CasinoQuiddick

3Nov/100

CasinoQuiddick

Boy, I really wish I had a cott to rest on.

The allegations against Harrah's surfaced Tuesday morning in a National Review Online article that reported the casino giant had stepped up efforts to get employees to vote early following a plea from an unidentified Reid staffer.

Company e-mails showed that the Reid staffer informed Harrah's that it was lagging behind the get-out-the-vote campaign of MGM Resorts International. It was suggested that Harrah's supervisors pick up the slack and steer employees to early voting sites. Conventional wisdom is that in a tight race, high turnout tends to benefit Democrats.

The National Review reported that a top Harrah's executive sent out an e-mail late last week showing the percentages of employees at Harrah's properties who had voted. Attached was a spreadsheet with the employees' names and where they worked. Supervisors at the properties were asked to fill in codes explaining why their employees had not yet voted.

"This constitutes nothing less than a concerted scheme to violate the rights of Harrah's employees ... to cast a secret ballot for the candidates of their choice, without fear of reprisals, recriminations, job loss, or other adverse employment actions," the Republican letters stated.

Gee, I wonder why the Dems will be pushing so hard for card check over the lame duck session.

The busing effort also involved MGM Resorts International, which encouraged its 10 Las Vegas casinos to participate. Company officials said more than 2,700 employees had voted early.

The Republican lawyers did not complain about the activities of MGM Resorts in their letters to authorities. But GOP operatives circulated a Washington Times blog that suggested MGM Resorts improperly pressured its employees to support Reid through the distribution of a voter's guide with boxes checked next to the names of candidates the company supported, including Reid.

The Review-Journal obtained a copy of the 110-page guide, which includes short biographies of the candidates and some of their accomplishments.

MGM Resorts spokesman Alan Feldman said the company has been putting out such guides for the past 15 years. Other casino companies have done the same thing over the years, he said.

Feldman said that although the company identifies its favored candidates with a check mark, employees are under no obligation to vote for them.

Remember that horrible thing some McDonald's franchise did in Ohio? That was awful.

I'm hoping someone will come up with MGM's handy voting guide, to find out just who was checked, and on what basis. Naturally, this couldn't be construed as an in-kind contribution, as some Proggies believe bloggers supporting candidates should be counted as.

It's not as though many undocumented workers are employed by the casinos.

Two days ago, the Democratic Secretary of State announced that voters can be provided "free food" at "voter turnout events." Harry Reid has been offering free food and, according to other reports, some Democratic allies such as teachers' unions are offering gift cards in return for a vote for Reid.

Before we were even able to document the reported infractions to report to the authorities, the Democrat Secretary of State slammed the door shut on preventing this behavior and issued a public statement permitting these ACORN-style tactics. THESE are the kinds of shenanigans that can turn this race.

Harry Reid intends to steal this election if he can't win it outright. As a result, we need to deploy literally dozens of election law attorneys and poll watchers to combat these tactics at a cost of nearly $80,000. That's over and above our current budget. We need to raise $80,000 and we need to do it RIGHT NOW, because even as I am writing this, Harry Reid and his Machine are trying to steal this election. I'm sorry that we have to come to you yet again and ask for you to reach deep and contribute, but we must.

Notice: Blackjack players must now beat the house by two in order to win. The Management.

Nevada voting regulations.