2024 United States Presidential Election Megathread

Most Important Election of Our Lives

  • Yes

    Votes: 103 59.9%
  • Nígga Please

    Votes: 69 40.1%

  • Total voters
    172
  • Poll closed .

bnew

Veteran
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Messages
51,876
Reputation
7,926
Daps
148,999


Her name was on a filing agreeing to be a Cornel West elector. Her question: What’s an elector?​


Image


FILE - Scholar and activist Cornel West, who is running for U.S. president as a third-party candidate in 2024, speaks on Saturday, July 15, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

By BRIAN SLODYSKO and JONATHAN J. COOPER

Updated 10:30 PM EDT, August 16, 2024

PHOENIX (AP) — When Denisha Mitchell was asked why she filled out paperwork to serve as an Arizona elector for the independent presidential candidate Cornel West, her first response was “What?!” Her second: What’s an elector?

“I was shocked and surprised by it all. I didn’t even know what an elector was,” Mitchell told The Associated Press on Friday. “The crazy thing is it was all forged. None of it was my handwriting. It was definitely not my signature. My email was wrong, my address was wrong.”

Mitchell’s case is the latest example of dubious tactics used in an effort to qualify West, a left-wing academic, for the ballot in states across the U.S. It’s also among the more egregious. It’s an effort that West himself apparently knows nothing about. His campaign did not immediately respond for comment Friday evening.

“If you produce information that is a false on filing to a government entity in Arizona, you’ve committed a felony. It’s just not that complicated,” said Dennis K. Burke, a former U.S. Attorney in Arizona, who also served as a chief deputy in the state attorney general’s office.

But as the presidential election enters a critical three-month period, there are efforts around the country to subvert the integrity of the ballot, many of them coming from a collection of conservative activists and Republican-aligned operatives pushing West’s candidacy.

Republicans and their allies have worked to get West on the ballot in Arizona, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Nebraska, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Maine.

Their hope is West will serve as a spoiler candidate, boosting former President Donald Trump’s chance of winning in November by siphoning liberal support away from the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, in battleground states that could be decided by just a few thousand votes.

While it is not clear who is behind the effort — and there is no indication that Trump’s campaign is directly involved — one thing is certain: It’s not West, who has not been actively campaigning and whose presidential committee, records show, was almost $17,000 in debt at the end of June.

Since discovering she was signed up to be an elector, Mitchell has signed an affidavit that will be submitted to state authorities next week attesting that she never agreed to serve as an elector and never signed her name to a filing. In Arizona, all independent presidential campaigns are required to submit filings showing that they have a slate of electors who will cast their Electoral College votes for a presidential candidate.

But her story is not the only unusual one among the slate of electors for West.

One of them, Elizabeth Rothgeb, pleaded guilty to manslaughter after accepting a plea deal stemming from the killing of her then-husband with an ax in 1998. She spent 10 years in prison and was released on Christmas Eve 2010, according to online records from the state prison system.

Rothgeb, who could not be reached for comment, is a registered Republican, as are two other electors for West, voting records show. Two additional electors listed in the state filings are not registered to vote at the addresses provided for them, records show.

As for Mitchell, she’s says she is unsure who filled out the paperwork in her name.

She and her husband were both enthusiastic supporters of Bernie Sanders and were drawn to West’s progressive message earlier this year. They later took jobs gathering petition signatures to get an initiative on the ballot that would raise the wages of tipped workers. They soured on West’s candidacy when they read that Republican-aligned operatives were working to get him on the ballot to play spoiler.

“We weren’t for the Republican griminess, so we stopped pushing him,” she said.

Her former employer, a signature gathering contractor called Wells Marketing, a mysterious Missouri limited liability company, is leading the effort to get West on the ballot in Arizona. The company did not respond to a message seeking comment at a phone number listed for it.

“I don’t know who did it. But because I worked for Wells (Marketing), they do have my information,” said Mitchell.

The company is closely affiliated with Mark Jacoby — a brother-in-law of a Wells Marketing official, according to social media posts — who was also listed on state documents as the employer of one signature gatherer working to get West on the ballot in the state.

Jacoby is a Republican-aligned operative from California with a longstanding reputation for using deceptive tactics. He was convicted in 2009 of voter registration fraud, court records show.

In 2020, Jacoby worked to gather signatures to place the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, on the ballot. Ye’s quixotic presidential campaign was widely viewed by Democrats as an effort to dilute Joe Biden’s popularity with Black voters.

Jacoby’s firm, Let the Voters Decide, was investigated for using questionable signature gathering tactics during a 2020 petition drive in Michigan that sought to roll back some of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s emergency powers during the coronavirus pandemic. No charges came of the investigation.

He was accused in 2008 of tricking voters into registering with the California Republican Party by telling them they were signing an initiative to strengthen penalties for child molesters, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Jacoby did not answer a call at a number listed to him and his voicemail inbox was full.

Similarly unusual efforts have unfolded in other states, as well.

In April, The Washington Post reported pro-Trump activist Scott Presler was gathering signatures for West outside a Trump rally in North Carolina. In a video posted online, Presler described West, an academic, as a “far-left Marxist” who “if we get him on the ballot he could take a percentage point away” from Biden.

But Republican involvement in getting West and his Justice For All party on the ballot in North Carolina ran far deeper.

At the beginning of June, disclosures show, West had spent just $2,400 this year to gather the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot in states across the U.S.

But then Justice For All submitted well over the roughly 13,800 signatures needed. State government emails obtained by The Associated Press show current and former employees of Blitz Canvassing, a Republican firm that earned millions of dollars doing work for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, helped West pull off the feat. The emails, previously reported by NBC News, show the employees affiliated with Blitz Canvassing were the designated representatives to pick up and drop off petitions for West’s campaign.

Ballot access hijinks are nothing new in Arizona, where elections are often decided by fractions of a percentage point.

This year, a leader of the conservative group Turning Point Action resigned from the organization and dropped his bid for reelection to the Arizona House of Representatives after he was accused of forging signatures on his nominating petitions.
 

bnew

Veteran
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Messages
51,876
Reputation
7,926
Daps
148,999









1/10
THREAD: Today, The Lincoln Project received a cease and desist for an ad currently running on Fox News in Mar-a-Lago. As it turns out, these losers can’t stand to be laughed at or mocked, and LaCivita and Wiles apparently didn’t appreciate that our ad states the obvious–

2/10
Chris and Susie have royally screwed up Trump’s campaign and selected for him the weirdest ever VP candidate — kookier even than Sarah Palin. Poor Trump. His campaign is in shambles and so is his mind. He brought back Corey Lewandowski—

3/10
a man who has never even won a statewide race - and who was fired for reportedly assaulting a female reporter — to babysit Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita. All while his weirdo running mate is having a Jeb Bush “please clap” moment at least once a day.

4/10
We understand why he’s angry and low energy these days. He’s just old, weird, and contemplating spending the rest of his life in courtrooms and prison instead of the White House.

5/10
Someone needs to tell Trump, Vance, Lewandowski, LaCivita, and Wiles that there’s no crying in politics.

6/10
Look, it genuinely sucks when you are about to lose a gig that rapes and pillages the campaign to pay your astronomical CONsulting fees. We would even feel bad for them if they cared about the country more than money and power.

7/10
Regardless, if they can’t take the heat, they should probably stay out of the proverbial kitchen.

8/10
The ad will stay up. Hell, the money we will raise off of this cease and desist will help us make sure Trump loses Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina. And we will keep doing more ads like this!

9/10
It’s been 1,393 days since Trump last threatened to sue over LP content. That threat was hot air and so is this one. We appreciate the campaign both helping us fundraise and showing us exactly how to effectively spend that money.

10/10
We are coming for the Trump campaign and won’t stop until he is no longer a threat to democracy. If they continue to threaten us with frivolous lawsuits, then we may need to stop being nice.


To post tweets in this format, more info here: https://www.thecoli.com/threads/tips-and-tricks-for-posting-the-coli-megathread.984734/post-52211196
 

Nostalgic

Superstar
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
Messages
14,385
Reputation
2,365
Daps
51,905

Nostalgic

Superstar
Joined
Jul 31, 2014
Messages
14,385
Reputation
2,365
Daps
51,905
To be fair - a Democrat had never won AZ and Georgia since Clinton in 96 🤷🏾‍♂️
Stacey Abrams and Fulton county was the main key in Georgia for Biden in 2020. Trump running his mouth about Brian Kemp might be the key for Harris.

But still Trump winning Ca against Harris (Which she was a former DA in) is a pipe dream.
 

Smalley Biggs

Rookie
Joined
May 27, 2012
Messages
262
Reputation
-60
Daps
261
Reppin
NULL

Bad move from the Trump team. To portray Kamala in a mock debate they needed to choose someone who's gonna attack him like Kamala will. Tulsi is such an extreme Trump bootlicker right now that she won't be able to attack Trump even if it's just pretend. The whole debate prep is gonna be her complimenting him.

Of course there was a time, not that long ago when she even accused Trump of supporting Al-Qaeda but that was just an act.

Article: Tulsi Gabbard defends debate claim that Trump supports Al Qaeda

She endorsed Biden in 2020 hoping to get a cabinet position. The second it became clear she wasn't gonna be in Biden's administration she literally switched sides overnight. By January 2021 she was already on the MAGA train.
 

the bossman

Superstar
Joined
Sep 4, 2012
Messages
10,559
Reputation
2,277
Daps
49,300
Reppin
Norfeast D.C.
Bad move from the Trump team. To portray Kamala in a mock debate they needed to choose someone who's gonna attack him like Kamala will. Tulsi is such an extreme Trump bootlicker right now that she won't be able to attack Trump even if it's just pretend. The whole debate prep is gonna be her complimenting him.

Of course there was a time, not that long ago when she even accused Trump of supporting Al-Qaeda but that was just an act.

Article: Tulsi Gabbard defends debate claim that Trump supports Al Qaeda

She endorsed Biden in 2020 hoping to get a cabinet position. The second it became clear she wasn't gonna be in Biden's administration she literally switched sides overnight. By January 2021 she was already on the MAGA train.
Makes sense. She could help him with attack points on Kamala but you right it wouldn't help him prep for how she will attack him. His ego wouldn't be able to handle it even during training lol
 
Top