Posted on 01/13/2008 10:21:43 AM PST by mnehring
Jennifer Call's eyes searched the office for nothing in particular. Her arms waved and her fear spilled out.
"This is where I grew up," Sutton's town clerk said yesterday. "This is my hometown, this is where my family is, and all of sudden, my name is being splashed across the internet as this horrible person. And the frightening part is, I don't know these people and they don't know me."
Call wants the nationwide army of boisterous Ron Paul supporters, believers in more conspiracy theories than Oliver Stone, to know that she's committed no crime.
Not treason, as the dozens of phone callers screamed. Not fraud, as the dozens of e-mails charged. Nothing.
Human error, by someone unknown, caused Call's office to claim Paul received zero votes from the town during Tuesday's first-in-the-nation primary.
Paul actually got a whopping 31 votes.
Out of 920 cast.
Launch an investigation. Alert the media.
The mistake was corrected early the next morning, but that hardly mattered. The Paul machine, upon reading the number in print, quickly went into counteroffensive mode.
This is luck at its worst. Screw up Rudy Giuliani's vote total. Or John McCain's. Or John Edwards's. Or Bill Richardson's.
But never, ever get anything wrong when it comes to Paul and his voting tally. If you do, fans who shouted from the rooftops through the primary season will track you down and chew you out.
"Most of the these people are not rational," Call said.
Call, 35, arrived at the Pillsbury Memorial Hall Tuesday morning at 7 for the start of a marathon day. About a dozen or so staffers coordinated the effort, guiding voters, counting votes, rechecking totals.
Paul's 31 votes got lost in the shuffle, lost in translation between moderator Greg Hill's voice and Call's pen.
The slot next to Paul's name on the original return sheet said 31, but a space on Call's return, next to Paul's name, remained blank.
"He's (Gill) reading off his results, I'm writing them down on the return," Call said. "I don't know why it was blank. I don't know if he skipped over it or if someone interrupted him to repeat the last name and it got skipped, or maybe I missed it. It was that simple."
No it wasn't.
Call was met by town officials the next morning at 9:30. They told her the mistake had been rectified. Call, her jacket still on, was confused.
"What are you talking about?" she asked.
She was told someone had come in and said he'd voted for Paul. The voter noticed the "0" in the local newspaper and wanted an explanation. When he got it, he left, satisfied.
Call phoned the Secretary of State's office and re-faxed the form, the one with a circled "31" next to Paul's name. Just to make sure.
Then it hit, like one of those snowstorms last month. Call got a call from someone named Bob. No last name. She remembers the man identifying himself as a reporter for the Associated Press, looking for the story on voter fraud.
She said she'd fetch the details, then call him back, thinking the media would need a strict timeline and every tidbit available.
"I'm thinking he's legitimate," Call said. "I call Bob back and it's a fax machine. I called AP and asked for Bob. They told me a reporter would have given a last name."
Others in the office received calls and e-mails. But Call was the name out front, the town clerk as well as the tax collector. She was labeled the brains behind the plot. She had the biggest target on her back.
The assault picked up after lunch. Paul supporters phoning Call claimed to be from the media. Others just yelled, saying she had committed treason, fraud. One person said she should be shot. She received as many as 40 calls that day.
"One person said he was on a nationally syndicated radio station," Call said, "and he has given out my phone number and they need to call the town of Sutton to find out why there's voter fraud."
The voices came from everywhere. California. Ohio. Florida. Michigan. Very few were from New Hampshire.
A man from Texas e-mailed that he was "contacting, by certified mail, the Attorney General of New Hampshire . . . and requesting a complete investigation and prosecution of any and all parties involved."
A police dispatcher in New London said yesterday she'd received inquiries about the clerk's office phone.
Call got a handful of calls that night at home, refusing to pick up whenever an out-of-state number appeared on her screen.
She got about five more the next day in her office. She tried to get work done. She called the Massachusetts company that makes the licenses for dog owners in her area. The guy had heard of her.
"Wow," the man said. "This is the second time this week I've seen your name."
"Where?" Call asked.
"I've gotten a dozen e-mails about how you've destroyed the New Hampshire primary."
"Why?"
"We make voting machines."
"The problem is," Call said yesterday, "we don't use voting machines."
She went home and locked her doors. She called her mother in North Carolina. She cried. The calls kept coming. She unhooked her answering machine and requested an unlisted number.
"I was drained emotionally and physically," Call said. "That's when I really started to freak out. Thursday it hit me, that most of these people are not rational. That's when I became scared."
It's calmer now. The calls and e-mails had stopped as of yesterday afternoon. Call had the day off, but she went into her office to retrieve some paperwork.
She's hurt and nervous, but she's got a job.
"I've got a school board meeting Saturday," Call said. "I've got to be ready."
Have you ignored the other eye witness that things were being thrown or is he just part of the anti Paul conspiracy too?
“They weren’t chasing Rudy down the streets, throwing things at him, now were they? Paulbots have been stalking Rudy for months, they try to destroy anybody in their way.”
No one threw anything at Sean. I haven’t seen him assert as much, and the 2 videos don’t show it.
“They didn’t “publish” anything - it was a clerical error which meant nothing,”
The newspaper published the incorrect results.
“He’s STILL the offical stormfront candidate, and the loon accepts from Neo-Nazis.”
His argument is that if they want to give him money, he’ll spend it for good - if he gave it back, they could do evil with it. Reasonable. I don’t care, and I hate stormfront.
“Please take your nutjob third party.”
If he did run 3rd party vs liberals like Rudy, Huckabee, Romney, McCain, I would vote for him over them.
I could vote for Fred even with his many warts, still.
The GOP is going to have a hard time winning come November. Do you really want to be in the business of chasing away long time party activists?
“Have you ignored the other eye witness that things were being thrown or is he just part of the anti Paul conspiracy too?”
Link?
What kind of asinine straw man logic is this to refute the video of a mob chasing Hannity and crew for blocks? You and Reality should get to know each other one of these days. Sadly, you would need to leave your tin foil hat at home.
Go back to the Libertarian Party, you’re not a Republican.
Vote for Hillary for all I care, there’s nothing “reasonable” about Ron Paul. He belongs in an asylum.
“What kind of asinine straw man logic is this to refute the video of a mob chasing Hannity and crew for blocks? You and Reality should get to know each other one of these days. Sadly, you would need to leave your tin foil hat at home.”
It’s a good question.
If I were with a woman and was bing chased, I would protect her. There was no threat.
You are deflecting. There was no threat.
“Go back to the Libertarian Party, you’re not a Republican.
I’ve never been a member, I don’t like the party.
I’m pro-life and support border security. Two issues that are very important to me.
There’s room for Rudy but not little l libertarians?
I have no sympathy for raving Paulistas, but I also have no sympathy for any govt. functionary who handles our democratic process in such a slovenly manner. There are mistakes and then there are mistakes, but to drop all of a candidate’s votes, no matter which candidate it may be, demonstrates a slovenly approach to the work involved. 31 votes here and 31 votes there and pretty sure we might be talking about real numbers, at least in a small town setting.
His supporters behave like anarchists, not liberal Republicans. They were trying to use the GOP to advance their loopy agenda and that loon is their master.
They call Rudy a “facist”, but we both know who the REAL facists support.
You are a bold faced hypocrite. You support the harassing deluge of calls and emails at home and at work to the woman in the story, then say you would defend a woman who was being chased.
How convenient that you determine when death threats are dopey, mobs aren't mobs, and harassment is deserved. Did these powers of interpretation come with your tin foil hat kit?
Has Paul said there was fraud?
Not his supporters,
Not his ghost writers,
Not his staff,
Not his neighbors,
Not his campaign,
But Dr Ron Paul himself?
Anything goes if you’re on their outside of their cult.
I am convinced that vote fraud played no role in this result. Rumors of vote fraud were investigated, and in the end they proved to be the result of errors in early media reports that were not reflected in the official numbers. In one notable case, when a campaign staff member contacted an individual who had on the evening of January 8 claimed that his vote had not been counted, the person said that he had made a mistake and that the next morning the error in reporting on a newspaper website had been corrected both in the media and -- most importantly -- in the official tally.
At least the official campaign knows the difference between an error in media reporting versus official numbers.
Adding an old link to an article that was written in 1988:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n2_v20/ai_6424715/pg_3
40 phone calls...
This was before my time here, but let me know what you think about it compared to the few dozen calls this election worker got.
The 2nd to last paragraph is the most interesting. Obviously I don’t think this entire forum is kooky or I wouldn’t be here. I don’t participate in any other online political forums. So don’t try to paint me as thinking FR is loony, as this happened in 2001. However - read the article and the comments at the link. Let me know how they compare.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b2adac834b0.htm
The Moscow Times Goes After FR re Mia Lawrence(my title)
News/Current Events Editorial
Source: The Moscow Times
Published: 6/15/01 Author: Chris Floyd
Posted on 06/15/2001 21:04:24 PDT by ironman
“Changing the tone.” “Bringing a new era of civility and respect to American politics.” “Moving forward from past rancor to an era of unity and understanding.”
Such are the stirring themes sounded by the good Christian president now “setting the tone” in Washington. George W. Bush hardly steps out of the White House without folding his hands in humble prayer, asking God to “bring us together.”
But in this, as in so many other respects, Mr. Bush seems to have a unique understanding of the words he employs. Last week, for example, his respectful tone-changing White House unleashed a vociferous assault — including threats of physical violence — against the young mother who had the temerity to call the police when the president’s daughters were having their illegal booze-up in an Austin restaurant last month.
Bush aides dropped heavy hints to the press that the restaurant’s management included “liberals” out to “get” the president’s offspring, The Washington Post reports. That was the signal to unleash the Republican attack dogs at FreeRepublic.com, the prominent right-wing hatesite that pounces hungrily on anyone the Bush clan identifies as an enemy.
Within hours of the White House spin shot, FreeRepublic was orchestrating an Internet assault on Mia Lawrence, the bar employee who called the police when Jenna Bush presented a patently fake ID. The “Freepers” posted Lawrence’s address, date of birth, driver’s license number, physical description — and information about her infant child, the American Political Journal reports. They also posted details from a personal bankruptcy claim that Lawrence filed earlier this year, including all the dish about her huge medical bills.
Freepers suggested that this info be used for “identity theft,” running up massive debts in Lawrence’s name. Also suggested was constant surveillance of Lawrence and her child. “Take pictures and post them on the Internet. Let her know that her picture is being posted. Make this chick paranoid,” said one Bush supporter. Other helpful suggestions: “Go to the bar and pour drinks on her.” “Pour acid all over the bar.” “Phone police repeatedly to make phony reports of suspicious activities at her home.” Others said conservatives should storm the restaurant and “set the place on fire while fully occupied.”
By week’s end, of course, it was revealed that the White House smear was, as usual, a lie: The owner of the restaurant was in fact a donor to the Republican Party. But no apologies were offered — and Lawrence’s details were still whizzing through the ether, helpless prey to any spin-maddened madman with a modem. God help her.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n2_v20/ai_6424715/pg_3
more Filipino Monkey Man.... from 1988.
He’s been around a while.
Lol, quoting from “The Moscow Times” now?
(sigh)
All together again...don’t point to bad behaviour to justify your own.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.