They tried to get me to cheat! Am am not registered with any political party, but a democrat walked up to me in the street and asked me to sign a petition for a Democrat running for public office. I told her that I was not registered as a Democrat, but she told me I could sign it anyway, and that I did not have to vote for him later on. She then painted a picture of New York City being in a horrible class struggle, and that the government had to force the evil owners of buildings to put doorbells in every door. Doorbells!
"Doorbells?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "these people need doorbells. It's not fair that they don't have doorbells! And the big business wont allow for the poor residents to have doorbells. You actually have to knock on their door!"
Goodness sake! You have to knock on a door! How terrible!
I told her that after what she told me in support of her candidate, I could not sign the petition. Doorbells? Is that what this guy is fighting for? Doorbells?! The public schools in NYC are a mess, and this guy is campaigning on doorbells? After they tackle the great doorbell issue, what will they try to fix next? The unfairness of not having free ice cream on hot days? I left. Along the way, I met another petitioner and he signaled for me to come over. I was hoping he was not campaigning something equally stupid. He asked me if I was a registered Democrat.
"No, I do not have any party affiliation."
"Thats OK," he said, "you can still sign this petition."
He then rambled for a while about why I should sign a petition for another person running for public office. While he was talking, I noticed something — the top portion of his petition sheet was not covered by the clipboard clip, like the previous petitioners' was. And it said something important.
Article comments
1 - Steve S
That's where the Democratic party puts the newbies who converted from Republicanism. So what do you expect?
2 - Nancy
If it makes you feel any better, the Republicans do it too. I've been accosted by both. It's an equal-opportunity cheat.
3 - Abbie Gonzalez
Oh yeah, its the reason I did not vote for Pataki. How many Elvis Presley signatures did he have again?
4 - Terry
Have anyone considered that it was another one of the Republican Dirty Tricks. Think about it. It is the way to get signatures disqualified if they do not meet the rules as stated. This is a very common pratice of the tricksters.
5 - Victor Plenty
Petition pushers get paid by the signature. They are most likely the ones doing the cheating in this case. They have a strong economic incentive to get you to sign, even if you don't qualify.
Whoever's paying them is the one getting cheated, whether it's the Republicans or the Democrats. When the signatures get thrown out for being invalid, the party that paid for them is not going to be a happy camper.
This happened all the time in Oregon, and I recall voting on a measure to require petition circulators be paid by the hour, not by the signature. But right now I can't remember whether it passed into law or not.
6 - RJ
On the rare occasions in which I have been asked to sign a petition, I always ask what the petition is for. If I support it, I sign it. If I oppose it, I sign it with the name of a character from Stephen King's "Tommyknockers."
You know, I wouldn't want to hurt their feelings... ;-P