To the Readers’ Forum:

There have always been dirty tricks in politics. One expects that. Spreading rumors about an opponent’s impending divorce, or mistress, has been going on since the founding fathers started running for office.

Moving to today though, with modern technology, the social media and all, gives one many more avenues of dirty tricks to play. They are all sleazy, but one scheme where a campaign creates a phoney web site on the internet and leads people to believe that contributions will go to the other party, when in fact they are directed to the perpetrator goes over the top. That used to be called fraud. Getting money under false pretenses.

People who condone that kind of criminal activity in the name of a political candidate are not just being cute. They are damaging our democracy. If it happened once, it should not happen again.

Samuel C. Alessi

Jamestown