Lowell and I just got calls from JC Wilmore.JC's busy gathering signatures for Webb at the Carytown street festival.
Along comes a carload of Miller people, including paid staffers.
He starts a conversation with a girl collecting signatures for Miller, and discovers:
1. She's 15 - therefore ineligible to vote and ineligible to collect.
2. She's being paid $0.75 per signature, more if she gets more than 4 signatures.
3. She and other Miller folks are telling people that Webb is a Republican, which is false.
4. Miller's reserved 3 hours of lasertag time for the Young Dems tonight in Richmond.
What's this got to do with buying elections? What's this have in common with the WVA pork rind scandal? Sounds to me like the Old Testament would frown on this kind of behavior.
Obvious hat tip to JC Wilmore for being an awesome dude. I'm sure he'll have something to put up on this once he's back from collecting signatures for James Webb, DEMOCRAT for the U.S. Senate.
What does it take to buy your way on to the ballot? Through the primary? Will money be enough for Harris Miller win an election against George Allen?
[UPDATE: More details from JC Wilmore, who is a licensed attorney in Richmond. There were three witnesses to the 15-year-old collecting petitions signatures for Harris Miller, and one other besides JC was an attorney. The girl was in the company of former Kaine folks now on the Miller payroll. JC points out that paying for the signatures is not illegal, but having a 15 year old collect them is definitely highly illegal. JC also notes that all of the signature gatherers working for Webb there are volunteers, while all of the Miller folks there are being paid.]
[UPDATE #2: The affidavit on the back of the Petition of Qualified Voters states: "I...swear or affirm that...I am or I am eligible to be, a registered and qualified voter...am qualified or eligible to be qualified to vote for the office for which this petition is circulated...I understand that the penalty for falsely signing this affidavit is a maximum fine of $2500 and/or confinement for up to ten years."