Dean Recall Opponents Attempt to Intimidate Signature Gatherers
Today is Presidential Primary Day in Michigan and the voting precincts in Grand Rapids are a war zone. Not between Mitt and McCain, Huckabee and Paul, but between citizens collecting signatures for the recall of State Representative Robert Dean (D-Grand Rapids) and the organized ‘blockers’ hell-bent on stopping voters from signing the recall petitions.
Blockers were already at the polls when the Dean-recall volunteers arrived this morning to collect petition signatures. And they are nasty! One senior citizen who tried to sign the recall petitions was yelled at by blockers who told her that she was “breaking the law and signing an illegal petition.” These same blockers followed the senior voter to her car, taking repeated, close-up snapshots with a camera and demanding that she produce photo identification to them (the blockers). Police were called, and (as I write this) are trying to sort things out.
The blockers’ primary tactic is to lie. First by claiming that Robert Dean didn’t vote for any tax increases, and then by telling potential signers that the petitions are illegal and that they are committing a crime by signing. The blockers continue to harass citizens attempting to sign by getting right-up into the signers faces with a camera and taking multiple photos of the citizen’s face. Their tactics would be the envy of a third-world dictator attempting to suppress democracy at the polls.
And that is EXACTLY what the blockers are determined to do: suppress citizens’ democratic involvement in their constitutional right to engage in the petition and recall process.
Stay tuned for more updates on both the recall effort and the efforts of recall opponents to stifle democracy.