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:
McCloy is urging the state Attorney General Roy Cooper to file charges against the group.
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.Gardner's faxed letter [PDF] 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.
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
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
6 Comments:
Assuming the WVWV press release in question is the same one you guys posted on your website, then it is an extreme case of misleading propaganda. It seems to answer all the questions anyone would have, and they're making it sound like it was sent out before this controversy erupted. Yet it's undated and no press source I've been able to locate actually wrote one word about it! It was obviously created after the fact in an attempt to make it look like this whole process was done on the up-and-up.
They are trying to bamboozle us.
That letter, on page 3, notes that Joe Goode "special advisor to WVWV" was aware of the NC mailing program and available to answer questions.
Goode is listed as the group's Executive Director on its website.
One other thing:
WVWV is also pimping an article from the Craig, Colo., Daily Press. Yesterday, this article was linked to from the WVWV home page; today it's just one of several on their "News Articles" page.
This strikes as me as extremely odd. Craig is a tiny town in the otherwise pretty barren (but lovely) northwest part of the state. How odd that they would be running this particular article - without a byline - now, in the wake of (not before) this controversy having exploded nationally! Then, reading the article, it was clear that it was culled from a press release nearly identical to the undated North Carolina release. The language is the SAME, including the quotes from Page Gardner and many of the statistics. The only difference is that the Craig article is shorter and features numbers specific to Colorado. So basically, WVWV is pushing their own press release (found nowhere on their site) as if an article had conveniently just been written outside of North Carolina about this national effort.
Oh, and that press release was released on April 29. AFTER this controversy erupted.
Meanwhile, five months ago, WVWV was smacked down by the Colorado Secretary of State for not coordinating with the SOS, for having the registration forms sent to the wrong place, and for not letting recipients know how to check their voter registration status. You'd think that before they sent out a new batch of press releases, they'd do a thorough overview of their registration activities, as John Podesta promised, in order to avoid the confusion they've created in state after state after state. Or at least include information about how people could check their registration status - which was included in the NC press release but not the Colorado article.
This is undoubtedly after-the-fact CYA on the part of WVWV, to make it look like they've been touting this exact campaign all over the country at the exact same time that they're being investigated by the NC Attorney General and the subject of intense scrutiny in the blogosphere.
I hate being lied to.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Speaking as a black female who personally knows Page Gardner, WVWV is an honest and upright organization that has helped millions of voters. This is NOT a case of misleading propaganda, but rather an unintentional oversight that has been misconstrued as a direct attack on minority voters. Page Gardner is extremely invested in the participation of minority voters and has committed her life to making sure the voices of the underrepresented are heard. WVWV is not trying to deceive or 'bamboozle' anyone, and it truly is a shame that an organization that has done so much for the minority community is now being horribly and wrongfully slandered as a dishonest association.
Stephanie, it's obvious that you don't know all the facts. Neither do any of us! We're trying to DISCOVER the facts, and would have liked to have gotten straight answers from WVWV from the beginning.
I have no doubt that Page Gardner is an upright, upstanding individual. Even if she was a blatant Hillarycrat, of course she would want black voters registered for the general election, as we are more likely to vote for Hillary over McCain.
But you need to hold back from defending the current actions of WVWV as an "unintentional oversight" until more facts are in. They said they'd stop this activity in February, but they called over 180,000 homes last week? And all they can say is "whoops"? And the calls had ALL THE EARMARKS of suppressive or confusing activities?
And then, after the fact, they claim to have had full knowledge of the North Carolina primary registration details, in an undated press release that was obviously put out THIS WEEK - after the robocalls got publicized? It IS misleading, and it IS propaganda. The only question now is if Page Gardner had a hand in it, or if it went on without her knowledge.
Post a Comment
Return to Facing South's main page