Here ya go – the next “expose” from Project Veritas. This time it’s hidden video of Patrick Moran on hidden camera as a fellow talks about his idea to fraudulently vote on behalf of no-show registered voters in Virginia.
I’ve never been a big fan of Jim Moran’s and now it seems his kid doesn’t have the best judgment either. It seems pretty clear to me that he’s just trying not to alienate an existing volunteer – he doesn’t play along, repeatedly goads the guy into putting his efforts into real get out the vote efforts, etc. Like most of the O’Keefe products it seems to rely 90% on prodding people who have to glad-hand others and who are reluctant to firmly call someone out on their BS.
All that doesn’t make it into the final video, of course – what fun would that be? You’d take time away from the boogah-boogah about how Pat Moran is a paid individual on Jim Moran’s re-election team!
As someone who just went through election worker training in Arlington last night, let me help you out of your freak-out, Veritas-heads. The new ID requirements ARE discussed at length in training and, in fact, a volunteer commented that she thought we could expect to be jerked around by someone looking to game the system. General Registrar Linda Lindberg shrugged and said “probably.”
She and everyone else is pretty unconcerned about it, and you know why? Because the process is pretty well-defined and documented. In my 100 page training packet there’s a two page spread with a grid laying out what is and is not valid ID under the laws – there’s two, actually, since both Federal and State apply under different circumstances. If someone comes in and is insisting they vote even though their documentation doesn’t match up right… we let them. On a special provisional ballot which doesn’t get counted unless they come up with valid ID which they produce at the Office of Elections in the next few days.
Moran knows all this, of course, and knows that someone serious about perpetrating fraud doesn’t need to interrupt a man’s pursuit of his bagel to ask how he might generate paper with the help of “a computer guy” and go cast fake votes. He’s just identified this dude as a useful idiot and was too reluctant to say “that’s stupid and illegal” when he should have.
UPDATE 6:29p – WUSA is reporting that Patrick Moran has resigned.
Well I used to say something in my profile about not quite being a “tinker, tailor, soldier, or spy” but Tom stole that for our about us page, so I guess I’ll have to find another way to express that I am a man of many interests.
Hmm, guess I just did.
My tastes run the gamut from sophomoric to Shakespeare and in my “professional” life I’ve sold things, served beer, written software, and carried heavy objects… sometimes at the same place. It’s that range of loves and activities that makes it so easy for me to love DC – we’ve got it all.
Wow, did you hurt yourself doing all those mental gymnastics to justify this criminal act with your weak sauce argument?
I’m an arlington democrat and its obvious he messed up big time….he was baited into it and obviously had no plans to try it like the republicans but nonetheless he needed to resign.
What criminal act would that be? Shooting the shit about ways someone COULD break the law? The guy is a bozo and I think I was pretty clear that I think he reacted the entirely wrong way here. But raising this to real criminal behavior seems a stretch. I guess if you’re inclined to assume such then it seems more plausible, but I’ve watched enough folks try to minimize their conflict with weirdos to think that this is more of that. Doesn’t make it right but it doesn’t make it encouragement of criminal behavior either.
Wow, after seeing this, this has totally been blown out of proportion. Yeah, he should’ve just walked away from the guy instead of throwing out suggestions, but it’s not like he was going to engage in it himself. I got the impression too that he was pretty confident that if fraud was to take place that it would get caught pretty quick with the new laws.