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  • 2016-03-03 (xsd:date)
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  • Did Bill Clinton Violate Campaign Laws in MA? (en)
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  • On 1 March 2016 — Super Tuesday — people in twelve states (as well as Democrats both in the territory of American Samoa and living abroad) cast votes in the Presidential primaries. On the Democratic side, which included eleven of those twelve states, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders came away with Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Vermont, while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Massachusetts quickly emerged as a point of contention among Sanders supporters. While Clinton carried double-digit margins in all other states she won, Massachusetts remained an outlier with a narrow 1.4 point margin: For some time after the state's polls closed, pundits and press were reluctant to call Massachusetts for either candidate. The New York Times' Upshot blog reported: Massachusetts was distinctive on Super Tuesday for another reason, as well. Former President Bill Clinton was on site at many polling places in the state throughout the day, shaking hands and greeting primary voters who came out to cast ballots. Sanders supporters shared stories on social media in which they claimed Bill Clinton engaged in electioneering, obstructed polling places, suppressed voters by causing a commotion, or otherwise engaged in activities that obstructed or influenced the vote: The controversy didn't live and die just on social media platforms, although it did inspire a hashtag: #MoveBillGetOutTheWay. The Boston Globe reported later that day that the claims caught the attention of election officials, and earned the Clinton campaign a reminder: Galvin reiterated the state's position in a comment to the New York Times, confirming they had called the Clinton campaign before Bill Clinton's appearance in New Bedford, after reports began flooding in: In a 1 March 2016 Boston.com piece, Brian McNiff, a spokesman for the Massachusetts secretary of state, reiterated that the Clinton campaign was reminded of election rules during the Massachusetts primary: A video was tweeted out by WCVB reporter Sera Congi, in which Bill Clinton was shown inside a polling place: A Change.org petition addressed to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey called for Clinton's arrest, and maintained: The Dallas Morning News reported that the activity wasn't a clear-cut case of breaking election law, and fell into ambiguous territory: On 2 March 2016, CNN spoke to Brian McNiff about the controversy. McNiff said the Galvin's office was not aware of any legally prohibited activity at any of the four polling places involved: It's true that Bill Clinton's Super Tuesday activities in Massachusetts caught the attention of state officials, and that between stops, the Clinton campaign was reminded by Galvin's office of the 150 foot rule. However, McNiff told reporters that the office was unaware of any specific violations, and did not indicate that officials believed any laws had been broken. (en)
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