noumenon
12-03-2007, 10:43 PM
Emily Nipps can be reached at nipps@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3431.
<b>Note: Please contact Emily Nipps and thank her for reporting such an honest and unbiased story. She really has guts!</b>
Straw poll has some in snit
Ron Paul backers are miffed that some Mitt Romney supporters voted multiple times.
By EMILY NIPPS, Times Staff Writer
Published December 3, 2007
ST. PETERSBURG - The rules of the Republican straw poll at Wednesday's CNN/YouTube debate were simple: Buy a ticket for $20 a pop and vote for your favorite candidate. The money would benefit local Republican parties.
Yet when hundreds of Ron Paul supporters arrived by trolley and shuttle, dominating the estimated 1,000 or so guests at the Vinoy Park fundraiser, the event quickly became a heated contest between Paul's people and Mitt Romney supporters.
At stake? The very integrity of the democratic process, to hear some tell it.
Lined up at the voting machines, Paul supporters flaunted their single tickets and pledged to vote only once.
Meanwhile, some Romney supporters openly admitted to using rolls of tickets to vote multiple times. Romney won the poll with 893 votes, while Paul finished with 534. The rest of the candidates weren't even close; Giuliani came in third with 39.
It was all caught on tape, and the local Paul supporters rushed to share their complaints with the rest of the world.
By week's end, at least three videos hit YouTube, documenting Romney supporters - including prominent lawyer and lobbyist Fred Leonhardt - openly casting multiple votes.
In one video, a Clearwater woman and Paul supporter sat on a couch and accused Pinellas County GOP chairman and straw poll organizer Tony DiMatteo of threatening bodily harm if she didn't stop complaining.
"Tony's exact words on the phone to me was, 'If you make a big deal out of this, you will get hurt,'" Sofie Lefebvre said in the video. "And I was shocked. At that point, I realized that there was a lot more corruption going on than we even realized before."
Absurd, DiMatteo said. "You should tell your editor to get a voice analysis done on that video to detect her lying," he told a reporter.
"It was clear on the advertisements for the event that these votes were for sale. It was nothing more than a fundraising gimmick, and for whatever reason, the Mitt Romney people really wanted to win it and the Ron Paul (people) really wanted to win it."
Lefebvre could not be reached for comment, but her story about faulty voting machines and corrupt practices - as well as DiMatteo's alleged threats - drew more than 11,700 views and 280 comments on YouTube by Sunday, one day after it hit the popular video-sharing Web site. Most of those who responded to the video appeared outraged by what they perceived as a political scandal.
DiMatteo dismissed the incident, calling it a non-issue that he refused to discuss any further.
"I've read some of those comments," he said. "These are a bunch of people that need to get lives and don't understand what really happened here."
<b>Note: Please contact Emily Nipps and thank her for reporting such an honest and unbiased story. She really has guts!</b>
Straw poll has some in snit
Ron Paul backers are miffed that some Mitt Romney supporters voted multiple times.
By EMILY NIPPS, Times Staff Writer
Published December 3, 2007
ST. PETERSBURG - The rules of the Republican straw poll at Wednesday's CNN/YouTube debate were simple: Buy a ticket for $20 a pop and vote for your favorite candidate. The money would benefit local Republican parties.
Yet when hundreds of Ron Paul supporters arrived by trolley and shuttle, dominating the estimated 1,000 or so guests at the Vinoy Park fundraiser, the event quickly became a heated contest between Paul's people and Mitt Romney supporters.
At stake? The very integrity of the democratic process, to hear some tell it.
Lined up at the voting machines, Paul supporters flaunted their single tickets and pledged to vote only once.
Meanwhile, some Romney supporters openly admitted to using rolls of tickets to vote multiple times. Romney won the poll with 893 votes, while Paul finished with 534. The rest of the candidates weren't even close; Giuliani came in third with 39.
It was all caught on tape, and the local Paul supporters rushed to share their complaints with the rest of the world.
By week's end, at least three videos hit YouTube, documenting Romney supporters - including prominent lawyer and lobbyist Fred Leonhardt - openly casting multiple votes.
In one video, a Clearwater woman and Paul supporter sat on a couch and accused Pinellas County GOP chairman and straw poll organizer Tony DiMatteo of threatening bodily harm if she didn't stop complaining.
"Tony's exact words on the phone to me was, 'If you make a big deal out of this, you will get hurt,'" Sofie Lefebvre said in the video. "And I was shocked. At that point, I realized that there was a lot more corruption going on than we even realized before."
Absurd, DiMatteo said. "You should tell your editor to get a voice analysis done on that video to detect her lying," he told a reporter.
"It was clear on the advertisements for the event that these votes were for sale. It was nothing more than a fundraising gimmick, and for whatever reason, the Mitt Romney people really wanted to win it and the Ron Paul (people) really wanted to win it."
Lefebvre could not be reached for comment, but her story about faulty voting machines and corrupt practices - as well as DiMatteo's alleged threats - drew more than 11,700 views and 280 comments on YouTube by Sunday, one day after it hit the popular video-sharing Web site. Most of those who responded to the video appeared outraged by what they perceived as a political scandal.
DiMatteo dismissed the incident, calling it a non-issue that he refused to discuss any further.
"I've read some of those comments," he said. "These are a bunch of people that need to get lives and don't understand what really happened here."