BlogaBarbara

Santa Barbara Politics, Media & Culture

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Bait and Switch by Arno & Associates at UCSB Makes National News

While former US Senator and President of the New School in NYC Bob Kerry tries to tell us that Barack Obama is a Muslim in a desperate effort to get H. Clinton a second place showing in Iowa -- we have our own problems with electoral politics right here in Santa Barbara.

In mid-November, I reported that there was possible ballot signature fraud at UCSB saying that "It turns out that paid signature gatherers are duping students at UCSB with a series of nefarious initiatives separated by a rubber band and assurances that one needs to sign the original initiative four times and that the other pieces of paper they sign have nothing to do with the first.".

Arno and Associates, a well-known signature gathering firm, in the past has tricked Florida college kids into registering Republican and saying an electoral ballot initiative was an anti-war initiative. Perhaps worst was telling Massachusetts voters that an anti-gay initiative was actually an initiative that would allow wine to be sold in grocery stores.

It seems karma has begun to catch up with them according the The Daily Kos which shows a video of students at UCSB who went through the signature petition process and told their stories. The post was generated originally by UCSB graduate student/activist Steven Attewell.

Using a grifter type of bait-and-switch move, the "California Counts" initiative (seeking Electoral College "reform") is now under investigation by Secretary of State Debra Bowen's office. Here's a snippet from the activist's diary on Daily Kos based on a letter from Bowen:

Dear Mr. Love:

We have reviewed the video file you shot showing circulators on the UC Santa Barbara campus.

We will be opening a case for investigation for possible violation of Elections Code 18600 (misrepresentation) and Elections Code 18602 (obscuring the summary of a measure).

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Sincerely,

Election Fraud Investigation Unit
Secretary of State

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah we're all grifters. Especially republicans.

12/19/2007 4:41 PM  
Blogger Rickey said...

Hah, well its completely evil, but the idea of passing a measure by telling Massachusetts voters that they're voting on an initiative to sell booze in grocery stores is pretty freaking funny. But evil nonetheless. Those massholes do like to get their drink on.

12/20/2007 5:27 AM  

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