{"id":2346,"date":"2010-10-20T13:59:01","date_gmt":"2010-10-20T13:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=2346"},"modified":"2010-10-20T13:59:01","modified_gmt":"2010-10-20T13:59:01","slug":"where_is_the_line_on_electione","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=2346","title":{"rendered":"Where Is The Line On Electioneering At The Voting Place ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday the Daily Caller<\/a> posted a story about a woman in Dallas County, Texas, who had been denied the right to vote on Monday.  The woman was wearing a button that showed the Gadsden flag (the rattlesnake under the words “Don’t Tread on Me”)–the flag that is unofficially associated with the Tea Party.  <\/p>\n

The article reported:<\/p>\n

\n

“Katrina Pierson, who sits on the steering committee of the Dallas Tea Party and is also involved with the Garland Tea Party, told The Daily Caller that “around 11 o’clock yesterday,” a Garland Tea Party member, reported that she was told by an election official that she could not vote unless she removed her button.  A second election official, Pierson said, did not recognize the button and did not understand why the other official was not permitting the woman to vote.<\/em><\/p>\n

“According to Pierson, the woman refused to remove her button, saying it was a violation of her first amendment rights, and called the sheriff’s office.  The sheriff passed the matter on to the Dallas County Election Department, which failed to act.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I have very mixed emotions about this.  I oppose electioneering at the polls–I suspect most Americans do, but I am not quite sure that this qualifies as electioneering.  The Gadsden flag is not the official symbol of the Tea Party–the Tea Party does not have an official symbol.  If I walked into a polling place with a Tea Bag clipped to my lapel, would I be allowed to vote if I refused to remove it?  What about a Confederate flag on my lapel?  What about an American flag on my lapel?  What about a small picture of Barack Obama, President Bush, Sarah Palin, etc.?  The clue to me is that the second official had no idea what the significance of the flag was.  <\/p>\n

Personally, I would have removed the button, voted, left and put the button back on, but I am not sure that that is the right answer.  One of the problems we have right now is that as Americans we are not standing up for our Constitutional rights.  Since the flag is not an official emblem and thus not part of electioneering, I think the woman was probably right to claim her right to wear the button at the polls.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday the Daily Caller posted a story about a woman in Dallas County, Texas, who had been denied the right to vote on Monday.  The woman was wearing a button that showed the Gadsden flag (the rattlesnake under the words “Don’t Tread on Me”)–the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}