The Sierra Club announced this week that it's sending formal notices of intent to sue to about 30 new coal plants across the country in an effort to force them to better control emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants. The states where the targeted plants are located include Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas.

"We want to give moms across the country some peace of mind this Mother’s Day," says Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign. "That’s why we’re taking action today to ensure that these coal plants make every effort to keep their toxic mercury pollution out of our communities."

A recent study from the University of Texas found that children's risk of developing autism, a brain disorder that impairs communication and social interaction, increases with proximity to coal-fired power plants. According to the researchers, a child living 10 miles from a coal-burning power plant has a 2 percent higher risk of developing autism than a child living 20 miles away.

Coal-fired power plants are the single largest man-made source of mercury pollution in the United States. When the plants release mercury into the air, it rains down into lakes, rivers and streams and builds up in the bodies of fish -- and the people who eat the fish.

In February of this year, a federal appeals court struck down the Bush administration's mercury regulations for coal-fired power plants, saying they failed to adequately protect public health. The Sierra Club is asking the coal plant developers to come up with new plans to control mercury and other toxic pollution before the facilities are built.

"There are affordable technologies widely available today that can substantially reduce mercury and other toxic pollution," says Pat Gallagher, director of the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program. "In their rush to build new coal plants, developers have turned a blind eye to these technologies, and correspondingly the health of children everywhere."

For a map that shows all of the planned coal plants in the United States and their current status, click here.

Labels: autism, coal, energy policy, mercury, public health, Sierra Club

It was a hard-fought primary, but a big day for democracy. Some odds and ends from last night's results in the North Carolina primary:

* At 36% voter turnout, the 2008 primaries set a new record -- beating the previous mark of 31% set in 1988.

* Big interest in the Democratic presidential contest changed the dynamic of the state's down-ticket races. For example, high African-American voter turnout inspired by Barack Obama's campaign likely helped candidates endorsed by African-American PACs and groups in places like Durham and Mecklenburg counties. Durham County, with the highest percentage of African-American voters in the state, also had the 2nd-highest turnout.

* John McCain only won 74% of the GOP primary vote, despite having already sewn up his party's nomination. Mike Huckabee, who has dropped out, got 12%.

* Hillary Clinton might have lost, but it was an otherwise good day for women candidates, notes Under the Dome. The U.S. Senate contest will be between Sen. Elizabeth Dole and challenger Kay Hagan. Janet Cowell (state treasurer), Beth Wood (state auditor), June Atkinson (state superintendent) and Mary Fant Donnan (labor commissioner) also won their primaries. (UPDATE: Donnan didn't win -- she was the lead vote-getter at 28%, and will go into a runoff with John C. Brooks, 24%)

* Clinton also picked up a superdelegate: Rep. Health Shuler, who promised to give his vote to whoever won his 11th Congressional district. Clinton won 55-42.

* Republican incumbent Rep. Walter Jones (3rd District) -- targeted by Republicans because of his vocal opposition to the Iraq war -- comfortably survived his primary challenge, winning 60% of the vote.

* Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend reflects on the campaign of Jim Neal, one of the highest-profile runs by an openly gay man in North Carolina, who lost in his bid to compete for the U.S. Senate.

* Ah, to be young and 59 again. In spelling out the three "keys to Obama's win" in NC, the News & Observer had this item:

YOUNG PEOPLE: Obama overwhelmingly won the support of voters under 30 years old. He also won in every other age group except those over 60. (emphasis added)

Labels: barack obama, Election 2008, hillary clinton, north carolina, north carolina primary

Exit polls are showing that today's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina are headed towards predictable results: Clinton taking Indiana, Obama winning N.C.

Meaning, today's primaries will likely settle nothing in the Democratic presidential contest, making the role of superdelegates all the more important.

So where do North Carolina's superdelegates stand? Under the Dome has a useful list:

Clinton

Gov. Mike Easley
Susan Burgess, Charlotte Councilwoman

Obama

U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield
U.S. Rep. David Price
U.S. Rep. Mel Watt
Everett Ward, former Democratic Party director
Dannie Montgomery, N.C. Democratic Party vice chair
Joyce Brayboy, public policy lobbyist
Jeanette Council, Cumberland County commissioner

Uncommitted

U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler
U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre
U.S. Rep. Brad Miller
U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge
Jerry Meek, chairman of state party
Carol Peterson, Buncombe County commissioner
David Parker, Statesville attorney
Dr. Jeanette Council
Muriel K. Offerman
Two delegates to be named at the state convention.

Labels: barack obama, democratic party, Election 2008, hillary clinton, north carolina primary

The winners of the 12th Annual Webby Awards have been announced, and the winner in the Charitable Organization - Nonprofit category is Katrina: An Un-Natural Disaster, a website created to showcase the work of fellows of the Open Society Institute.

OSI has done an excellent job to help keep the story of the post-Katrina Gulf Coast in the media spotlight. The investigative reporting -- including pieces done in collaboration with the Institute's Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch project, like this one -- radio pieces and documentary photography created by the Katrina Media Fellows have been invaluable in keeping the story alive.

Congrats to OSI and the Katrina website team for a well-deserved honor.

Labels: Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, Hurricane Katrina, open society institute, webby awards

Yesterday, Pam Spaulding -- who runs the popular blog Pam's House Blend, and also blogs for sites like FireDogLake and BlueNC -- posted the following comments on Facing South's investigation into voting rights in North Carolina and Women's Voices Women Vote. Full disclosure: Pam is a board member of the Institute, although we concluded this wasn't improper given that WVWV board members have been given a forum on blogs like Huffington Post and OpenLeft. The piece can be found here.

There has been a strong progressive defense of the actions of WVWV. What seems to be difficult to swallow is that an organization has, like it or not, engaged in the illegal robo-calls in multiple states that affect a specific slice of potential voters. And as Facing South pointed out, in North Carolina, it occurred yet again. An unknown number of low-information minority voters are left confused, and possibly deterred, from voting, whether or not it was ineptitude by the organization.

We should hold our organizations to an extremely high standard. Blacks (and whites) died to ensure that blacks had right to vote in the South; the call for further public investigation is both necessary and relevant to 1) get to the bottom of the illegal calls and 2) reassure voters that this cannot happen again. I don't care who is on the board or running the org, or how much good work was/is being done by WVWV in other arenas, if this were a Republican-run organization, we'd be tearing it to shreds.

If silence on this for "the good of the party" is more important than investigating a illegal practice affecting an individual's right to vote (on purpose or repeatedly by mistake), it's a sad state of affairs. Just because the Republicans do it more, or have a more systematic interest in doing it doesn't change the fact that this was wrong on so many levels -- and airing dirty laundry is the least of the issues in my mind. Apologies are meaningful, but given the spotty history of WVWV robo-calls, there is a stench still in the air, and that's why the investigation is moving forward.

There seems to be an undercurrent out there that registering more voters, particularly single, low-information women of all colors using illegal methods multiple times (why didn't WVWV care enough about its rep to clean up its "administrative problems" after so many official red flags?) is worth the potential result of confusing an unknown number other, low-information voters in a way that could deter them from voting.

WVWV could have as an emergency corrective measure, embarked on a second set of robo-calls to inform those voters that they received incorrect or confusing information; that seems like a logical thing to do. The action taken, to try to stop the mailing of the registration packets, does little to directly inform call recipients waiting for those packets to arrive to fill them out and send back before voting.

Chris Kromm and the Institute for Southern Studies dove into investigating this robo-call not knowing what they would find. ISS continued to dig regardless of the organization and made those results public. When wagon-circling occurs because of bruised egos on our side takes precedence over focusing on those targeted by the robo-calls, many belonging to a demographic historically disenfranchised time and again, it's problematic. If we're going to say every vote must count, then we have to mean it.

What I fear most is that this WVWV debacle will unravel into a feminist vs. black issue (the underlying assumption that it is also a Clinton-supporter vs. Obama-supporter issue). The left has such discomfort dealing with color-arousal or race matters (not racism, mind you, since that word is nuclear), that it will largely go undiscussed because of fear of getting shocked by the third rail. Sometimes naming the unmentionable tension can clear the air, but it requires cool heads. We're in a world of intertubes hotheads on all sides of the equation, with raw nerves exposed.

The bottom line is to take responsibility, clean house, move forward. Sunlight is the best disinfectant -- on the left and the right.

(Emphasis in original)

Labels: facing south, north carolina, robo-calls, voting rights, women's voices women vote

One of the key stories heading into today's North Carolina primary: the dramatic increase in African-American voters.

* African-American voters have registered in record numbers in North Carolina -- 45,000 in the first three months of 2008, compared with just over 11,000 in the same period four years ago.

* The Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies notes today that, while African-Americans make up 22% of the state population, they have made up nearly 40% of early voters in 2008. Here's the demographic breakdown of early voting as of this morning

Men 38.7%
Women 60.8%

White 56.5%
Black 39.9%

White Women 33.2%
White Men 23.1%

Democrat 84.1%
Unaffiliated 15.8%

* Peter St. Onge of The Charlotte Observer suggests that if 35% of Democratic primary voters today are African-American, Obama will score a victory of over 5%. Less than that, "Clinton will be celebrating."

Labels: african-american voters, barack obama, hillary clinton, north carolina primary

Earlier this year, the national board of the Sierra Club voted to suspend the organization's Florida chapter for four years. That meant the immediate dismissal of a 27-member executive committee elected by the state's membership -- and its replacement by a body appointed by the national board of the prominent environmental group.

The chapter's sin? Well, that depends on who you ask. The national body says the problem was in-fighting on the state board, which members dispute. They in turn charge that the real problem was that the Florida chapter took positions at odds with the national organization, including bucking its pro-biofuels agenda and opposing the national board's paid endorsement of a new line of home cleaning products from Clorox, a major corporate polluter.

Today's Grist magazine has a terrific overview of the controversy. The article by Emily Gertz captures the anger the group's former Florida leaders are feeling at their national overseers, as reflected in this quote from former state chapter secretary Pedro Monteiro:

"This suspension process is rife with the same problems that plagued the misguided invasion of Iraq and Panama, and the illegal holding of citizens in Guantanamo Bay," he wrote in his email, comparing the board's actions to "the crimes of the Bush Administration." He continued, "If there really are problems in the Florida Chapter, allow the voters to express their will and elect a new leadership at the next regularly held election." In a follow-up email, Monteiro called the chapter's new interim steering committee "a national staff-appointed junta."

Read the full story online here.

Labels: Clorox, environment, environmental politics, Florida, Sierra Club

After weeks of planning, polls and punditry, the North Carolina primaries are here. This letter in today's Raleigh News & Observer captures the excitement in a state that hasn't had a primary count on the national stage in a long time:

No matter which candidate people support, this is a great election in North Carolina. I can't remember a time when what we think actually mattered! It's about time that we got a voice, and it should be like this all the time. Who says Iowa and those other "early" states get to choose the presidential nominees for the whole country!? Changes need to be made so every election is like this one.

Jeannie Inskeep
Raleigh

Some odds and ends from the campaign trail:

* Weather is beautiful across the state -- high turnout!

* Clinton has gained ground on Obama, but RealClearPolitics averages the last seven polls in the state and finds Obama up 8 points.

* McCain is in North Carolina today as well. With the GOP nomination in the bag, Under the Dome speculates he's here to (1) raise money, and/or (2) stay in the public eye, and/or (3) land a few blows on the Democrats.

* Democracy North Carolina has set up a very useful website with info on voting and your rights at the polls. They are also partnering with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to staff a toll-free hotline if you have problems voting: 1-888-OUR-VOTE

* The Charlotte Observer predicts up to 2 million voters could cast ballots in the primary (1.5 million Democrats, half-million Republicans) -- 34% turnout.

* The State Board of Elections is reporting that 471,000 North Carolinians voted at One Stop voting centers, and 24,900 had mailed in absentee ballots.

* North Carolina primary election results here.

Labels: democracy north carolina, Election 2008, north carolina, north carolina primary

It has been six days since Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies published our first investigation into the mysterious "Lamont Williams" robo-calls (listen to the audio file here) that blanketed North Carolina on the eve of the state's critical primary elections.

Over the past week, our ongoing investigation has ignited a national firestorm. We'd like to take a moment to reflect on what brought us here, and offer our best sense of where the issue stands.

First, a little background. Voting rights has always been a special focus for us. Since our founding by civil rights veterans in 1970, we have published dozens of ground-breaking investigations into African-American voter suppression and other threats to democracy, including a series looking at the role of the Department of Justice's "voting integrity" policies in the 2004 elections (see an example here [pdf]).

When we started looking into the North Carolina robo-calls a week ago, they had generated widespread complaints from African-American and other voters -- and outrage from voting rights advocates and the progressive community nationally -- who believed the tactics were, at the very least, confusing and deceptive. At worst, many saw in them the elements of a sophisticated voter suppression campaign.

That's why we were as surprised as anyone to learn from the Virginia State Police -- who had investigated similar anonymous robo-calls made in that state last February -- that they had identified the source in Virgina as a D.C. non-profit with a strong voter registration track record named Women's Voices Women Vote.

When Facing South contacted Women's Voices about their voter outreach efforts in Virginia and North Carolina, the group seemed reluctant to provide information. When asked about the content of their robo-calls, for example, spokeswoman Sarah Johnson said she "didn't know," because "they were handled by an outside vendor" -- a puzzling answer, especially given that Women's Voices had been using the same 20-second robo-calls since November 2007.

We were eventually able to confirm, however, that Women's Voices Women Vote was the source of North Carolina's now-infamous "Lamont Williams" robo-calls, and we published our findings on Wednesday, April 30.

The response to our investigation was sudden and dramatic. In North Carolina alone, our investigation had immediate impact:

* That same day, N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper denounced the robo-calls as illegal, called on Women's Voices to stop conducting them, and held out the possibility of legal sanctions. His investigation is still ongoing.

* Election advocacy group Democracy North Carolina pressed Women's Voices to pull 276,000 confusing mailings out of the mail stream, although it's believed that about 100,000 still made their way to voters.

* This weekend, the N.C. NAACP filed a formal voter suppression complaint to N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper, and notified the federal Department of Justice of their concerns.

The story also launched a national debate about election tactics and voting rights, with major stories based on Facing South's investigation appearing on ABC News, CNN, The Economist, NPR, Time, TPM Muckraker, The Washington Post, The Week, Wired and other major media outlets. Groups like the Center for Investigative Reporting followed up with reporting that expanded on themes raised in Facing South's coverage.

The blog world also erupted, bloggers drawing their own conclusions from the facts presented in our investigation. Opinions gravitated towards extremes: One side quickly concluded that Women's Voices was part of an official, orchestrated effort by Sen. Hillary Clinton to suppress African-American voters, who have disproportionately supported her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama.

An opposing faction leaped to Women's Voices' defense, echoing the group's line that the "confusion" their efforts had created in multiple states was merely an "oversight," at worst constituting a "stupid mistake" or "screw-up" resulting from "incompetence."

To be clear: In the course of our investigation, we have not found evidence that would substantiate either of these claims.

Our original investigation laid out four basic sets of facts -- facts that, to date, have not been refuted, and in fact have been buttressed by subsequent coverage at Facing South and elsewhere:

(1) ILLEGAL ROBO-CALLS IN NC: Our investigation last Wednesday revealed that Women's Voices Women Vote was the source behind illegal, anonymous and misleading robo-calls in North Carolina. It's important to remember that this was a major revelation at the time. As of late Monday, April 28, the Raleigh News & Observer was reporting that the State Board of Elections was still "hunting [the] robocaller," and Women's Voices had not stepped forward to claim or clarify the calls.

Since we revealed that information, Facing South has uncovered other important facts. One of the most surprising was that, after similar robo-calls in Virginia were investigated by state police last February, Women's Voices had pledged to not use the tactic again, anywhere. As the Virginian-Pilot reported February 9:

Sarah Johnson, communications director for the organization [Women's Voices Women Vote], 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.

Yet two and a half months later, Women's Voices began the illegal "Lamont Williams" calls in North Carolina.

Johnson's statement to The Virginian-Pilot also came three months after Women's Voices had used nearly identical confusing robo-calls in Ohio -- making their claim that the anonymous nature of their Virginia calls were an "accidental omission" clearly untrue.

(2) PROBLEMS IN 11 STATES: Facing South also revealed that North Carolina wasn't an isolated incident; that Women's Voices had been charged with carrying out confusing, legally questionable, and deceptive voter registration tactics in 10 other states. It has since been reported that there were also concerns in Oregon.

It is important to acknowledge that many of the problems associated with Women's Voices' efforts are the kind that plague any voter registration operation, especially issues that result from voter registration lists that are notoriously riddled with errors.

But our research found that Women's Voices has also consciously decided to employ tactics that are unique in their potential to mislead and discourage voters. Their decision to use anonymous, confusing robo-calls first surfaced in Ohio in November 2007. Their failure to communicate and coordinate with state election officials and local advocacy groups has cropped up in several states. They've been rebuked by state officials for mailing voter registration packets that in some cases wrongfully stated that returning the forms was "required" -- a tactic that, in addition to being legally untrue, confused and angered voters who received them after the voter registration deadline.

Women's Voices hasn't addressed these drawbacks in their public statements, except to apologize for the "confusion" and point to the number of people they've registered. The implication is that their controversial tactics are a necessary evil in the quest to register more voters; the ends justify the means.

That is a matter of opinion, but we'll note that the voting rights advocates Facing South talked to have serious concerns about the potential of Women's Voices' tactics to discourage and possibly disenfranchise voters. As the legal battle over the North Carolina robo-calls demonstrates, it also opens them to legal challenges.

(3) IMPACT ON NORTH CAROLINA AND VIRGINIA PRIMARIES: Facing South has also documented that Women's Voices' tactics have had an especially disruptive role in the Virginia and North Carolina primaries.

In at least these two states, Women's Voices' approach has been to wait until after the voter registration deadline has passed, and then -- as the day of the election primary approaches -- pump out hundreds of thousands of anonymous robo-calls, followed by voter registration packets in the mail. They have consciously used this strategy despite knowing from experience that their lists contain numerous errors and will result in confusing many already-registered voters.

Women's Voices has defended this practice in various forums by saying that, with public interest in elections high during primary elections, that is an ideal time to register voters.

But that doesn't explain their use of anonymous robo-calls and confusing mailings -- especially in North Carolina, where every other voter registration group that Facing South contacted had been encouraging voters to use One-Stop Registration and Voting.

The availability of that easier and less disruptive voter registration option in N.C. makes it especially curious that Women's Voices continued with the robo-calls and mailings, which Women's Voices president Page Gardner seemed to acknowledge would cause problems in a letter to the N.C. State Board of Elections dated April 24 (pdf) -- but not faxed to the SBOE until 5:50 p.m. on April 28, after the robo-calls had been made and the mailings had been sent:

Unfortunately, North Carolina residents will receive this mail after the deadline for registering to vote to participate in the upcoming election ... We hope this unfortunate coincidence in timing does not lead to any confusion or aggravation for either your state's voters or registrars.

But of course, Gardner and Women's Voices must have known from their experience in other states -- most recently Virginia -- that this "unfortunate coincidence" of timing would have the precise effect of leading to "confusion" and "aggravation" of voters and election officials alike -- which is exactly what happened.

(4) TIES TO SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: Although not the focus of our original investigation, Facing South has documented several close connections between Women's Voices Women Vote and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Since then, National Public Radio, the Center for Investigative Reporting and other media have done further reporting and identified more close relationships between Women's Voices and the Clinton family, including Women's Voices' founder/president and the executive director (you can find the Center's chart here, which looks at 10 such connections).

As Facing South clearly stated last Thursday, "We don't suggest, and have no evidence to suggest, that Women's Voices is formally connected to the Clinton campaign." We have strenuously avoided drawing any conclusions regarding this relationship. We have also reported that a smaller number of individuals associated with Women's Voices are supporters of Sen. Barack Obama (four board members).

We find it odd that some have criticized Facing South, NPR, the Center for Investigative Reporting and others for documenting the connections between Women's Voices and the Clintons. When a right as fundamental as voting is at stake, we believe the public is entitled to know all of the evidence. No group, no matter how well-connected or well-intentioned, should consider itself above scrutiny. If anything, groups like Women's Voices have a special obligation to ensure their efforts safeguard voter's rights and avoid the appearance of impropriety.

We are encouraged that our investigation has helped bring greater attention to the critical issues of controversial election tactics and voting rights this hotly-contested election season. We will continue to follow these vital issues closely in the coming months.

-- Chris Kromm and Sue Sturgis, Facing South

Labels: facing south, voting rights, women's voices women vote

In the wake of national controversy surrounding Facing South's investigation into the use of illegal and deceptive robo-calls in North Carolina by Women's Voices Women Vote, actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus -- who had appeared in a Public Service Announcement for the group -- issued a widely-circulated statement this weekend clarifying her role with the group.

In the statement, Louis-Dreyfus states:

The news reports [of Louis-Dreyfus' involvement] came about because there was evidence that an individual or a small group of individuals affiliated with WVWV may have issued misleading robo-calls in North Carolina designed to suppress voter turnout in African American neighborhoods. I find these activities appalling and hope WVWV will immediately disassociate themselves from such individuals and denounce such actions.

Louis-Dreyfus also stated that "I am not affiliated with WVWV in any way other than participating in this PSA campaign," and noted that she is "proudly supporting" Sen. Barack Obama for president.

Labels: facing south, julia louis-dreyfus, north carolina, robo-calls, voter suppression, voting rights, women's voices women vote

The North Carolina NAACP has filed a formal complaint of possible voter suppression against Women's Voices Women Vote, the D.C. nonprofit that as we revealed earlier this week was behind the deceptive and illegal robo-calls made to state residents. The N.C. NAACP hand-delivered its complaint today to state Attorney General Roy Cooper and State Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett. It's also alerted the U.S. Department of Justice that it's collecting more information from its national network and is contemplating filing a formal complaint with that agency.

N.C. NAACP President Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (center in photo) announced the filing of the complaint at a press conference held this afternoon outside the N.C. Department of Justice. He was joined by his group's attorney, Al McSurely (left), and Bob Hall (right) of Democracy North Carolina. The state Attorney General's office is already investigating Women's Voices, but the N.C. NAACP and Democracy North Carolina want to be parties to that investigation.

"When you mess with the right to vote, you're messing with everything that is fundamental in our democracy," Barber said.

Here is the full text of the group's complaint, dated May 2. When it refers to "Ex. 1," that is the WVWV letter to Gary Bartlett available here [PDF]; "Ex. 2" directs readers to news reports at DailyKos, Facing South and NPR. "HKonJ" refers to Historic Thousands on Jones Street, a statewide coalition of some 70 social justice groups organized by the N.C. NAACP; Jones Street is where the state legislature is located in Raleigh.

RE: Voter Suppression Activity Targeting Black Voters in North Carolina

Dear General Cooper and Mr. Bartlett:

On behalf of the North Carolina Conference of over 100 NAACP Branches across North Carolina, I file this formal complaint against an organization out of Washington, D.C. called Women's Voices Women Votes (hereafter "WVWV") that has engaged in a pattern of massive robo-calls and mass mailings that appear to be designed to suppress and dilute voter participation, with a peculiar focus on African Americans.

One of our HKonJ Partners, Democracy North Carolina, made a request to both agencies earlier this week, to investigate automated telephone calls with misleading information about the voting process made to African Americans. We now know the source of the calls to be WVWV and we know from this group's own admission in a letter faxed to Mr. Bartlett on 28 April 2008 that it knew these messages would confuse voters. The Attorney General has taken initial action to stop the illegal calls, but there needs to be a much more aggressive investigation into WVWV's intentions and aims and the effects of its massive efforts to confuse voters.

Who was targeted? Why? How could a national organization be ignorant of the dates of one of most important primaries in the history of our State? How could a national organization give such wrong-headed directions to unregistered voters during the exact same period when they could easily register through our one-stop early voting procedure? Does the evidence show that WVWV violated NC General Statute 163-275(17),which makes it a felony crime to communicate misleading information about the voting process with the "intent and the effect" "to intimidate or discourage potential voters from exercising their lawful right to vote." Democracy North Carolina joins with us in requesting a much more aggressive investigation of the actions of the group. Here are some of the areas we urge you to look into:

1. The WVWV told Mr. Bartlett in its 28 April 2008 letter that it was about to mail voter registration information to 276,118 unmarried women in North Carolina and that it was sending similar mailings to "unmarried women not just in North Carolina, but around the country." (See Ex. 1) A comprehensive examination of the mailing list must be done to determine how many of these letters wnet to "unmarried women" as opposed to African Americans and other people of color, how many of each group were registered or not registered, and which misleading message each group received.

2. Although in this same letter the WVWV said it was only targeting unmarried women, three days later, on 1 May 2008, after Democracy North Carolina had raised the issue of possible targeting of African Americans, the WVWV denied it only targeted unmarried women. In a written answer it said: "While our focus is on unmarried women, we have worked to target other under-represented groups through our project, the Voter Participation Center." (Ex. 2) To what extent does the WVWV discriminate in how it communicates to African Americans in contrast to unmarried women? We cite as one example the contrast in the automated telephone messages sent to black versus white households in late April.

To speed your investigation (it is probably too late to prevent or remedy the damage done to voter turnout during early voting and on Tuesday, May 6th, but we trust a solid investigation will prevent similar misfeasance in future elections), permit us to share with you the information we have gathered since we first became aware of the confusing robo-calls and mailings a few days ago:

1. WVWV admitted it made thousands of automatic calls to North Carolina residents on 24 and 25 April 2008. (See Ex. 2) On calls, apparently to white women, a woman said: "Hi. Just a reminder. Your voter registration form is in the mail to you. Your voice counts and your vote [indecipherable]. Sign it, date it and send it in. Thanks!"

2. An African American man, who identified himself as Lamont Williams (hereafter "Lamont") gave the following message to other homes: "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 your application. Then, you will be able to vote and make your voice heard. Please return your registration form when it arrives. Thank you." According to WVWV, "Mr. Williams is a professional voice talent," and his calls only went to men and a woman was used to contact women."

3. Lamont's calls tell people that are registered that they are not and that the only way they can vote is to wait a few days, get a form in the mail, fill it out and mail it back in. As one commentator said, "Whether the result of deliberate design or massive negligence on the part of WVWV and/or its vendors in terms of the timing of the calls and the determination of who would be called, the end result is something which rightly raised suspicions about the intent of this program."

4. Contrary to North Carolina law, there was no identification of the organization who had paid for the call, WVWV, or its "project" organization, Voter Participation Center, nor did Lamont provide any way for the receivers of his misleading message to check on it, if they had questions.

5. Mr. Kevin Farmer, in Durham, N.C. has an original tape of Lamont's message, which was apparently aimed at a young African American male voter who had registered to vote for the first time in 2004, and whose 2004 telephone number was reassigned to the store where Mr. Farmer now works.

6. Rev. and Mrs. Nelson Johnson received Lamont's message three times. Neither are unmarried women--they are African American civil rights activists in Greensboro.

7. When Lamont's messages were sent to hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians on April 24th and 25th the deadline to register for the May 6 primary had passed if you tried to register by mail. You could easily register--and Vote! by going to a one stop early voting place. WVWV focus has been on unmarried women. (See Ex. 1)

8. WVWV sent Mr. Bartlett its fax from the Institute of Women's Policy Research which has the same address, 1707 L Street NW, Suite 750, Washington, DC 20036 as the Women's Voices. The letter was dated April 24, but the fax was sent late in the afternoon of April 28, which was the same day the mailing was scheduled to leave the mail house for North Carolina.

9. In the letter to Mr. Bartlett, the WVWV explained its massive 276,118 mailing that was about to be sent, but did not mention Lamont's calls or any other calls, presumably to the same people, telling them to look for the mailer. (Ex. 1)

10. Copies of the mailing pieces were not sent to Mr. Bartlett for his review or even as a courtesy. Some of the messages on the mail pieces are misleading while others appear to misrepresent North Carolina law regarding the registration process. For example, some say, "The deadline for voter registration is approaching," but the mail-in deadline has ended two weeks earlier. Some say, "state law requires you to update your voter registration records," but voters who move within a county are allowed to vote without previously changing their registration.

11. WVWV has said they have tried to delay the 276,000 pieces of mail destined for North Carolina and that "a majority of the mail that was going to North Carolina will not be delivered, and our folks are continuing to try to make sure that as much of the NC mail as possible is held until a later date." (Ex. 2) Based on conversations with WVWV's vendors and postal officials on Friday, approximately 110,000 pieces are still being delivered this week, most heavily in Eastern North Carolina.

12. WVWV said it "was a mistake" for Lamont not to identify the sponsoring organization and "we regret the error and will ensure it does not happen again." WVWV has repeatedly been challenged on the inaccurate and misleading mass robo-calls and mass mailings in other states, and it merely apologizes, and says they will do better in the future. Months ago, we understand, WVWV pledged to identify the source of Lamont's calls. This promise was broken.

13. The robo-calls in N.C. were part of a massive set of calls and mailings in 24 states in late April 2008 that included Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Oregon--all states where the voter registration deadline has passed and the primary is approaching. Two months earlier, on 6 and 7 February during other primary campaigns, Lamont, or someone acting for WVWV, made millions of calls in 22 states, including Virginia. At that time, the registration deadline had passed in Virginia and the primary was days away. The resulting chaos led to an investigation by the State Police and more promises from WVWV to change its deceptive practices.

14. WVWV says it was fully aware of the closing of the registration rolls in North Carolina, the availability of one-stop registration/voting, and other important voting factors that would influence the impact of its call/mailing operation. In its letter to Mr. Bartlett, WVWV apologized for the confusion its poor timing caused, but dismissed the timing as an "unfortunate coincidence."

15. Voters in Virginia, Oregon, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Michigan complained to the WVWV that the anonymous calls probably caused voter confusion and frustration. The Institute for Southern Studies found media or other reports about complaints regarding WVWV calls or mailings in at least 10 states in the past five months.

By copy of this letter we alert the U.S. Department of Justice that the NC NAACP is collecting more information through our national network in contemplation of filing a formal complaint about this issue. We also copy this letter to our National NAACP leadership, which has approved these complaints. Through our national organization, we will see information about how these confusing robo-calls and mailings affected minority voter participation in other states, such as West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky, as we continue our discussions about our next steps to expose efforts to confuse and mislead voters in key primary states. We will also be consulting with two national Election Protection hotlines that are monitoring the primary election in North Carolina to evaluate whether their findings shed additional light on the actions of WVWV.

The letter is signed by Barber and copied to Julian Bond, chair of the NAACP's national board; NAACP Interim CEO Dennis Hayes; Angela Ciccolo, NAACP's interim general counsel; and Christopher Coates, acting chief of the U.S. DOJ's Voting Section.

To listen to WVWV's Lamont call, click here. For the call with the woman's voice, click here.


(Photo of Al McSurely and Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II of the N.C. NAACP and Bob Hall of Democracy North Carolina by Sue Sturgis)

Labels: democracy north carolina, department of justice, facing south, NAACP, north carolina primary, robo-calls, roy cooper, voting rights, women's voices women vote

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:

“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

Will Evans with the Center for Investigative Reporting has compiled a helpful chart documenting in detail the connections between the principals of Women's Voices Women Vote -- the nonprofit we discovered behind illegal election robo-calls in North Carolina -- and the various presidential campaigns.

As we have already noted, many of the group's top leaders have worked for Bill and Hillary Clinton in some capacity. Founder and President Page Gardner, for example, served as the deputy political director for the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign and worked on his presidential transition team. Executive Director Joe Goode was a pollster for Bill Clinton, and former Women's Voices leadership team member and strategic planner Maggie Williams is now Hillary Clinton's campaign manager.

The Center breaks new ground by showing just how heavily and disproportionately Women's Voices principals have invested in the Hillary Clinton campaign. According to the chart, they have donated a total of $34,800 to Hillary Clinton or HillPAC since 2000. At the same time, they have donated only $3,600 to the Obama campaign and $2,300 to John Edwards.

[ADDENDUM: Evans also has a piece posted at the NPR website (click here and scroll to the bottom) about questions raised by charity watchdogs over the fact that in 2006 Women's Voices paid $800,000 -- 16 percent of its budget -- for phone services to Integral Resources Inc., whose CEO and founder, Ron Rosenblith, is Gardner's husband. The organization also paid several million dollars more to companies run by five other members of the nonprofit's leadership team.

Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy in Chicago, said that's a concern as it gives the appearance of a conflict of interest. Rick Cohen, former executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and a national correspondent for Nonprofit Quarterly magazine, added that such relationships create "the image, if not the reality, of self-dealing."]

Labels: Center for Investigative Reporting, facing south, hillary clinton, north carolina primary, Page Gardner, robo-calls, voting rights, women's voices women vote

For those following Facing South's big story this week of illegal and deceptive election practices in North Carolina on the eve of the state's critical primary, you can hear more on WUNC 91.5's show The State of Things at noon today:

In the run-up to the May 6th primary, some North Carolina voters have been getting automated voice messages that are misleading and illegal. Chris Kromm, director of the Institute for Southern Studies, joins host Frank Stasio to explain the controversy behind a robo-call and mailing campaign by the non-profit group Women’s Voices, Women Vote, and the serious issues it raises about voter deception.

For those out of the listening area, you can listen via live feed at WUNC's site.

NPR's Peter Overby gave the story national coverage on All Things Considered yesterday; you can find their story here.

Labels: all things considered, chris kromm, facing south, frank stasio, institute for southern studies, north carolina primary, npr, robo-calls, the state of things, women's voices women vote, wunc

Voting rights are a hot topic at Facing South this week, and Monday's Supreme Court decision OK'ing Indiana's voter ID law will have an especially big impact in the South.

In at least two major states, voter ID laws had been held up but will now likely move towards passage, The New York Times reported on Tuesday:

In Texas, debate over photo ID in 2007 paralyzed the State Senate for weeks before the bill was rejected. In response to the new ruling, the Republican-controlled Legislature will probably be recalled to work on a new ID measure, voting experts said.[...]

Voting experts said a bill pending in Florida to make its ID law more restrictive was now more likely to pass.

But the decision was especially big news in Georgia, there a voter ID bill was thrown out in 2005 and blocked again in 2006 for threatening to disenfranchise voters. Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel called the decision "a victory for voter protection and the integrity of the elections process," and the assumption is that the ruling now validates the Georgia law.

Indeed, the Times piece quotes Hans A. von Spakovsky -- a brainchild of the conservative "voter integrity" movement, whose bid for FEC Commissioner was opposed by career DOJ staff and blocked in the Senate last December --as vindication for Georgia's law and its support by Bush officials:

“This decision not only confirms the validity of photo ID laws, but it completely vindicates the Bush Justice Department and refutes those critics who claimed that the department somehow acted improperly when it approved Georgia’s photo ID law in 2005,” said Hans A. von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission and a former Justice Department official.

The Georgia law still faces a legal challenge before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. According to the Associated Press, the lawyer representing critics of the Georgia law thinks "the Georgia challenge is stronger and more well developed than the Indiana case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on," but acknowledges it will be an uphill battle.

Labels: hans w. von spakovsky, voter ID laws, voting integrity, voting rights

Facing South's investigation into illegal robo-calls in North Carolina and deceptive election tactics in 10 other states by Women's Voices Women Vote has had quite an impact.

Here are some of the major developments since we put up our first post at 9:32 am Tuesday morning looking into the issue:

* Yesterday, N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper publicly denounced the group's tactics, declaring their anonymous robo-calls to be illegal and ordering that they be stopped.

* Also yesterday, voting rights advocates Democracy North Carolina successfully persuaded Women's Voices to delay until after the primaries a deceptive mailing to 276,000 North Carolina households that would have further confused voters.

* Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama addressed the illegal robo-calls in a press conference yesterday, calling them "extremely disturbing."

* Women's Voices Women Vote board member John Podesta, President Bill Clinton's former chief of staff, has publicly stated that Women's Voices "will conduct a full and prompt accounting of the circumstances of the voter registration program."

* The investigation has been widely covered in the media and brought greater attention to deceptive election practices. So far, the controversy has been picked up by NPR, ABC News, CNN, The Economist, Harper's, Talking Points Memo, Time, TPM Muckraker, The Week and Wired.

We hope that this investigation and others keep the issue of illegal and deceptive campaign practices in the spotlight.

Labels: democracy north carolina, north carolina, robo-calls, voting rights, women's voices women vote

The following comment is from Durham, N.C. resident and local Democratic Party leader Kevin Farmer, who received and recorded the illegal Women's Voices Women Vote robo-call and brought it to the attention of Democracy North Carolina:

I'd like to clear up one discrepancy that has been floating around in relation to this story. I've seen people ask in comments here, and on other sites, why WVWV would target somebody named "Kevin Farmer," obviously a man.

As I've explained to several people, and as was reported on WTVD, the call I recorded and sent out was received at work, on the voicemail line that my wholesesale bread customers use to place their orders. I also received a call from the Obama campaign on the same line, two days prior to the call in question. My hypothesis about this -- and it remains a hypothesis, since I have no further empirical evidence -- is that both the Obama campaign and the WVWV were trolling around for unregistered voters.

The bakery where I work is in downtown Durham, in voting precinct #17, a low registration/high population (if you correlate voter reg w/Census data) district that looks like a hotspot for voter registration, going strictly by the numbers. The Obama campaign targeted this area with a robo call that emphasized same day registration/early vote. It was clear, concise, and contained all the necessary contact information.

The follow-up call from WVWV was anything but, and in my opinion, was designed for one purpose and one purpose alone: to sow confusion and suppress the vote.

I look at it this way. As a poster on another site noted when they posted the script for one of WVWV's radio/tv ads, they clearly know how to construct an informative and effective ad piece. Now let's look at what they did for this robo-call: an organization whose stated mission is registering single women to vote, an organization that notes, on its web site, the sponsorship of several noted female celebrities, this organization did not send out an informative, inspiring ("Hey ladies, it's time for women to stand up and be counted!") call using the voice of Christine Lahti or Julia Louis-Dreyfuss (a couple of their celebrity sponsors). Oh no, they sent out a dull, obscure, and mis-informative call using the voice of.......some guy named Lamont Williams.

Look, I am the Chairman of the Durham County Democratic Party, not a seasoned political veteran working out of Washington. I've done robo calls, both the targeting and the scripts, and I would never in a million years use a call like the one I received to reach the audience WVWV claim they were trying to reach, and their organization is one helluva lot more sophisticated than ours.

I'm sorry, but claims of incompetence just do not cover this at all. In my opinion, this was malfeasance, pure and simple.

Labels: facing south, Kevin Farmer, north carolina, north carolina primary, robo-calls, voter suppression, voting rights, women's voices women vote

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 [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.

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

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," [police spokeswoman Corrinne] 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

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 [election] 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