Posted on 11/08/2002 10:13:42 PM PST by Coleus
Illicit cupcakes and weenies at Clifton polls Friday, November 08, 2002
"Women flaunting their cupcakes shut down by attorney general." "Officials steamed by weenies." Oh, if only I wrote for a tabloid. On Election Days of yore, Passaic County voters were concerned that jack-booted thugs would assault them on their way to the polls. Or once there, they would be intimidated, have their identities questioned or would be unable to understand instructions written only in English. Not any more. The state Attorney General's Office has put the weight of its office behind a more sinister election scheme: Bake sales.
In Clifton, the electoral food police were everywhere. They first pounced on School 4, shutting down the Home and School Association's Election Day bake sale at 10 a.m. From there, they went to School 5 and shut down a bake sale at approximately 1:45 p.m. The women were allegedly violating state election law by loitering.
State law restricts certain activities in and around 100 feet of a polling place. A person cannot solicit a voter, electioneer or loiter within 100 feet. According to the vice president of the School 5 Home and School Association, the group selling cupcakes was told to shut down by a deputy attorney general. They were not given an option of moving. The Attorney General's Office has a different story.
The on-site deputy declined to take my phone call, referring me to legal. Considering that the office of attorney general is an office of attorneys, the irony of being referred to a separate legal department is worth noting. Legal "would neither confirm nor deny" that any elections law had been violated. It sent me to the press office. A press representative explained the bake-sale ladies were loitering in a "protected space." Yet, the state statute, while clear on electioneering, soliciting and loitering, does not mention vending non-political merchandise within 100 feet.
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines loitering as "to remain in an area for no obvious reason." At Schools 4 and 5, the women selling the cupcakes had a reason. The people waiting to buy the cupcakes had a reason. In fact, before being shut down for partisan pastries, the School 5 sale already netted $813.
In districts like Clifton, these bake sales provide the dollars for the extras that more affluent districts can add to school budgets. Judy Bassford, a co-president of the School 5 association, said that while the state was implying that the school moms "could be talking politics, we were talking ingredients."
Rightly, the moms are pretty steamed. Perhaps more than a Peter Eagler supporter who funded several hot dog carts set up outside polling places dispensing free wieners. The carts had Eagler/Evans signs. While challenged by election officials, the wienermen (or women) held their buns high. According to Eagler, they were more than 100 feet from the polls and handed out hot dogs until supplies ran out.
Given Passaic County's history of voting shenanigans, it makes sense to have representatives from the Attorney General's Office checking polling places. But shutting down a group of parents selling cupcakes in the same all-purpose room used as a polling place is just plain dumb.
It also was selective. School 9's bake sale went uninterrupted. Did the Attorney General's Office target bake sales in other districts? Was this a statewide crackdown on cupcake sales? The U.S. Attorney's Office is intent on making examples of white-collar crimes. When feds arrested Essex County James W. Treffinger on extortion charges, they led him out in handcuffs and leg shackles. The cupcake ladies must be guilty of white-frosting crime.
At the same School 5, a Herald News reporter observed that not all the signs posted inside the polling place were in both English and Spanish, as required by state law. But the room was free of cupcakes, and the streets were almost free of weenies.
Another Election Day in Clifton, USA.
Alfred P. Doblin is editorial page editor of the Herald News. Reach him at doblin@northjersey.com
My wife went to vote in the early afternoon and didn't notice the table (When she got home, I asked her if she saw anything she liked since there was sugar feee cake when I was there), but that could have just been because the table is always there and could just blend into the scenery.
They have been having these sales for as long as I can remember, and not once have I heard anyone electioneering. Most people go into the gym to vote first, and then look at the stuff an the way out. I even seem to remember some book sales during either a primary or school board election once, but i think that the books were slanted towards the age of the children attending School 9 (Grades 1-6). It would be hard to say that this constitutes anything wrong, and I would oppose forcing them to stop. As to the hot dog vendor, there wasn't one where I voted.
On Election Day no less! Well, I demand a recount at these schools, where the 'sugar-voter' could have been influenced by a sugar-high!
Has the Attorney-General's office created a 'banana-nut-bread republic'?
bttt
thanks for the bump, i forgot about this thread...no more americana at our school voting polls.. it’s too bad the state attorney general became more actively involved with elections, it’s like a police state and any time there is a problem, the don’t know how to interpret title 19 properly.. It’s worse when they ship in the feds from all over the country...
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