A supporter or supporters of school board candidates Linda Conn, Michele Hamer and Andy Nelson, weren’t happy to see that the Yavapai County GOP were also supporting Republicans Stan Goligoski and Brooks Compton for election to the Prescott Unified School Board, so they decided to take matters into their black marker filled hands and tamper with thousands of the Yavapai GOP’s so-called “golden tickets”. The tickets are lists of the Republicans on the ballot and are traditionally printed on yellow paper, then distributed door-to-door by Precinct Committeemen.
In this case, an unknown number of Conn, Hamer and Nelson supporters took black markers and went about covering up the names of Goligoski and Compton to prevent Republican voters from knowing they were Republicans or supported by the County GOP organization. Then the doctored tickets were distributed to Precinct Committeemen for distribution to voters. The problem is that it is very likely illegal to tamper with these printed campaign materials, and those responsible may get in some very real trouble.
According to an email from Lois Fruhwirth, the Yavapai County Chairman, the actions were possible “examples of class 2 misdemeanors per ARS 16-1019 Political Signs; Printed Materials: ‘A. It is a class 2 misdemeanor for any person to knowingly remove, alter, deface or cover any political sign of any candidate for public office or in support of or opposition to any ballot measure, questions, issue or knowingly remove, alter, deface any political mailers, handouts, flyers or other printed materials of a candidate or in support of or opposition to any ballot measure, question or issue that are delivered by hand to a residence for the period commencing forty-five days before a primary election and ending fifteen days after a general election.’”
Conn was reported to have personally delivered hundreds of these defaced tickets to Precinct Committeemen herself. While Conn is running for the 2-year term in what is a different race than the one Hamer, Goligoski, Nelson and Compton are running in, she is running as a team with Hamer and Nelson.
“It isn’t just a question of legal or illegal, it is incredibly sleazy to do what they did.” said one angry Precinct Committeeman. “If you don’t want to hand out the slate, then don’t. Make up your own slate, make copies, and hand it out in your precinct. That’s fair. But you can’t take names off the County Party’s slate and then hand it out like it’s the official slate that voters should follow. That’s fraud and you’re lying to the voters.”