A diary that spent several hours on the rec list last night claimed that Clinton supporters disenfranchised voters in New Mexico by hiding ballot boxes
http://www.dailykos.com/... .
This is simply not true. The information showing that it is not true was on the same web site linked to in that article, two days before the diarist wrote this diary. The diary war front paged by hundreds of people, even though there was no support for the allegations in the dairy. A simple Google search turned up counter information. This lie has already spread through the blogosphere and been referenced in other locations on Daily Kos. Here is the story.
The diarist said that four missing ballot boxes from Rio Arriba and Sandoval County had been "found in the home of county Democratic Party Chair Theresa Martinez", whose husband, Sen. Richard Martinez, has endorsed Hillary Clinton. They then stated that disenfranchisement had occurred, and we should be outraged. This was not true. The ballots were counted and the results reported to the appropriate authorities in front of witnesses before the boxes were taken home by site managers because it was late and the weather was bad. The boxes were taken to the appropriate official (Martinez) in the morning. They were not "found" in her home. No disenfranchisement occurred.
From: http://haussamen.blogspot.com/
Explaining the situation in Rio Arriba County that I reported on earlier, Colón said site managers at polling places were supposed to count ballots, then call in results to the state party. The managers at the three polling places in Rio Arriba County I reported on earlier, he said, called in only the vote totals for Clinton and Obama, but did not provide totals for the other candidates who appeared on the ballot even though they had already dropped out of the race.
Realizing later that it had incomplete information, the state party tried to contact the managers, but it was well after midnight, Colón said, and they could not be reached. The party decided not to post those polling places’ results without the totals for all candidates.
Asked why the managers were allowed to take the ballot boxes home, Colón said many in rural areas across the state were allowed to do that because of the late hour and, in some cases, bad weather. They agreed to deliver the ballot boxes to state party officials this morning.
To ensure that nothing unethical happened while the ballot boxes were in the manager’s homes, those managers, before leaving the polling places, had to call in the final numbers to the state party in front of other workers. The state party today checked the numbers that were called in against the ballots in the boxes to ensure they matched.
In all cases, including those in Rio Arriba County, they did match, Colón said.
He said he expects the results from the three polling places in Rio Arriba County to be posted on the party’s Web site by Thursday morning.
This is a classic example of how malicious rumors get started. The Clinton and Obama votes were called in in front of witnesses before the boxes were taken home. Nobody was disenfranchised by this process. Nobody stuffed ballot boxes.
This information was available at the time this diary was written, on the same blog linked to in this diary as well as other sources. I don't know if the diarist is simply overenthusiastic about hating Clinton to the point that he is willing to spread lies or if he is a troll for the Obama camp, or maybe just a gossip with a tidbit of news they couldn't resist spreading, but a lot of people saw this diary last night, there is no correction posted that I can find, and these people will believe that Clinton stole the state of New Mexico by having her supporters hide ballot boxes. The story will last in the blogosphere forever. This is the worst kind of attack by innuendo, and it's, unfortunately, typical of the right wing and the more fanatic members of the Obama movement.
The truth is that this diary was an unsupported hit on Clinton, and none of the hundreds of people who recommended the diary bothered to check before they hit the button. Even when their error was pointed out, the diarist did not delete the diary or so much as post an update to it explaining the truth. It was enough that it was dirt on Clinton - it didn't have to be substantiated, or even substantial.
The diarist said:
Regardless of which candidate you support, this is the kind of voter disenfranchisement we've been accusing the GOP of for years, and is absolutely despicable. Please rec this diary, and feel free to forward this information on to whomever you see fit.
I think that what is despicable is that somebody posted a hit diary on Clinton that wasn't true, hundreds of people recommended it, and that diary remained unchallenged at the top of the rec list for hours.
The next time you see a hit on any candidate, don't just reflexively believe it. People tend to trust the written word, especially if it comes from a familiar source (Daily Kos, in this case). Once a few people have recommended something, it becomes more trustworthy, or people think it does. But this diary had no evidence of wrongdoing, only insinuations which had already been shown to be untrue. I hope that anybody who rec'd this diary will think twice before putting their signature of approval on the next hit piece - and I hope that all readers will learn that not everything they read is true.