GOP election day fliers handed out in Maryland were misleading; unethical!

The Maryland GOP needs to rethink their election day GOTV strategy! I'm not sure it's illegal, but it sure as hell is shady and unethical! Apparently, they recruited 300 mostly poor, African-Americans from Philadelphia, bussed them down on election day, fed them three meals, and paid them $100 to hand out misleading fliers to voters in mostly black precincts on November 7. The GOP also neglected to tell the workers that they would be helping Republicans.

According to a Washington Post article:

"The glossy fliers bore photos of black Democratic leaders on the front. Under the headline "Democratic Sample Ballot" were boxes checked in red for Ehrlich and Senate candidate Michael S. Steele, who were not identified as Republicans. Their names were followed by a long list of local Democratic candidates."

What makes this even worse, is that it was not part of a last minute rushed GOTV strategy, but had been in planning for over a week before the elections! This wasn't the first time Ehrlich and Steele used shady tactics either, in 2002 when Ehrlich was campaigning for Maryland governor (with Steele running as his Lt. Governor), they recruited HOMELESS people in Washington, DC to hand out deceptive fliers at Prince George's County precincts.

Hopefully this story doesn't slip under the radar, and hopefully people take notice even though Steele was defeated. Like I said, I'm not sure if this is illegal or not, but it certainly reeks of poor ethics and bad judgement! However, I expect no less from the GOP these days.