GOP Consultant Sentenced for Phone Jamming

There is no excuse for this. The man deserves jail time for actively seeking to thwart the electoral process.

Court papers say Raymond and co-conspirators plotted to jam Democratic lines that voters could call for rides to the polls in Manchester, Nashua, Rochester and Claremont. A line run by the nonpartisan Manchester firefighters' union also was jammed. The blizzard of more than 800 computer-generated calls lasted about 90 minutes on Nov. 5, 2002, as voters decided races for governor, U.S. senator and hundreds of other offices. State Republicans acknowledged two years ago they hired GOP Marketplace. But then-Republican Chairwoman Jayne Millerick said the company was paid $15,600 for telemarketing services to encourage people to vote Republican, not to jam lines.

There is an old saying, "You play the game by the rules of the court." That means a lot of weird stuff is part of politics and must simply be accepted as part of "the game." But this is cheating, any way you see it.