Thursday, May 01, 2008

North Carolina Attorney General Investigating Robo-calls to Black Voters

As I posted yesterday, mysterious robo-calls have been sent out in North Carolina in advance of the primary next week that appear to have an intent of suppressing black voter turn out which would boost the Obama campaign. These calls have been traced to an organization called Women's Voices, Women Vote which been involved in questionable, if not illegal activities in other, states including Virginia, and which seems to have ties to the Clinton campaign. Now the North Carolina Attorney General's office is investigating the matter and has issued a statement, which reads in part as follows:
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On Wednesday, Cooper and his consumer protection team demanded that the organization Women’s Voices Women Vote stop breaking state law with prerecorded calls to North Carolina residents. The organization said Wednesday the calls would stop. The robo-calls told residents that they would be receiving a voter registration form in the mail that they needed to sign. But the deadline to register by mail has passed, and some call recipients already were registered, causing confusion. “Regardless of the motivation, the robo-calls violated the law and they needed to stop,” Cooper said.
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What makes the calls al the more suspicious is that there are let us say "interesting" ties to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Here are highlights of what Facing South, which first broke the story, has now discovered:
In our earlier investigation revealing the outfit behind the misleading and illegal robo-calls made to North Carolina voters just days before a critical primary election, we reported that questions have been raised about the connections between that group -- the D.C.-based nonprofit Women's Voices Women Vote -- and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.
But one of the most striking connections between WVWV and the Clinton campaign -- and one particularly relevant to a story involving what appear to be voter suppression efforts right before an election -- was pointed out to us by a reader. He notes that the firm in charge of voter outreach for WVWV is MSHC Partners, whose president is Hal Malchow. Sourcewatch.org reports that Malchow was a member of WVWV's leadership team.At the same time, MSHC also does direct mail and outreach for the Hillary Clinton campaign. In fact, the campaign owes MSHC $807,000, according to Politico.com.
Do we really want another dishonest and lying president after 8 years of the Chiperator? If not, I suggest you do not vote for Hillary Clinton.

1 comment:

VaB251 said...

Thanks for the continued coverage of this issue.

Thanks for the link to the NC AG letter.

Why, WHY does the NC AG not prosecute the WVWV instead of simply demanding that the calls stop? It seems clearly actionable. Someone needs to send a clear message that elections are sacred and must not be tampered with.
OK, maybe the demand for names is a prelude to procecution.
We'll see.

Michael, do you know if the WVWV broke any Virginia laws with robocalls, and whether procecution is in the works?