
The Chairman of Maine’s Republican Party
Again, he’s the Chairman of Maine’s GOP! The GOP just keeps elevating morons like this to leadership positions.
I thought republicans from the northeast were not crazy.
Ah, Mitt Romney is from the northeast, right?
@Barfour: I thought republicans
from the northeastwerenotcrazy.FTFY.
Remember, this is just an isolated incident and it’s DOUBLE-REVERSE RAYCESS to suggest otherwise.