[Nevada Politics] Recall effort by GOP has become a string of harassment incidents.

Henroid

We're having a bit of trouble here in Nevada. It started with the 2016 flipping the state senate to be majority Democrat. Now Republicans are funding an untraceable group to canvas door to door to get signatures to recall some of those state senators. And aside from the funds going to an unknown entity, which thus can't be confronted, the door to door people are getting increasingly disingenuous, hostile, and dangerous.

As per a local paper:

A group of Southern Nevadans shot off a letter Monday accusing recall petition canvassers of harassing voters and misrepresenting the recalls in an effort to gain signatures.

The letter was sent to the presidents of three committees that oversee the recall efforts of three state Senators — Joyce Woodhouse, D-Henderson; Nicole Cannizzaro, D-Las Vegas; and Patricia Farley, I-Las Vegas — and the committees’ respective presidents, Stephen Silberkraus, Claire Roth and Annalise Castor.

They said some canvassers have been aggressive and refused to leave when turned away by voters, accused Cannizzaro of “pocketing money from her constituents,” without evidence and have tried to tell voters they are signing an “anti-recall” petition that supports the three senators, and references written, anecdotal examples from constituents.

“We hereby demand that your canvassers immediately cease in engaging in the described conduct; otherwise we will be forced to take further legal action as the situation warrants,” the letter reads.

...

Democrats have been working on a counter-recall campaign called “Decline to sign” since the early days of the efforts.

Included in that link above is a cease & desist letter.

The Daily Beast also has an article about this.

What makes the effort that much more mysterious is that it’s not entirely clear what the justification is behind it. In an August statement, Senate Republican Leader Michael Roberson announced his support for the recalls as a way to stand up against the “pro-felon and anti-business priorities of the Democrats.” But Republicans have not made many more public statements and it’s not entirely clear who is financing the effort.

Registration forms list the names of those leading the recalls, but the numbers listed on the forms are either disconnected or direct to a voicemail that has not been set up.

Clark County Public Information Officer Dan Kulin said that if the recall petitions are successful, each special election would cost taxpayers around $51,000, totaling around $150,000 if elections in all three districts are held. There have been 150 recall efforts at all levels of Nevada state government since 1993, none of which have been successful.

The canvassers are claiming to be from the Decline to Sign movement, an organization against the recall effort (for a variety of reasons). Decline to Sign has been going door to door, but it's an informative movement with no papers to sign. The recall canvassers have started resorting to claim to be from DTS, holding out covered sheets of paper asking to sign to show you've "declined to sign." And they won't let you read it. In general, these recall canvassers are also posing as non-center Democrats who 'expect better' from elected officials, etc.

The bottom line is, it's a shadow campaign to abuse a state's open and unspecific laws about recall elections to change election results based on party lines.

Now for my anecdote and why I decided to make this thread.

Just now, for like the third time in less than a week, one of these goddamn recall goons showed up to the door again asking for my roomie. This is after she made it clear that no, she's not signing, and she's been questioning them from day one and they have no ability to answer basic things like "who are you running in Joyce Woodhouse's place?" This particular guy though started arguing with her at the door and raising his voice. My baby niece is a room over trying to sleep. The second he raised it to an outright yell I intervened to get him to leave. I'm trying to contact both the state level Democrat and Republican parties about this, because this has gone beyond a shrugging off calling. This is harassment.

LostNinja

What's happening when people film them and call the police? That seems like it would be more effective in the immediate situation than letters to politicians.

The politicians are aware, but the dems probably can't do anything about it without being wrongly accused of interfering in the electoral process (or whatever you'd consider a shady recall), and the pubs have no reason to do anything about it.