The Latest Accusations Have a Familiar Ring

[Cross-posted at NotGeniuses.]

TaxPayers League October 14, 2002:

A visit to the website of the Democratic Socialists of America (www.dsausa.org) will treat you to one of the most transparent attempts to steal an election since the Daley machine ran Chicago politics.
A popup ad on the site invites visitors to contribute to the “send a student to Minnesota” program—the DSA’s “national electoral project” for the year. The program is intended to “bring young people to Minnesota” because “Minnesota is one of the few states that allow same day voter registration.” Wellstone, the Democratic Socialists explain, “will need a high percentage of young people to register and vote for him if he is to stave off the campaign that Bush, the Republicans and the Greens are waging against him.”

“I have heard of dead people voting in elections,” quipped David Strom, “but at least they were residents of the state in which they voted!” Strom is the Legislative Director of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota.

The “Send a Student to Minnesota” plan is being funded by the DSA Fund, a tax-deductible organization supposedly prohibited from politicking.

“This is a transparent attempt to steal this election by using Minnesota’s liberal election laws to register out-of-state students to vote for Wellstone.

“What a novel strategy—if you can’t win with eligible voters, import some from states where their votes aren’t needed. Plans like this remind us that ‘democratic’ and ‘socialist’ should never be used in the same sentence,” Strom added.

The Gephardt Campaign January 2004:

In the past several weeks, it has come to our attention that your campaign in Iowa is engaged in an effort to violate caucus rules and send out-of-state supporters to pose as Iowa residents and caucus in cities and towns across the state.

First reported in Newsweek (November 22, 2003; enclosed), one of your staff members has contacted us to confess that efforts to send non-Iowans to caucus is indeed a critical piece of your "perfect storm" strategy. Despite your campaign's claim in the Newsweek story that action taken to organize out of state voters were those of a single "kid from Burlington," we have learned that the problem is much deeper than that.

New sound just like the old sound, except this time it is a page out of the Republican playbook. When the other side is more organized, yell voter fraud. Scare people away from the polls and claim to be defending democracy.

Regardless, it looks like Gephardt is also trying to bring in some non-Iowans. What assurances do we have that they won't be trying to caucus?