Voter Intimidation in Kentucky

[ridgerunner]

Yesterday I had a relative tell me this story and I have no reason not believe it. It seems that a friend of theirs put a Kerry/Edwards sign up in their front yard. A local police officer paid them a visit and told them that they had to take it down because it was too early to be putting up campaign signs. They told the officer that was fine but was he also going to visit this person's neighbors and tell them that they had to take down their Bush/Cheney signs. They claimed that the officer just stared at them then remarked "Well you're voting for the wrong person."

WTF!!??

This officer is guilty of a felony. He violated KRS 119.115(1) "Any person who unlawfully prevents or attempts to prevent any voter from casting his ballot, or intimidates or attempts to intimidate any voter so as to prevent him from casting his ballot, or who unlawfully interferes with the election officers in the discahrge of their duties, shall be guily of a Class D felony." http://www.lrc.state.ky.us/KRS/119-00/155.PDF

Now, I understand that this officer won't be charged, there's no evidence. And a person would be hard pressed to find any jury that wouldn't believe an officer if they testified in court that they never said any such thing. Cause we all know that cops never lie. But let this be a lesson to all of us. We need to start carrying around small tape recorders during campaign season and catch these felons in the act.

[Gnaeus]

1. Not to be a devil's advocate.

The officer could just have been stating an opinion, were the Bush/Cheney signs also taken down, if not this is very disturbing.

[robbedvoter]

3. Nice hypotetic defence. I also had reports from Arizona

of police chasing away voters in black/hispanic precincts or simply closing polls.

[ridgerunner]

4. No

If this officer was in uniform, which I imagine he was, is a representative of the government. He was not stating an opinion. He was intimidating a voter. If he had been sitting at a bar and told a person with a Kerry/Edwards shirt on that they were voting for the wrong person that would be a different story. When a person with governmental power acting in an official role in official dress tells a voter that their vote is wrong it is intimidation.

[Canadian_moderate]

2. Nice police state you have there

I can't, for the life of me, understand why my wife wants to move back to the USA (most of her family lives in PA) within the next several years. The drive to her parents' place is only 5 hours from Toronto. Why the hell would she want to move back to a sinking ship?

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy visiting and the people are generally nice, but I really don't want to move there. The recent election has just re-inforced how strongly I feel about this. America had a chance to redeem itself and came up short in my eyes.

[ridgerunner]

5. Yeah, Kentucky is a police state

There is a lot of cannabis grown in Kentucky. During harvest season we look like an occupied country.

[jarab]

6. Did he/she take the sign down?

A large part of why we are intimidated is because we are so submissive.
Examples are those cowardly persons who let police - without any warrants - search their autos and homes without first thinking "what kind of precedent is this?"
Why not make it hard on the "authorities" once in a while?
...O...

[ridgerunner]

7. To my knowledge, no they did not

They said they would take them down if he made their neighbors do likewise, but the officer wasn't interested in that. He just wanted the Kerry/Edwards signs down.

[AP]

8. That's also a constitutional violation. It's a denial of equal rights --

you can't treat speech differently based on content unless that content falls into a category which the supreme court has established as one that can be treated unequally, and political speech is definitely not in one of those categories.