One might recall a recent contentious special election which took place in NY-26 in which an otherwise favored to lose candidate Jack Davis, pretended to be a tea party candidate and disrupted the otherwise bellwether election.  In fact, the trickery in this election went so far as to create entire fake websites dedicated to spreading misinformation to the voters in the hopes of confusing them and getting them to vote the “right” way.

This is nothing new of course, Democrats love to play tricks to win, it’s Alinsky 101. They’ve practically made an art out of creating fake tea party candidates to siphon votes away from Republicans (as scheme that was attempted in more than one location).  And interestingly, cases such as those linked above are directly tied to the Democrat party apparatus.  While there are plenty more examples of individuals who may or may not have official ties trying to muck things up on their own, one thing is certain: Democrats have been and continue to look for ways to infiltrate the GOP and direct where votes will go through misinformation and blatant fraud.

But now, it’s the Republicans that are under fire for supposedly using the very same type of trickery.

Via the JS Online:

Recall elections for six Republican senators are scheduled for July 12. If there are multiple candidates from the same party in any of those elections, the July 12 election becomes a primary election and a general recall election will be scheduled for Aug. 9.

Fitzgerald said Republicans would be recruited to run as Democrats — likely in all six races — so that the elections would be pushed back a month. He said he was persuaded by campaign staff that it was a good idea and consulted with state election officials to make sure it was allowed.

Fitzgerald said the idea was developed in response to a fake Republican running last year against Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer of Manitowoc. Ziegelbauer was a Democrat who long voted with Republicans; he quit the Democratic Party last year and ran for re-election as an independent.

So, the Republican party is openly admitting that they are running additional “fake” candidates, not for the purpose of misinforming voters, but simply as a move to delay the recall process, known commonly as a mulligan for Democrat voters that are unhappy with the guy they didn’t vote for.  If you’re thinking these are vastly different types of “fraud”, Greg Sargent of the Washington Post is here to prove you wrong!

As you know, Wisconsin GOP state officials have hatched a scheme to run fake Democrats in Dem primary elections against the Democratic recall candidates, in order to delay the general recall election between Dems and the GOP state senators they’re targeting. As the labor-backed We Are Wisconsin warned recently, this could have major ramifications: Because Wisconsin law allows cross-party voting, Republican voters can vote in Dem primaries and vote for the fake Dem candidate in order to keep the real Dem out of the general election.

Horrors! But, this is all conjecture right? Is there any proof?  Detective Sargent continues:

Allies of one of the top GOP targets in the recalls, state senator Randy Hopper, are circulating flyers in his district trying to get out the vote for the fake Dem in the Democratic primary against his Dem opponent.

You can view the flyer, which was found and passed along by We Are Wisconsin, right here. It urges voters to go out to the polls to vote for one John Buckstaff against the real Democrat, Oshkosh deputy mayor Jessica King, a strong candidate against the vulnerable Hopper.

The flyer is the work of a group that calls itself “Patriot Advisors,” which is registered as an opponent of the real Dem, Jessica King, and an ally of the fake Dem candidate, John Buckstaff, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board tells me.

So, for anyone that needs a quick translation, let me give it a shot.  “The Rethuglicans are trying to trick voters into voting for FAKE democrats in the recall, and the people behind it are directly tied to the party establishment!!”

Well, it turns out, not quite.

A source close to the Patriot Advisors tells me that it is a for-profit company conducting a business development study to determine whether their method of robo calls and live calls, coupled with a literature drop, will successfully identify people who don’t usually vote in primaries and then turn them out on election day. They have identified a group of people in Wisconsin who support Gov. Walker and oppose unions, and they have dropped flyers (shown below) at their houses.  In other words, they are quite aware that the primary process will be ruled by and dominated by party Democrats.  They’re just using it as an opportunity to test out how they will conduct on the ground efforts once the election begins.

Of course, fraud would be sending in fake Democrats to vote in a closed primary, but, as much as Sargent may be upset at the idea, this is an open primary.  Therefore, trickery cannot be at play as by it’s very definition, an open primary is open to anyone.  Even Republicans.  Even independents that support Governor Walker and oppose the unions.

In fact, a quick look at the flyers reveals that there is zero trickery involved, as Patriot Advisors very blatantly acknowledge what they would like to accomplish:

I’m not seeing any tricks here.  What I see is a flyer that is very honestly explaining that it doesn’t like the positions of the candidate Jessica King and is thus asking voters to support the primary challenger, John Buckstaff.  You’d have to be an idiot of elephantine proportions to believe that this flyer was trying to convince Democrats that Buckstaff is in line with their party ideology.

But even putting aside the for profit nature of the group behind these flyers.  Putting aside the fact that they are not affiliated with any candidate or committee.  This whole thing begs the question: Why bother having an open primary if you’re going to refer to any open challenge as “sleazy, dirty tricks?”  If you want to keep debate out of it, then close the primaries.  Because until you do, I believe it is the right and the duty of any voter that believes as I do that the Democrat party has been overrun by unions and progressive extremists, to get in there and try to restore the party of Jefferson to it’s former glory.

Far from sleazy, I’m looking at this as democracy at work.  It’s an open primary, let the open minded go in and vote what they believe and have the chips fall where they may.

In other words, let Operation: Chaos – Wisconsin edition begin.

Follow @Ben_Howe