Grayson (KY) Issues Warning About Voter Registration (WVWV)

http://www.kypost.com/content/news/commonwealth/story.aspx?content_id=4ed660a8-1927-41e6-8330-6387bcd9809a

Secretary of State Trey Grayson issued a warning to Kentucky citizens that his office has learned that a voting group has sent thousands of potentially confusing mailings to women across Kentucky asking them to register to vote.

These mailings could cause confusion for Kentuckians because the deadline to register to vote in the upcoming May primary has already passed.

According to the group, "Women’s Voices. Women Vote." (WVWV), the voter registration mailings were part of a larger nationwide mailing.

Grayson encouraged voters to still consider registering to vote so that they will be eligible for the fall general election, but wanted to make sure that citizens understood that any new registrants registering after the April 21 deadline will not be able to vote in the May primary.

"I appreciate Women’s Voices Women Vote letting us know about this possibly confusing situation for Kentucky voters," stated Secretary Grayson. "It is important to stress that citizens can still register to vote for the November general election, but they will not be eligible to vote and in the upcoming primary."

At least we have the internets now to get the word out....

-snip

But the coverage of the incidents was severely flawed, and people like Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall -- who has written for Salon and is one of the blogosphere's most respected residents -- were lobbing criminal allegations against WVWV before all the facts were in. In fact, some had made these charges even before they knew who was behind the robo-calls. Writing about the calls on Marshall's TPM Muckraker on Tuesday, before WVWV had been identified as the source of the calls, Paul Kiel said, "Here's another for the annals of vote suppression." Kiel further characterized the calls as a "scheme."

WVWV denies any wrongdoing, and says it wasn't trying to suppress the vote in North Carolina's primary -- or even to register voters for that contest. Its focus is the general election. "The goal was to register them for the general election in November," a spokesperson for the group told Salon. "The timing was clearly a mistake. We regret the confusion."

-snip

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/05/02/robocalls/index.html?source=newsletter

VOILA...END OF COVERAGE!

But here they are again, *after* the big uproar, doing the same thing in the same way.

Book mark this site
http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/

WVWV assaulted us in NC and the NCAACP filed a complaint.

We are watching it and trying to get the word out.

WVWV sent out a cover their butts press release to try to paint a different
picture.

when its WVWV's timing and actions that appear political or just insane.

Why do they do their mailings just before a primary and just after the registration period
is closed?

Why do anonymous robo calls?

See
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-stoller/obamas-consolidation-of-t_b_100783.html

Gardner noted in her letter that they use "the best available data … from a large commercial data company" and that "… attempts to identify only unregistered women will not be perfect."

HEY WHAT HAPPENED TO INCLUSION OF MINORITIES (other than women) THAT WAS ADDED EARLIER THIS MONTH?

-snip

The group's president Page Gardner, said that to clear up any further confusion, the group "went to Herculean efforts" to stop the mailings in states that still have upcoming primaries.

The states are:

Kentucky – Primary Day: May 20, 2008.
Montana – Republican Presidential Preference Caucus: February 5, Democratic Primary: June 3, 2008
North Carolina—Primary Day: May 5, 2008
Oregon – Primary Day: May 20, 2008
South Dakota – Primary Day: June 3, 2008
West Virginia – Republican Caucus: February 5, 2008, Democratic Primary: May 13, 2008.

"When the issue arose in North Carolina, we worked with the folks in that state, and we were able to pull the majority of our mail pieces," Gardner said in an interview. "We stopped the majority of the mail, and in the other states we asked our mail vendor to do the same."

Asked why the phone calls didn't include an identifying organization behind the calls, Gardner says: " Our transparency came through our piece in the mail."

-snip
http://www.wvwv.org/2008/5/6/women-s-voter-registration-group-responds-to-critics

The KY SOS said they looked for statutes that WVWV might have violated, but
anonymous robo calls aren't illegal there. KY's SOS office has contacted media
etc, but no one is calling these voters back.

The US DOJ voting rights division might be able to look at this in a voter supression
angle, but hadn't been following it very closely. We'll see what happens.

WVWV said they would "try" to stop the mailings to KY and other states, but a press release and media reports in Kentucky show that the mailings went out.

Here's who is next:

Kentucky – Primary Day: May 20, 2008.
Montana – Republican Presidential Preference Caucus: February 5, Democratic Primary: June 3, 2008
North Carolina—Primary Day: May 5, 2008
Oregon – Primary Day: May 20, 2008
South Dakota – Primary Day: June 3, 2008
West Virginia – Republican Caucus: February 5, 2008, Democratic Primary: May 13, 2008.