Tea-Publican Tyranny in Wisconsin: Real Democrats crush Tea-Publican ‘fake’ Democrats

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Tea-Publican contempt for our democratic process exemplified by running "fake" Democrats in the Democratic primary in Wisconsin on Tuesday failed. Traditional GOP voter suppression efforts in this election also failed. Real Democratic recall candidates cruise to victory over fakes:

None of the six placeholder or "fake" Democratic Senate candidates pulled off an upset victory during the first round of a historic recall election season in Wisconsin Tuesday.

But then again, few expected they would.

"We certainly did not expect any victories out of the protest candidates," said Katie McCallum, a spokeswoman with the Republican Party of Wisconsin. "They did the job they were intended to do … which was to give the incumbents time to get back to their districts and talk with voters after passing the budget."

Republicans took blistering criticism for their decision to put forward the fake candidates and force primary elections. Doing so meant their six threatened Senate incumbents — Robert Cowles of Green Bay, Alberta Darling of River Hills, Sheila Harsdorf of River Falls, Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac, Dan Kapanke of La Crosse, and Luther Olsen of Ripon – would get an additional month to campaign before the Aug. 9 general recall elections.

* * *

Turnout in the recall primaries was enormous by primary election standards and not that bad compared to even fall general elections. Former Oshkosh Deputy Mayor Jessica King, for example, received just under 20,000 votes Tuesday against fake candidate John Buckstaff. When she ran for Senate in 2008, there were only 1,849 votes cast in the Democratic primary.

That was an uncontested vote, but her general election total in a very close race against Hopper was 41,668, and that was during a presidential election year that saw enormous turnout statewide.

The one fake candidate who received a respectable number of votes Tuesday was Isaac Weix of Menomonie, who probably benefited from a last-minute get-out-the-vote effort by the St. Croix County Republican Party.

The GOP engaged in one of its traditional voter suppression tactics, robo calls to confuse voters about election dates and their ballots. Robo Calls To Democrats Add To Voter Confusion – WISN Milwaukee:

Wisconsin Right To Life began placing calls to Wisconsin Democrats stating they will be sent applications for absentee ballots for an upcoming election.

The phone calls, which were traced to a telemarketing company in Virginia, carried the following message from Wisconsin Right to Life executive director Barbara Lyons:

Hello, this is Barbara Lyons from Wisconsin Right to Life. I'm calling today to let you know that you will be receiving an absentee ballot application for the upcoming recall elections in the mail in the next few days. These recall elections are very important and voting absentee will ensure that your vote is counted and that we can maintain a pro-family, pro-life state Senate. We hope that we can count on you to complete that application and send it back to us within seven days. Thank you for your support. Wisconsin Right to Life can be reached by calling 877-855-5007.

* * *

Lyons explained to 12 News that the automated phone calls were actually meant to help encourage voter participation in the Wisconsin recall elections that will take place in August. She said the phone calls began on Monday.

They can deny it all they want, but I have seen this voter suppression tactic, i.e., misleading voters about election dates, polling locations, casting their ballots, and even pretending to be the Democratic Party calling to tell voters they do not need to vote because victory is assured, used in every election for as long as I can remember. You will see this here in Arizona in November and again in 2012, rest assured. This is just one of the many tools in the GOP's bag of dirty tricks.

The next recall election date of significance is the "main event" on August 9 when six incumbent Republican state senators stand for recall. The three incumbent Senate Democrats stand for recall election on August 16. Democrats need a net gain of three seats in the Senate to take control of the chamber. On Wisconsin!