Why did Women's Voices use disruptive voter registration approach in NC?
In response to our investigation of Women's Voices Women Vote and their illegal and deceptive voter outreach in North Carolina before the critical state primaries, some have defended their voter registration approach.
No one seems to be defending Women's Voices' use of anonymous, illegal robo-calls in North Carolina, or their decision to do those calls in North Carolina two and a half months after they had told a newspaper in Virginia that they vowed to stop the practice nation-wide.
But some have defended their strategy, which in North Carolina had a two-part approach: (1) the now-infamous, illegal "Lamont Williams" robo-calls, followed by (2) mailing of a "voter registration packet" which many voter engagement groups have said is confusing and has the potential to discourage many from voting, because it makes registered voters believe they aren't. (Thanks to our investigation and the work of public interest advocates like Democracy North Carolina, at least some of these were stopped from going into the mail stream.)
This strategy -- which Women's Voices conceded could cause problems, in a letter they faxed to the N.C. State Board of Elections on Monday -- is all the more curious given that every organization Facing South spoke to that has been involved in voter registration in North Carolina has been using a much easier alternative: One-Stop Early Voting.
This voting reform, passed last year, allows North Carolina voters to register and vote all at once at over 200 One Stop voting centers across the state. Representatives from Democracy North Carolina, the NAACP, and the N.C Democratic Party all tell us they have been pushing almost exclusively for One-Stop Voting, because of its ability to capitalize on interest in elections created by the primaries, but also avoids the potential of discouraging and disenfranchising voters inherent in Women's Voices' approach.
For example, as Damon Circosta of the N.C. Center for Voter Education said to Facing South:
No one seems to be defending Women's Voices' use of anonymous, illegal robo-calls in North Carolina, or their decision to do those calls in North Carolina two and a half months after they had told a newspaper in Virginia that they vowed to stop the practice nation-wide.
But some have defended their strategy, which in North Carolina had a two-part approach: (1) the now-infamous, illegal "Lamont Williams" robo-calls, followed by (2) mailing of a "voter registration packet" which many voter engagement groups have said is confusing and has the potential to discourage many from voting, because it makes registered voters believe they aren't. (Thanks to our investigation and the work of public interest advocates like Democracy North Carolina, at least some of these were stopped from going into the mail stream.)
This strategy -- which Women's Voices conceded could cause problems, in a letter they faxed to the N.C. State Board of Elections on Monday -- is all the more curious given that every organization Facing South spoke to that has been involved in voter registration in North Carolina has been using a much easier alternative: One-Stop Early Voting.
This voting reform, passed last year, allows North Carolina voters to register and vote all at once at over 200 One Stop voting centers across the state. Representatives from Democracy North Carolina, the NAACP, and the N.C Democratic Party all tell us they have been pushing almost exclusively for One-Stop Voting, because of its ability to capitalize on interest in elections created by the primaries, but also avoids the potential of discouraging and disenfranchising voters inherent in Women's Voices' approach.
For example, as Damon Circosta of the N.C. Center for Voter Education said to Facing South:
“Ever since the register-by-mail deadline passed, nearly every voter engagement group in the state has been pushing one-stop early voting, where you can register and vote at the same time without mailing anything in. To be pushing mail-in registration at this time is either a blunder of comedic proportions or a deliberate attempt to confuse.”
Labels: north carolina, one-stop voting, same day registration, voting rights, women's voices women vote
5 Comments:
Chris, thanks for continuing to follow this story. Do you know if the NC Board of Elections has received in the mail yet the letter that WVWV supposedly sent on April 24? Or if anyone received last week the undated press release they obviously started shopping around this week?
Also, have you seen the salon.com article that is a complete propaganda piece that fails to answer numerous questions, including about the Virginia police? It looks like they pushed this well after they were referring other media to their attorneys.
Finally, just FYI I got an email from one of their board members, Mike Lux, in which he confirmed that he was not made aware of the press release put out by the Colorado Secretary of State about the confusing mailings they were doing in that state in November. He blamed the "attack" from Coffman's office on the fact that progressives were trying to get him out of office back in 2006. But it's clear that the board members, including him and William McNary, that WVWV has been trotting out in their defense have little to no knowledge about the day-to-day workings of this organizatino.
Chris, could you please provide a timeline for this story?
I have forwarded your updates to my NC Verified Voting list and also some of my activists around the state.
Some Clinton supporters want to know if the reporting of this story is timed for political impact.
I have tried to explain that the calls themselves triggered the investigation and their timing was during the middle of voting and after the deadline to register by mail.
It would help greatly if you could give us a timeline.
Thanks so much for your reporting.
How can people supporting Clinton think the timing was politically motivated when the whole thing started with the calls themselves -- calls sent out by the organization now linked to so many Clinton supporters?
It was WVWV that chose to start sending out the calls in N.C. over the weekend of April 25th. That's why calls were brought to the attention of voting rights groups on Monday April 28th. As the reporting makes clear, everything has happened in the last week, in direct response to the robo-calls.
At that time, no one knew who the phone calls were even from. That was the whole point of looking into them.
WVWV has admitted the phone calls were from them and that they set the timing themselves -- hard to see how Clinton opponents could have orchestrated the timing if it was WVWV who started the whole thing in the first place.
The responses from WVWV to the concerns that have been expressed have been unsatisfying and problematic. For example, they have stated that the NC calls were part of an 24-state effort in the month of April, but that's not true -- they did robo-calling in other states in other months, e.g. in Virginia around the time of its primary. I hope that WVWV's activiites and overall plan for the 24 states will be investigated as well as the activities in North Carolina.
I'm also concerned about the significant conflicts of interest within this organization -- with members of the "leadership team" and their spouses awarded significant contracts. I'm particularly interested in the $88,000 paid to Maggie Williams' firm for "strategic planning," at a time when Ms. Williams and her partner Pat Griffin were members of the leadership team. That is an awful lot of money to spend on strategic planning for a relatively small organization. (I note that no strategic plan is posted on the WVWV website, but that's not definitive, I realize.)
Judith Gran, Philadelphia
Chris, I second the call for a timeline, and if possible include the fake press release they sent out on Monday to make it look like they had NC covered, and the one they sent to Craig, Colorado on Tuesday to make it look like the Monday press release was part of a 24-state press strategy.
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