Reply #18: Fallout from Facing South's investigation of illegal and deceptive election activity [View All]

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

Thursday, May 01, 2008Facing South

Fallout from Facing South's investigation of illegal and deceptive election activity

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 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 posted by Chris Kromm