Political Dirty Tricks Hit Fort Worth

Voters will be heading to the polls today all over Texas. In Ft. Worth, there are a couple of elections in addition to the constitutional amendments being voted on statewide. Ft. Worth will also be electing a new member of the city council to replace Wendy Davis, who resigned to run for the state senate. It will also elect a new state representative.

It now looks like someone thinks their candidate needs a little illegal help to get elected. Someone has recently been distributing fake flyers that urge voters to go vote on Saturday, November 10th. The bogus flyers have been distributed in areas of Ft. Worth where there are large numbers of Hispanics, and are printed in both English and Spanish.

No one knows yet who has been distributing the pamphlet. The Tarrant County District Attorney has assigned two investigators to find out. But it looks like someone wants to suppress the Hispanic turnout.

That makes me think it is most likely a Republican doing the dirty work. After all of the anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic rhetoric from Republicans in the last few months, it is very likely that the Hispanic vote would be largely Democratic.

Maybe it's just a racist who thinks this would be a big joke to trick Hispanics into missing the election, but I tend to think someone is trying to help a city council or state representative candidate that is unlikely to get many Hispanic votes. Either way, it is an illegal and very un-American action -- not the action of a person who believes in our democratic system of government.

I hope they find the culprit soon, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. A fine would not be enough. The criminal needs to get some jail time -- preferably a lot of jail time.