Political 'Dirty Tricks' Are Increasingly Common This Election Season

WASHINGTON (Sept. 8) -- A GOP operative in Arizona enlisted three homeless people to run for state office on the Green Party ticket -- possibly in hopes of siphoning votes away from Democrats. In Michigan and Pennsylvania, Democrats are accused of supporting tea party candidates in efforts to split the GOP vote.

Welcome to election season, which critics say is increasingly turning into a season of political dirty tricks.

In Arizona, Democrats are fuming over Republican Steve May's recruitment of homeless candidates. May acknowledges he got the homeless people to run, but he denies they are "fake" candidates, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

From left: Green Party candidates Thomas Meadows, Anthony Goshorn and Benjamin Pearcy listen as Steve May, a Republican candidate for the Arizona State Legislature, hands out voter registration forms in Tempe, Ariz., on Sept. 2, 2010.

Joshua Lott, The New York Times / Redux

Democrats are crying foul over Green Party candidates (from left) Thomas Meadows, Anthony Goshorn and Benjamin Pearcy, who were recruited to run by Steve May, right, a Republican candidate for the Arizona Legislature.

"It's unbelievable. It's not right. It's deceitful," former Democratic legislator Jackie Thrasher told the Times. "If these candidates were interested in the democratic process, they should connect with the party they are interested in. What's happening here just doesn't wash. It doesn't pass the smell test."

In Michigan, Democrats are facing ongoing allegations that the 23 candidates filed to run under the tea party line are Democratic plants. Almost 60,000 of the tea party's signatures were collected by a political firm with ties to liberal groups, and a Democratic Party official notarized the paperwork for some of the tea party candidates.

One tea party candidate (the former stepmother of a Michigan Democratic Party official) told the Detroit News she was a lifelong Democrat and didn't even realize she was on the tea party ballot.

"I was surprised as hell when someone called and said you're a candidate for the tea party," Susan Qashat, a candidate for the state House of Representatives, told the Detroit News. "The tea party is a Republican movement. I'm a full-fledged Democrat."

The issue became somewhat politically moot in Michigan, when the state Supreme Court ruled last week that the tea party slate could not appear on the ballot because of a technicality.

In Pennsylvania, it was revealed that tea party gubernatorial candidate John Krupa qualified for the ballot partially because allies of the Democratic candidate, Dan Onorato, helped circulate Krupa's petitions. Krupa dropped out of the race after the GOP challenged his ballot petitions.

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And some Republicans and tea party activists accused Scott Ashjian, a Tea Party of Nevada candidate for Senate, of being a plant whose mission is to take votes from Republican Sharron Angle, ensuring the re-election of Majority Leader Harry Reid.

"The idea of sponsoring minor candidates to divide the vote of one of the major parties is an old one," Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and the author of a book on political dirty tricks, said in an e-mail.

"But there's no question the practice has gotten a second wind in 2010. So far there doesn't seem to be much of a price being paid for practicing this kind of politics," he said. "Maybe the public is cynical or perhaps other issues in this busy year have overshadowed the shenanigans."