2008 Woodie Awards
N.H. Republicans' election tricks hurt party's image
Issue date: 9/30/04 Section: Opinions
This past summer, the former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party admitted in a U.S. District Court that he hired a company to jam Democratic get-out-the-vote phone banks during the 2002 Election Season. According to federal prosecutors.
Republican Party director Chuck McGee hired a Virginia-based company to repeatedly call prospective voters with the intent "to annoy and harass" them, thereby blocking Democrats from getting through to prospective Democratic and Independent voters on their call lists.
In the end, the GOP ending up doing very well in the elections- with John Sunnunu narrowly beating popular incumbent Governor Jean Shaheen for a U.S. Senate seat. In addition, the GOP won five of seven hotly contested State Senate seats. Did the phone jamming directly lead to the GOP's political gains?
One cannot be sure, given the rather lackluster campaigns most Democrats have ran recently in this state.
What is sure is that the phone jamming scandal is just another example of the state GOP's increasingly willingness to stamp out the voting rights of those it considers threatening to its power.
Ever since the 2000 Presidential Campaign, the state Republican Party has taken increasingly harsher methods to prevent college students from voting in the towns they go to school in.
Ever since the 2000 Presidential Campaign, the state Republican Party has taken increasingly harsher methods to prevent college students from voting in the towns they go to school in.
While constitutionally speaking, students are free to vote wherever they reside, the legislative campaign carried out by the GOP has intimidated many prospective voters from engaging in the electoral process.
The question is, what is the GOP of afraid of?
New Hampshire has largely been in Republican hands locally and nationally since the Civil War. College students (generally considered more liberal than the general populace) and Democrats, for that matter, represent a very small portion of the general populace of the Granite State. Independents still trend Republican in local elections, if the Legislature make-up is any indication.
In the end, the GOP would be better suited to end its paranoid suppression of dissent and instead turn to a campaign of persuasion to win over those who might otherwise disagree with them.
Nick Archer is the Equinox Opinions editor.
Republican Party director Chuck McGee hired a Virginia-based company to repeatedly call prospective voters with the intent "to annoy and harass" them, thereby blocking Democrats from getting through to prospective Democratic and Independent voters on their call lists.
In the end, the GOP ending up doing very well in the elections- with John Sunnunu narrowly beating popular incumbent Governor Jean Shaheen for a U.S. Senate seat. In addition, the GOP won five of seven hotly contested State Senate seats. Did the phone jamming directly lead to the GOP's political gains?
One cannot be sure, given the rather lackluster campaigns most Democrats have ran recently in this state.
What is sure is that the phone jamming scandal is just another example of the state GOP's increasingly willingness to stamp out the voting rights of those it considers threatening to its power.
Ever since the 2000 Presidential Campaign, the state Republican Party has taken increasingly harsher methods to prevent college students from voting in the towns they go to school in.
Ever since the 2000 Presidential Campaign, the state Republican Party has taken increasingly harsher methods to prevent college students from voting in the towns they go to school in.
While constitutionally speaking, students are free to vote wherever they reside, the legislative campaign carried out by the GOP has intimidated many prospective voters from engaging in the electoral process.
The question is, what is the GOP of afraid of?
New Hampshire has largely been in Republican hands locally and nationally since the Civil War. College students (generally considered more liberal than the general populace) and Democrats, for that matter, represent a very small portion of the general populace of the Granite State. Independents still trend Republican in local elections, if the Legislature make-up is any indication.
In the end, the GOP would be better suited to end its paranoid suppression of dissent and instead turn to a campaign of persuasion to win over those who might otherwise disagree with them.
Nick Archer is the Equinox Opinions editor.
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