Masquerading junk election mailers sneak across the aisle
OLYMPIA — Glen Morgan is a political conservative with a knack for annoying elected Democrats and their progressive allies.
Usually he does it by scrutinizing the bookkeeping of their political operations then filing complaints with the state Public Disclosure Commission on errors he discovers, no matter how minute.
But this past week he ticked them off when he climbed into the electoral arena, badmouthed their endorsed candidates in a handful of contests and provided voters the name of a different Democrat to write in.
As of Tuesday, Morgan-led political committees had sent mailers into four legislative districts where there are heated races for House and Senate seats.
He loaned the effort $10,000. He got another $10,000 from Peter Zieve of Mukilteo, a gold-plated aerospace executive with a multiplatinum record of impolite politics. Zieve opposed the location of a mosque in Mukilteo and got fined by the state over allegations he discriminated against employees of his company, aerospace supplier Electroimpact Inc.
The mailers all had a marked similarity. Names of the Republican and Democratic candidates were crossed out and the name of a different Democrat, described as a “real progressive,” was scrawled next to a write-in box.
Logos of unions and organizations such as Planned Parenthood are on the mailers. And there are lengthy endorsements from the Progressive Voters Guide compiled by Fuse, a statewide coalition of labor and social progressives.
The content is accurate — but not this year. Those endorsements and accolades were from a past election cycle when the purported write-in candidates were actually on a ballot.
The mailers have been loudly condemned by those in the Democratic Party and its extended family, who fear the chicanery could divert votes from their candidate and cost them an election. They got a lawyer to file a complaint with the PDC.
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/misleading-and-misdirection-in-election-mailers-is-not-new/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=81b2c54796-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-81b2c54796-228635337
