Did Women's Voices Women Vote mislead N.C. elections officials?

In a statement posted yesterday to the website of Women's Voices Women Vote, the D.C. nonprofit behind the illegal and deceptive robo-calls placed to North Carolina residents, President Page Gardner claims her group notified the N.C. State Board of Elections about their activities in the state before sending out registration forms to voters:

In advance of the mail, a letter was sent to Gary Bartlett in the North Carolina Board of Elections Office. A copy of the letter and a press release sent to North Carolina media announcing the registration effort is attached.

There is no copy of a letter or press release attached to the posted statement. But more important, the group did not notify state elections officials about their registration effort in advance, as Gardner claims -- at least not the whole of that effort. The following e-mail was sent today, May 1, by Board of Elections attorney Don Wright to Joyce McCloy, an elections watchdog with the N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting:

As of yesterday's mail, this office had not yet received a mailed copy of the Women's Voices, Women Vote letter. The attached faxed copy was faxed to me around 5:50 pm on Monday April 28th. As you can see, it does not say anything about automated phone calls, and informs this office that the voter registration mailings "will arrive in homes the week of May 1st". Prior to this fax, this organization had not communicated to this agency about its current actions.

We are aware of the statement posted on their website and the fact it refers to attachments that are not available.

Don Wright
General Counsel

Gardner's faxed letter leads one to believe that the group is making an effort to notify the state elections officials about their activities in North Carolina. However, as Wright points out, it mentions only the mailings and not the robo-calls, which were already being placed to residents by the time the group faxed its letter to the Board of Elections.

McCloy is urging the state Attorney General Roy Cooper to file charges against the group.

Labels: facing south, Joyce McCloy, N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting, N.C. State Board of Elections, north carolina, Page Gardner, robo-calls, roy cooper, voting rights, women's voices women vote
posted by Sue Sturgis at 12:22 PM | Link & discuss (3 comments, 3 new) | Email this post
Women's Voices had promised to stop anonymous robo-calls in February
Two and a half months before the D.C. group Women's Voices Women Vote began making illegal, anonymous robo-calls to voters in North Carolina, they had promised to stop the practice nationally, after being investigated by state police in Virginia.

As The Virginian-Pilot reported:

State Police, working with the State Board of Elections, began an investigation after more than a dozen reports from residents across the state saying they had received unsolicited phone calls Wednesday and Thursday about registering to vote. <...>

"The messages did not specify who or where the packets were coming from," Geller said. <...>

By Friday, however, investigators obtained some of the packets and tracked them to the source.

Women's Voices Women Vote, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, made the calls and sent the mailings, Geller said.

The group said it is part of an "unprecedented" effort to register women. Trouble was, it was largely unheard of. The calls to potential voters started even before the effort was announced. <...>

Sarah Johnson, communications director for the organization , said Friday that not including information about the source of the voter registration effort was "absolutely an accidental omission."

She said the group was changing its nationwide phone alerts to make clear who is coordinating the effort.

It was 11 weeks later -- over two and a half months -- that Women's Voices began blanketing North Carolina with anonymous robo-calls from a fictitious caller named "Lamont Williams." As a tape recording of the North Carolina calls show, the calls in no way identify their source. Recipients of the calls tell Facing South that the phone number of the caller was also blocked.

Yesterday, N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper confirmed that the Women's Voices robo-calls were illegal because of the lack of identifying information, and left open the possibility of criminal sanctions against the group.

Did Women's Voices lie to the Virginia State Police when they promised to stop making anonymous robo-calls? Or were the illegal, anonymous calls in North Carolina just another "accidental omission?"

Labels: facing south, north carolina, robo-calls, roy cooper, sarah johnson, virginia, voting rights, women's voices women vote
posted by Chris Kromm at 10:50 AM | Link & discuss (0 comments) | Email this post
Women's Voices responds: "Sorry for the confusion"
Women's Voices Women Vote has responded in several forums to the issues we raised in yesterday's investigation about their illegal and deceptive voter outreach activities. The main response came from group founder and president Page Gardner, in a statement titled: "Confusion Surrounding Robo-Calls in North Carolina."

First, it's important to note that Gardner's statement in no ways refutes, or even addresses, any of the basic facts put forward by our investigation:

* In North Carolina, Women's Voices has been conducting a robo-call and mailing campaign that the state Attorney General has confirmed is illegal, that has been secretive and deceptive, and will likely have the effect of confusing and discouraging North Carolina voters.

* Our report documents that, in at least 10 other states -- Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin -- Women's Voices has drawn condemnation from election officials and voters. The group has been accused of misrepresenting election law, using secretive and dishonest tactics and generating widespread confusion among voters -- again, threatening to dampen voter participation.

* The role Women's Voices has played in the Virginia and North Carolina primaries has been especially disruptive. In both cases, they launched deceptive robo-calls -- some apparently targeting African-American zip codes -- just before major primaries, leading residents to think they weren't registered to vote.

* Women's Voices has a number of ties to Sen. Hillary Clinton; we provide additional examples here. We don't suggest, and have no evidence to suggest, that Women's Voices is formally connected to the Clinton campaign. However, we do believe such close ties deserve scrutiny.

Ms. Gardner's statement addresses none of these documented issues. Confronted with evidence of repeated deceptive and even illegal actions, Gardner says only, "We apologize for any confusion our calls may have caused."

Unfortunately, this is typical: As we found in our investigation spanning 10 states, every time problems have emerged, Women's Voices responds by "apologizing for confusion." A Google search of "Women's Voices Women Vote" and "confusion" brings up 412 hits. A newspaper in Michigan quipped that Women's Voices media staffer Sarah Johnson seemed "confused by the confusion."

But chalking up serious election law violations and misleading practices to "mistakes" and "confusion" doesn't answer the questions; it just raises more of them. Women's Voices is doing itself no favors by refusing to directly address the facts and issues at hand.

For example, does "confusion" explain Women's Voices' illegal and deceptive robo-calls in multiple states? Does it pardon the group's misleading and legally inaccurate mailings to hundreds of thousands of voters?

Does "confusion" account for their disruption of the primaries in North Carolina and Virginia? I asked Johnson why the group launched its confusing voter registration campaign in Virginia when they did -- two weeks before the big primary, but two weeks too late for anyone to actually register. She stumbled through several explanations before landing on, "We wanted to make sure they were registered for the general in November." Really? The first week in February, probably the worst time to be dropping a misleading robo-call and mailing campaign in Virginia, was the only week available?

Also: Is it really a "mistake" or "confusion" when you get the same complaints in 10 or more states across the country over the course of at least five months? After a while, the "confusion" defense runs out of steam.

But in this case, it's never been a strong defense. Women's Voices is made up of some of the most seasoned and sophisticated political operatives in Washington. Their staff bios show decades of experience at the highest levels, all the way up to presidential campaigns for Bill Clinton.

Does such a well-connected, deeply-funded and All-Star cast of high-level operatives really make "mistakes" like carrying out illegal robo-calls and forgetting the presidential primary calendar?

At some point, that explanation is no longer plausible, and Women's Voices Women Vote owes voters a real explanation.

Labels: facing south, hillary clinton, north carolina, north carolina primary, Page Gardner, robo-calls, sarah johnson, virginia, voting rights, women's voices women vote
posted by Chris Kromm at 8:40 AM | Link & discuss (4 comments, 4 new) | Email this po

Why don't you post some pictures of the kerning?

ELECTION 2008
Group with Clinton Ties Behind Dubious Robocalls

by Peter Overby

Listen Now <3 min 55 sec> add to playlist
All Things Considered, May 1, 2008 · Thousands of North Carolina residents answered their telephones last week to hear this message, delivered in a deep, soothing voice:

"Hello. This is Lamont Williams. In the next few days, you will receive a voter registration packet in the mail. All you need to do is fill it out, sign it, date and return the application. Then you will be able to vote and make your voice heard. Please return your registration form when it arrives. Thank you."

In fact, the deadline to register for the May 6 Democratic presidential primary had already passed. The robocall went to many registered voters who were expecting to vote that day. The call and follow-up mailings left many wondering whether they were registered for the primary or not.

This sounds like a classic example of voter suppression — sowing confusion in order to drive down turn-out. The calls seemed to be aimed at African-American communities, places where Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is expected to run well ahead of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

-snip

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90114863



Nonprofit's Contracts Called into Question


by Will Evans

Charity watchdogs say the way the group Women's Voices Women Vote has spent its money on at least one contract raises red flags.

In 2006, the organization paid Integral Resources Inc. nearly $800,000 for phone services. That company's CEO and founder is Ron Rosenblith, who is married to Women's Voices president, Page Gardner. The contract represents 16 percent of the nonprofit's budget. The group is funded mostly through foundations and individual donations.

"I think it's a really big concern," said Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy in Chicago. "It does give an appearance of a conflict of interest."

The question, he and other charity experts say, would be whether Integral Resources profited from its inside connections. Women's Voices did not make anyone available to comment.

-snip

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90114863

to her husband's company -- about 16% of WVWV's budget. Nice folks.

it shows how badly we need real change.

thank you for posting that.

I have found that there is some censoring of this story among voting
activists who don't want to offend some people's sensitivities.

Maybe because its our state we take extra offense, after all of our hard work
to make votes count, then a bunch of "democratic" political operatives from DC
come into our state and pull a massive Jim Crow effort and some in the voting community
are "mum".