I think he meant butt boy.
Posted on 10/11/2008 12:47:47 PM PDT by matt1234
HELENA - U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy issued a scathing order Wednesday lambasting the Montana Republican Party for challenging the registrations of thousands of Montana voters, but he stopped short of an actual ruling in the case.
In his 19-page order, Molloy denied a temporary restraining order to the Montana Democratic Party that sought to stop thousands of GOP-led voter challenges. Molloy wrote that Secretary of State Brad Johnson "astutely" asked counties not to process the Republican's voter challenges, which effectively alleviated a crisis that would have required a restraining order.
Johnson is a Republican.
Molloy did not rule on the Democrats' other arguments that the GOP effort violated federal election law, but he scheduled a hearing on that matter for next week.
However, the judge left little doubt about his thoughts on the voter challenges.
"The timing of these challenges is so transparent that it defies common sense to believe the purpose is anything but political chicanery," Molloy wrote.
Elsewhere, the judge wrote that Jake Eaton, the executive director of the Montana Republican Party, focused his ostensible worry over voter fraud not on all Montanans but only on those who live in predominantly Democratic-leaning locations, like Missoula and Lewis and Clark counties, where the vast majority of the 6,000 challenged voters reside.
He also wrote that had the state of Montana instituted such a voter-fact-checking drive so close before an election, it would clearly violate federal law.
Molloy's ruling came in response to a federal lawsuit filed Monday seeking to stop voter challenges launched by the Montana Republican Party last week.
The GOP abandoned those challenges Tuesday.
The Republicans' concerns were with registered voters who live at addresses different from the one listed on their voter registration information. The party requested that counties ask the voters to prove their current address.
Many of the counties did not act on the requests, and only a few hundred voters received letters from their local elections office asking them to clear up the address confusion.
The Montana Democratic Party and Barack Obama's presidential campaign in Montana charged that the challenges were a transparent effort at suppressing voter turnout in predominantly Democratic areas. Had the challenges gone forward, each of the voters would have received a letter in the weeks before Election Day asking for notarized proof of the voter's current address.
The letters, the Democratic Party maintained, would have confused voters, especially first-time voters, or led people to believe they were ineligible to vote.
Although the state GOP has since withdrawn all of its voter challenges and vigorously denied that the challenges were politically motivated, Art Noonan, the executive director of the Montana Democratic Party, told reporters Wednesday that he was pressing forward with the lawsuit.
"I'm a Butte boy," he said. "They taught us a long time ago that if you want to stop bullying on the playground, you stand up to the bully."
Caleb Weaver, a spokesman for Obama's presidential campaign in Montana, which is assisting the state party in the suit, said the party may seek punitive damages or its legal fees if it succeeds in court.
"All options are on the table," he said.
Republican Party spokesman Bridger Pierce pointed out that Molloy was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton.
I think he’s going to get a phone call from HRC or BJC.
Too easy.
I think he meant butt boy.
Don't you mean "Democrat [big "D"] political process"?
And when would the timing of such challenges be less transparent, according to this Judge? In an off-year election cycle, when virtually nobody votes for anything but local polits?
EGADS!
Big donor to DemocRATS according to Opensecrets.org. Yes. The bovine scatology he’s pulling on the bench IS “political chicanery” and he should recuse himself from this case. He’s a big Commie ‘RAT.
Sorry for the confusion, I don’t capitalize things that don’t deserve to be capitalized.
Words and names that have no honor receive no respect from me in any way. “democrat “ certainly deserves no such distinction.
So yes, big D democrat to show my disdain.
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