If I Hadn't Seen Rick Wilson Urge A Variation On This Strategy

GOP candidate calls on Republicans to 'hire mercenaries' to 'harvest ballots' in leaked recordinghttps://t.co/f02XU7WIUQ

— Raw Story (@RawStory) October 26, 2021

We have to do it, because they're doing it first!

"We execute with excellence, we will beat them at their own game. And the next morning, we all wake up, take a shower with steel wool, and then, after swearing in in January ... (the Legislature) is going to pass all these bills again, and then I'm going to sign them all. And we will never do elections like that again, but this is how we win," Kleefisch said.

"If you are recording, I don't want you to put this part online to share with Democrats, OK? It is about election strategy," she added. "What I'm about to say may feel ugly to you guys."

According to the newspaper, Kleefisch then talked about "ballot harvesting" and hiring "mercenaries."

"Ballot harvesting in Wisconsin is not technically illegal," Kleefisch said. "Democrats do it non-stop and they go hard. Republicans must go harder."

"Democrats hire mercenaries," she added. "Republicans rely on sweet little volunteers to do the exact same things. We must hire mercenaries."

I swear I've seen Rick Wilson make that same argument to Democrats in order to defeat Republicans.

I have to wonder if this will trigger a criminal investigation.  I guess that depends on what “technically illegal” means. Ballot harvesting is really only illegal where fraud is involved, as in collecting mail-in ballots and altering them on the way to delivering them. Hiring “mercenaries” sure sounds like conspiring to commit fraud, to me.

And now I understand why my last mail-in ballot included so much language on the envelope about anyone dropping the envelope in the mail or at a collection point but me. It included signature lines for anyone doing so, and made me feel like I couldn’t drop my wife’s ballot in the mail without signing the envelope. But the difference between helping out and fraud is actually quite a large one. “Hiring mercenaries” sure sounds like crossing that gap; or at least proposing to.