Agents from the city of Keene were standing by all day long at Keene’s ward 4 voting location, lurking in wait for people registered to vote at the UPS Store at 39 Central Square. Whenever a voter would attempt to vote with a registration at that address, the voting bureaucrat would issue a challenge to the individual’s voting registration, claiming that address was not a “valid domicile”. The challenge meant that a “domicile affadavit” was brought out and the person in question was required to swear an oath that his domicile was indeed at the address they were claiming. We know this intimidation tactic irritated one potential voter so much he turned around and left. This is pure intimidation, as all they really need is an affidavit swearing domicile in a particular ward, however they always claim they need an exact address, which is nonsense, as homeless people can register to vote. I filled out my domicile address as homeless in Ward 4 and proceeded to vote.
My write-in “campaign”, which consisted of me mentioning it here on the blog the day before and once on the radio several weeks ago, only garnered nine of the ten votes required to qualify me on the general election ballot. Looks like the statists’ tactics were successful.
Of course, had I gotten ten votes, you can bet the clerk’s office would have continued to work hard at preventing my name from going on the ballot. After all, they don’t want to give people the actual opportunity to vote for someone who is running as “Nobody” and pledging to refuse to take office.
All that said, this story is proof that one vote really can make a difference in local elections here in New Hampshire. As more politically minded people move to Keene and get active in the system, things will get more frustrating for the statists. The bureaucrats are pretty fortunate most activists here at this time want nothing to do with the inside-the-system stuff. I bet we’ll see the movement in Keene expand to include more politically active people in the next two years. We already know that Andrew Carroll is planning a state house run in 2010, and Nick Ryder’s campaign for city council is still going, with him beating local snitch and busybody Clark “Pepper Pete” Anderson in the primary.
