Misleading flyers were handed out at several Maryland polling places by men and women recruited by the GOP governor’s campaign from out-of-state homeless shelters, the Washington Post reports. The flyers, given to voters in a heavily Democratic area, showed GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Ehrlich as a Democrat:
Erik Markle, one of the people handing out literature for Ehrlich, who is seeking reelection, and Steele, the current lieutenant governor who is campaigning to replace retiring Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D), said he was recruited at a homeless shelter in Philadelphia.After a two-hour bus ride to Maryland, Markle said the workers were greeted early this morning by first lady Kendel Ehrlich, who thanked them as they were outfitted in T-shirts and hats with the logo for Ehrlich’s reelection campaign. Nearly all of those recruited, Markle said, are poor and black. Workers traveled to Maryland in at least seven large buses.
Ehrlich’s GOP ticketmate, Senate candidate Michael Steele, is also listed as a Democrat on the flyer.
Update: Maryland’s Gazette newspapers have more. “We’re just down here trying to make some money,” one Philadelphia homeless man tells a reporter. Then, pointing to a picture of Ehrlich: “I don’t even know if this cat’s a Democrat or Republican.”