Washington Election Observer Free To Carry His Gun

A sign leads voters to a polling place Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2013, in Mobile, Ala. Voters went to the polls as Bradley Byrne and Dean Young met in a runoff for the Republican nomination in Alabama's First Congressional Di... A sign leads voters to a polling place Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2013, in Mobile, Ala. Voters went to the polls as Bradley Byrne and Dean Young met in a runoff for the Republican nomination in Alabama's First Congressional District. (AP Photo/AL.com, Mike Brantley) MAGS OUT MORE LESS
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A certified election observer in Washington freaked some people out when he showed up to his county auditor’s office last month carrying a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol, but the law’s the law.

Election workers in Clark County, Wash. had expressed misgivings over Gerald “Rick” Halle’s decision to work last month’s primary while wearing his weapon, but the “state has preempted the area of regulating firearms,” Chris Horn, the county’s chief civil deputy prosecutor, told The Columbian.

The were no incidents with Halle, who apparently wears his firearm on his hip every day, but the county staff members will ask election observers in the future “to voluntarily put their firearm in a newly purchased gun safe,” according to the Columbian.

If they should decline, county auditor Greg Kimsey, a Republican, said that “they will still be welcome to carry out their responsibility.”

From the Columbian:

The county currently prohibits employees from carrying firearms at work, but elected officials and the public are allowed to bring weapons into some county buildings. State and federal law bans the public from carrying weapons at the courthouse, juvenile justice facilities and the community health campus. The elections office is in a separate building not covered by those bans.

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  1. Avatar for anniew anniew says:

    And yet a black man in a beret can get the people over at Fox in a tizzy about intimidating voters…

  2. So here, at last, the previously hidden convergence of the Wingnut Wurlitzer white paranoia campaign comes to the surface: “because the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a ballot is a good guy with a gun!” Isn’t that what this has been all about since sometime long about 2009 2001?

  3. well cause there scarry blaaaa guys and the beret that’s that’s well ,french and socialist

  4. Even if they did observe election fraud (which they won’t) what are they going to do shoot someone for checking the wrong box. Voter intimation is the obvious intent here,and it should not be tolerated.

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