I’m not someone who typically buys into conspiracies, if I’m being perfectly honest. However, today, I went to the election center to vote in the early voting, and was just as shocked as dozens of other people to see several people dressed in “ghost costumes” show up and begin filming. Election center personnel quickly rushed over and told them they can’t be there and it was a huge ruckus, the election center personnel told those of us standing in line that they had county ID badges and that they were filming some sort of video but that it wasn’t allowed and they had to leave…

This seems so incredibly suspicious and honestly shady to me, even if it is real. I understand it’s close to Halloween, but why would you show up wearing ghost costumes? Why not witches or something I don’t know, that doesn’t resemble KKK klansmen? Like, when voter intimidation is a huge concern, why in the hell would anyone think it’s okay to just show up at an election center and start filming yourselves in something that closely resembling extremely racist symbology…

The whole situation is so strange to me and I’m left kind of annoyed that these county employees really did this, and didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. Like, what was going through their mind?

    • Buttflapper@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      0·
      17 days ago

      It’s scary how quickly people assume conspiracy

      I’m not assuming it’s a conspiracy. I simply stated that it’s suspicious and shady. There’s several things that simply don’t add up about the situation. (1) Why did the “county employees” not notify the election center in any way? The employees there had no idea what was going on. That’s very unusual.

      (2) why ghosts? It’s not difficult to understand that dressing in white cloths or robes might easily be misunderstood as something else, especially in a very diverse town with a fair amount of non-white people voting there. They could’ve dressed as anything else. Bumblebee, cat whiskers, bunny rabbit, ghostbusters. They really chose white sheets that look like a ripoff klansmen outfit, and didn’t even think twice

      (3) Why did they show up at a polling center, and try filming it, which is 100% illegal. That’s common knowledge. You can’t film on the premises of a polling location during a voting period. They had so many other county government buildings to choose from. Tax collector, DMV, wastewater plant, fire station… They specifically chose to do it at a place where it’s known to be illegal

      (4) why did they ignore Georgia state law that explicitly states that wearing a mask is illegal? This is very widely known, you can dress up for Halloween ON halloween, but randomly walking around in a full blown ghost costume not on Halloween is illegal

      (5) Why did they try to film it? This is the one that honestly makes zero sense. Holiday cheer, sure, whatever. But why would you try to film at a polling center (illegal)? Usually the media is called in to film things like “Hey Fox local news, can you cover this and televise it?” Nope, they’re just like, we’re going to randomly film this for no apparent reason on a day that isn’t Halloween, without telling anyone we’re coming

          • Greg Clarke@lemmy.caEnglish
            0·
            17 days ago

            A stance can be both woke and bigoted. One example that COP exhibited is assuming that US race relations are universal around the world. It’s often from well meaning folks that just have a very narrow perspective.

            • Rhaedas@fedia.io
              0·
              17 days ago

              This was in literal Georgia, USA. I don’t see how claiming race relations are different around the world means much when this is where racism is very present, and in the case of voter intimidation with certain things at a voting poll area in an illegal manner, it’s totally relevant.

              I mean sure, it could be a totally innocent stupid decision given by some official. It sure hit all the trigger warnings for being something more than a mistake.

              I just thought your combo of those two words was interesting, to say the least.

              • Greg Clarke@lemmy.caEnglish
                01·
                17 days ago

                I called out ShareMySims specifically for making woke-bigoted statements in the original thread about these ghost clowns. Maybe narrow-progressive is a better term.

                Either way, I 100% agree that dressing up as ghosts to go and vote is a stupid thing to do.