Times condemns BIAW tactics

The Seattle Times has harsh words this morning for Tom McCabe and the BIAW, who, as we told you last week, set up a sneaky scheme to check the signatures of voters who signed affadivits in support of absentee and provisional ballots in the governor's election.

They sent out a "housing survey" with a ten dollar check, to entice people into taking their phony survey and cashing the check. Then they could compare signatures on the checks to the signatures on the affadivits.

It was completely unethical and completely unacceptable. Yet right wingers stood up to defend the BIAW's tactics. Can you imagine the outrage if, for example, a labor union had done this? KVI, KTTH, and unSoundPolitics would be up in arms! But because the BIAW did it, it's OK in their eyes.

Any Republican that is not troubled or bothered by these sleazy political tactics needs to reexamine their conscience. What do they believe in? Well, if this is OK, then you can forget about honesty or integrity.

Here's some of the juicier excerpts from the Times editorial:

Sleazy political tactics are no way to uncover errors in the governor's race.

Yet, the Building Industry Association of Washington took the low road and conducted a phony survey in an attempt to trick people into providing their signatures.

This was no housing survey. The only participants were those who signed affidavits. It was a sneaky way to collect signatures to be compared with the signatures on the affidavits.

McCabe is so upset with the election he feels he, with the aid of a forgery expert, should find mismatched signatures and turn them over to federal and local authorities. He effectively makes himself and his assistants arbiters of signature verification.

Not only does he make more than 125 people who returned the checks or surveys feel foolish, he muddies the water for others seeking information about the election.

This is not identity theft, as an irate Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt put it. But let's not mince words. It is political sleaze.

It is more important than ever that we enact retro-rebate reform and diminish the influence of the BIAW. They've already thrown away (long ago) any goodwill they could have expected from Democrats. It's time to put an end to their abuse of the retro rebate program.