We now have a report of on-the-ground mischief in NY-23, the sort of interference that Republicans have been warning about for today. The catch: Democrats are claiming that the mischief is coming from supporters of the Conservative candidate, Doug Hoffman.
The New York Daily News reports that police were called to polling sites in St. Lawrence County, a Democratic area in the district, to deal with some rowdy Hoffman-backers.
Former state Democratic chairwoman June O’Neill claimed that Hoffman-supporters are “yelling anti-choice stuff at voters” near the polls, that a woman involved said she was a “commissioner” — and is allegedly from Texas — and wouldn’t leave the polling site. “This is not the way we roll in the North Country,” O’Neill quipped.
The county’s Republican election commissioner Debbie Pahler (each county in New York has two election commissioners, one Democrat and one Republican) confirmed to the paper that the police were called, but said that this was a routine matter of people electioneering within the 100-feet boundary around a polling site. “If people are electioneering within the marker and don’t stop when we ask them to, our inspectors are instructed to call law enforcement to assist them. I don’t think anybody was arrested.”
