Liberty Maven

Apparently, there is a lot of talk going around in the Ron Paul camp that the Louisiana GOP establishment are playing games by counting the provisional ballots slowly. The reason they say is because most of the provisional ballots will likely be in favor of Ron Paul. In short, they are accusing the Louisiana GOP of “spinning” the true results of the caucus. Below is a press release from the Ron Paul campaign.

Ron Paul Campaign to Louisiana GOP: Count All the VotesState Party Blunders Put Caucus Results in Question

ARLINGTON, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today, the Ron Paul presidential campaign calls on the Republican Party of Louisiana to count all the ballots submitted in the state’s January 22 caucus.

“The failure of the Louisiana GOP to properly determine who was and wasn’t eligible to vote threw this entire process into disarray,” said Ron Paul campaign manager Lew Moore. “The party needs to correct this mistake by counting all the votes immediately, and releasing the results.”

Due to mistakes by the Louisiana GOP, hundreds of voters were forced to file provisional ballots, including nearly 500 that could change the outcome of the election. According to party officials, caucus locations relied on a voter list from November 1, 2007 despite the fact that under caucus rules, voters must have registered Republican by November 30, 2007. The Louisiana Secretary of State reports that 2,709 Louisiana residents registered as Republican between November 1, 2007 and November 30, 2007.

In multiple instances on caucus day, state-certified Ron Paul delegates that were on the ballot were forced to file a provisional ballot despite the fact they were pre-approved as delegates.

The Louisiana State GOP also changed the rules at the last minute to allow other candidates to file more delegates. At the time of the original January 10 deadline, Ron Paul had the largest number of delegates pledged to him. The party then changed the rules to give other candidates until January 12 to file more delegates.

Also, some anecdotal information came from someone in Louisiana writing in to LewRockwell.com:

“The McCain loyals that are influential in the LA GOP are trying to make it look like this. It doesn’t compute that McCain has a majority, unless the people on the prolife/profamily ballot that were also on a Romney, Thompson, Huckabee ballot have switched to McCain. Ron Paul had a full delegate list in all districts. Many of the candidates did not. From what we can predict, Ron Paul will likely have nearly half of the 105 delegates(maybe more). So how can McCain possibly have a majority with the other field of candidates? All these provisional ballots are their tactic to stall the results that we know are in Paul’s favor. The registration deadline for switching parties was 11-30th. People that switched before this date did not have their name appear on the GOP roster when going to vote which makes their ballot provisional. The La. GOP had a record number of people changing their party affiliation. Getting these provisional ballots verified is something they are doing at separate districts-stall…stall…..stall…. Also, they extended the delegate deadline; I know Ron Paul had all his people in prior to that. I’m speaking of my particular district which is reflective of the other six.”

At some point the provisional ballots will be counted and we’ll know the true results because press releases can be spun but the votes don’t lie.