A sample ballot is being distributed in PWC without any disclaimer noting who paid for it and is printed on white paper, both violations of Virginia election law. The sample ballot seeks to defeat those candidates who supported the county’s crackdown on illegal aliens, both Republican and Democrat.
Click on the above image to see a full-size view of the sample ballot. A press release from the PWC GOP regarding the matter can be found here.
UPDATED!!!
Virtucon contributor Light Horse did a little investigative work on this –
I did a reverse phone number lookup on sample ballot phone number on the
blog with
http://www.411.com/reverse_phoneThis came up:
Steinbach, John C
Manassas, VAhttp://www.bvbl.net/index.php/2006/11/13/zapatista-update/ identifies him as
being involved in the local pro-illegal alien movement.
Now we have our answer.
UPDATE 2:
Chris Royse and two others have filed an official complaint with the PWC Commonwealth’s Attorney office regarding this. If anyone sees this being distributed on Election Day, please call Trent Barton. Please only report this, do not attempt to handle this matter yourself.
Filed under: 2007 Elections, Immigration, Prince William County Politics
There’s a phone number on the ballot to call to volunteer. Shouldn’t that make it easy to find and prosecute those who are committing this crime?
Or is the number the Democratic Party number?
I’d only count on those responsible being held accountable if Ham Sandwich wins the race for Commonwealth’s Attorney. I’m sure that Ebert & Co. would even screw up dialing the phone number and wind up prosecuting the proprietor of a flower shop by mistake.
If it was determined that these were distributed by Mexicans Without Borders, they may be guilty of more than just state election-law violations. Mexicans Without Borders claims 501(c)(3) status, and advocating for particualr candidates would be a clear violation. John Stienbach is an officer in MSF.
Good catch, Batson. Sounds as if the IRS should undertake an investigation of that.
[...] Virtucon has the story this afternoon about John Steinbach of Mexicans Without Borders distributing a sample ballot that violates Virginia elections laws, urging voters to support candidates that have a clear agenda to support illegal aliens, including Sharon Pandak and Corey Riley. The phone number provided on this sample has previously been used for the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Committee, Mexicans Without Borders, the Virginia Anti-War Network, and has been listed as a personal contact phone number for John Steinbach when he was active with the Gray Panthers. This culture of lawlessness within the illegal alien lobby must be put to an end. [...]
I am not sure that this qualifies as a “sample ballot” as that term is used in the election law. The law is intended to prohibit anything that looks like an “official ballot” from being handed out to voters who might be confused if it is in the same color as the actual sample ballot that the State Board distributes.
There is clearly no chance that a voter would confuse this campaign flyer in the nature of a voter guide with anything resembling an “official ballot.”
This is not part of the “culture of lawlessness” you decry, but is simply the exercise of democracy in the well worn course of the pamphleteer.
Get over it.
Even if it were just a “voter guide”, a disclaimer statement is still required.
But it sure looks like a sample ballot to me.
“But it sure looks like a sample ballot to me.”
The dead give-away is that it lists all of the candidates, and has check-marks next to the candidates they are advocating for. Any reasonable person would call this a sample ballot.
Johnny better hope that the illegals can front him the cash to pay his fines…and that MSF doesn’t get bankrupted when the IRS comes looking for their back taxes!
So, the question it seems, is just who put this out? So far all that it seems has been determined is that one private citizen has their phone number on it. If that is the case is it still illegal? While it seems likely to me that some organization was behind this, be it MSF or possibly the Panameno campaign (or a combination of the two and or additional groups), will it be possible to prove the link and prosecute?
I don’t suppose anyone at the PWCGOP is interested in publishing an English transcript of what this flier says? I can read about 50% of the legible text but I am interested in what the whole thing says because I heard that there was a document being handed out that told voters to ask for poll work help to write in Panameno’s name when voting (which they won’t do even if you ask nicely).
Yes, even if this was a private citizen, a disclaimer is required and it must still follow the guidelines of a sample ballot. This does neither.
I believe the voter guide talks about a sample ballot that is being handed out ON election day, not 3 days before.
This is just information given out to inform a constiuency.
Having done Sample Ballots in the past, a disclaimer is required if a person or group spends over $100 on the piece. Also, the rule about white paper only applies if the polling place is using paper ballots, which is not the case in PWC.
[...] anyone sees the illegal sample ballot reported here yesterday being distributed anywhere in Prince William County today, please call [...]