The San Diego County Democratic Party has protested a plan by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters to include partisan campaign literature in the official sample ballots it will mail to Republican voters in May. The all-Republican Board of Supervisors has approved the plan, but SDCDP has reported it to the Fair Political Practices Commission as a violation.

Read more in a news release from SDCDP.

See the insert (PDF) from the Registrar of Voters.

After the jump — Read a message from the San Diego County Democratic Party Executive Director.

Don’t Let Republicans Poison the Process

by Ryan Hurd, SDCDP Executive Director

By now you might have heard about the San Diego Republican Party’s scheme to insert campaign literature into the sample ballot that the County Registrar will be sending to Republican voters.

This intrusion of partisan politics threatens to undermine the integrity of our system of elections. And in their typical hypocritical way, the party of government-haters would have taxpayers foot the postage bill for their campaigning.

Our County Democratic Party supported an unsuccessful lawsuit to block the insert. Now we’re filing a complaint with the state elections watchdog, the Fair Political Practices Commission, to force the County to acknowledge its complicity in partisan “electioneering.”

We’re supposed to believe it’s a coincidence that two members of the County Board of Supervisors — which oversees the Registrar — are among the candidates that the insert praises for their “leadership.” But given the arrogance and abuses of power that the Board is known for, common sense says otherwise. Campaign laws exist for a reason, even if the Republican Party would prefer to ignore them. We won’t let up until they’re fully and publicly enforced.

In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling that granted corporations the free-speech rights of individuals, Democrats should take this as a call to action. You can do something: volunteer to support our candidates in the coming elections. With every door-knock or phone call you make, you’ll be working to put government back in the hands of the people.

Our opponents want to poison the election process with dirty tricks and corporate cash. We must not let them. As is so often the case when our democracy is threatened, activism is the antitode.