In the ongoing controversy surrounding Women's Voices Women Vote and deceptive voter registration tactics, Adam Bonin of DailyKos conducted an interview with Page Gardner, founder and president of WVWV. As he notes in his introduction, "Ms. Gardner was able to answer some of my questions, but not all of them."

1. Your latest press release states that "We do not believe that people who are in fact registered to vote jump to the conclusion that they can't vote simply because they are offered another opportunity to register." Given that there were published news reports and statements from elections officials in multiple states that already-registered voters were in fact confused by hearing phone calls and receiving new registration applications which suggested that without filling out new forms they couldn't vote, what was the basis for that belief?

Every state's Department of Motor Vehicles is tasked under the so-called "Motor Voter" law with providing registration for anyone coming in for a driver's license or other DMV service. They do that every day they are open for business. They don't have a voter file there to look up whether or not you are registered when they offer you the opportunity to register and they offer the opportunity to everyone that comes in. We do not believe this confuses people that are already registered to vote. Moreover, this occurs whether the primary is more than 25 days away or less than 25 days away. Similarly, when people are approached at a shopping center and offered the opportunity to register, they are offered the opportunity whether they are already registered or not, and the groups conducting these registration efforts are not generally accused of confusing those people that are already registered to vote.

2. After Virginia, WVWV promised to stop placing robocalls anonymously and didn't. Your spokesperson said this was a "mistake". How did this mistake occur?

[No response.]

3. When was the Board made aware of the complaints as to voter confusion and the anonymity of your robocalls?

[No response.]

4. How did you arrive at your list of target states? What criteria were used? And on what dates were voters in each state called?

Target states were arrived at using criteria that included the number of unmarried women in a state that were not registered to vote or were registered to vote and had not voted compared to the same criteria for married women. In other words, what was the marriage gap in electoral participation between married and unmarried women in the state. We also wanted states from every region of the country, as well as states that have same day registration and states that do not. We also wanted some states with women elected officials at high levels (governor, US Senator) and states without. All of the pre-calls drawing people's attention to our mail and its voter registration form were delivered on the same two days, Thursday and Friday, April 24 and 25.

[According to her 5/5 diary these states were Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.]

5. Your April 24 letter to Gary Bartlett (NC Board of Elections) speaks exclusively of your work with unmarried women, not men. Why is that?

[No response.]

6. After the NC situation became public, what steps did WVWV take to inform NC voters (a) that if they were already registered, they could vote without a problem and (b) if they were not registered, they could still register and vote in person via the one-stop process? If no such steps were taken, why not?

[No response. However, in her May 5 diary, Gardner stated, "WVWV offered to make corrective follow-up calls, but upon further consideration and consultation with individuals in the state, concluded that additional calls should not be made."]

7. Are African American males the only group covered by the Voter Participation Center not already covered by WVWV? In what states has VPC (or WVWV) attempted to register male voters?

The Voter Particpation Center attempts to register under-represented demographics including African American men, African American married women and married Latinas so these are the other targets for our voter registration other than all unmarried women regardless of ethnic or racial background.

The Voter Participation Center attempts to register these under-represented demographics in every state that WVWV operates, so in the most recent mailing that meant 24 states from coast to coast.

8. For how long has VPC been involved in registering male voters? Are there print materials, or materials sent to (potential) contributors, reflecting this?

The Voter Participation Center was created as a project of WVWV by the Board of Directors in 2007 following the testing of using our direct marketing techniques to register other under-represented demographics in 2006.

9. How is VPC funded?

As a project of WVWV, the VPC is not separately funded. It is funded out of WVWV funds.

10. Was your husband's company involved as a vendor for these projects? If yes, through what kind of process was this contract awarded, and was the Board made aware of the potential conflict of interest and involved in approving such contracts?

[No response.]

Labels: adam bonin, dailykos, facing south, robo-calls, voting rights, women's voices women vote

Our investigation posted earlier today about deceptive and likely illegal "robo-calls" made to North Carolina voters is making quite a splash. Here's some coverage you can find of the story:

Robo calls to register too late (Politico)

Women's Voices apologizes (Politico)

Nonprofit Women's Voices Women Vote stops suspicious robo calls (TPM Muckraker)

By hook or by crook (Talking Points Memo)

D.C. group behind robo calls (Under the Dome/Raleigh News & Observer)

Our report is also a top-recommended item at Daily Kos.

We'll keep you posted on story developments ...

Labels: dailykos, facing south, politico, talking points memo, tpm muckraker, under the dome, voting rights, women's voices women vote

With only 33 pledged delegates to offer, the media is playing down Sen. Obama's victory in the Mississippi primaries -- a quick rest stop on the bigger electoral road trip to Pennsylvania.

Mississippi may be written off as an "expected" win for Obama, thanks in part to the fact that over 50% of the voters in the primaries were African-American (and as former Pres. Clinton is probably tempted to point out, Jesse Jackson won Mississippi, too).

But as MeteorBlades -- a veteran of Freedom Summer in the 1960s -- reminds us in a fascinating memoir at DailyKos, thousands of Mississippians who voted yesterday grew up when the victory of an African-American candidate in Mississippi was far from "expected" -- indeed, it wasn't even an option:

Like the bus strikes, and diner sit-ins and Freedom Rides that had begun 10 years before, the tactics of Freedom Summer had both a real and symbolic value. Our job was to persuade black Mississippians to register to vote. The presence of outsiders, especially white outsiders, was seen as a way to focus more attention on the situation from parts of the nation – and the media - where Jim Crow’s consequences were more likely to be viewed with distaste, disgust, or rage.

Every day, two-by-two, we went door to door cajoling black men and women to gather up the courage to come with us and demand their constitutional right to cast a ballot. We didn’t get many takers. Some people wouldn’t let us in their house. Others wouldn’t let us on their property. They were scared, and justifiably so. After the summer, most of us were going back where we came from and they were staying in Mississippi, no longer officially accounted for as 3/5ths a person, but legally kept from being whole.

His account also is a cautionary tale for those who invest too much hope in a Presidential candidates as an agent for change. As he observes (and Sen. Clinton got in trouble for not appreciating -- remember that comment way back in January?), civil rights were won in spite of -- not because of -- support from Washington:

The Kennedy Administration had its own reasons for trying to keep the Freedom Rides of 1961 from going forward. But when it became apparent the riders would not back down, the FBI was ordered to become involved. Instead of doing something public, transparent and pre-emptive of the Southern establishment’s violent response to any challenge of Jim Crow, [FBI director J. Edgar] Hoover took the secret police’s usual approach and spied on the dissidents. Nothing was done to stop Freedom Riders from being beaten up, firebombed and generally terrorized.

Yesterday's Mississippi primaries were only a small chapter in this decades-long struggle for progress, but an important one nonetheless.

UPDATE: Well, maybe not enough progress:

In the sharpest racial divide seen yet in the Democratic campaign for the presidency, Sen. Barack Obama saw overwhelming support among black voters, while whites lined up strongly behind Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Nine in 10 blacks were backing Obama, while seven in 10 whites were voting for Clinton, according to interviews with voters leaving polling places. That gave Obama the edge because those who were voting split about evenly between the two races.

Labels: barack obama, bill clinton, civil rights, dailykos, Election 2008, freedom rides, hillary clinton, mississippi