Polygamist sect could lose its grip on tiny Utah community in landmark vote
Source: The Guardian
Tuesday 7 November 2017 15.12 EST
A tiny group of voters could deliver one of the most significant results in local US elections on Tuesday when ballots are counted in a far-flung town run by members of a polygamist sect under the control of a so-called prophet from a prison cell.
For the first time in its troubled history, Hildale, a speck in the wilderness on the Utah-Arizona border, has candidates running for mayor and town council seats who are not associated with the local fundamentalist religious sect, currently run by notorious convicted child rapist Warren Jeffs.
If mayoral candidate Donia Jessop and the three outsiders competing for council seats all win their races against incumbents on Tuesday, non-sect members will effectively win control of the town.
If we win we would take the majority of the council and thats a big deal, then we could start the process for the whole town changing, Jessop told the Guardian.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/07/polygamist-sect-hildale-utah-election-outsiders
I'm hopeful, but skeptical. That part of the country is firmly in Wingnut Nation.
TygrBright
(20,733 posts)Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)these two Towns look tomorrow at this time.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)With the in-breeding I was wondering how long it would take the town to look like this
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)BigmanPigman
(51,430 posts)There was a lengthy article in Rolling Stone and that is what was implied.
SergeStorms
(18,880 posts)"Marrying" 13 year old girls, just to have sex with them. He deserves to be castrated, then flogged with barbed wire, then hung by the neck until dead. Now there's some good old testament punishment for you, Jeffs.
Mosby
(16,158 posts)SergeStorms
(18,880 posts)on 24 hr. watch (closed circuit TV) and if you could see some of the things he does in there you'd most likely agree with the crazy description. There is absolutely NO doubt that he's a perv as well. He's a very disturbed man, and should never set foot on this planet a free man.
displacedtexan
(15,694 posts)Law enforcement officers and civilian office workers and court clerks, etc., will still have access to databases, which they can use to target enemies of the sect, those who risk everything to escape, and other law enforcement agencies possibly investigating the sect.
If that's the town I've read about, it crosses the state border, which increases its range of access to data.
AllyCat
(16,031 posts)Jessop for mayor and nichol for alder? Preliminary results only and one is by only 3 votes. Fingers crossed.