Robo-Call Voting Group Causing W.V. Confusion

Women’s Voices, Women Vote caused a controversy in North Carolina prior to the primary with their misleading robo-calls that made listeners think that there was still time to register for the primary (there wasn’t) or that there was a problem with the registration they had already submitted. The calls did not identify what group was behind them and featured the voice of a seemingly fictional black man named Lamont Williams. Interesting, since the calls targeted African American communities even though WVWV claims to be primarily concerned with registering unmarried women voters.

The group apologized several times, trotted out their board members to defend them and evaded the hard questions- like why every state the organization has entered has had problems with their tactics. Adding to that long list of complainants the state of West Virginia.

The Secretary of State’s office is reminding first-time voters that the deadline to register to vote in Tuesday’s primary already has passed.

Betty Ireland said she’s worried that a mass mailing aimed at getting young women in West Virginia to register to vote might cause confusion.

A group called “Women’s Voices. Women Vote” sent out more than 16,000 mailers to unmarried women in the state after April 22, the last day to register in time to vote Tuesday.

People who’ve never voted can still register, but they won’t be eligible to cast a ballot in the primary.

———————————————————————————

Ireland’s office said it received a batch of voter registration forms as a result of the group’s mass mailing, and many of them were from people already registered.

Ireland said she wants to assure already registered voters that they do not need to register again to vote in Tuesday’s primary. However, those voters who used the women’s group’s registration form to update their address should contact their county clerk’s office to determine their proper voting precinct.

“I do not want registered voters to be confused by this mailing,” Ireland said. “If you were already registered to vote, you do not need to re-register.”

Page Gardner, president of WVWV, issued a statement (she’s probably getting pretty good at that):

“West Virginia residents will receive this mail after the deadline for registering to vote to participate in the upcoming primary election. Please be aware that the mailing is not intended to encourage registration specifically for the primary, but simply to encourage voter registration in general.

The mailing clearly indicates that the deadline to register to vote by mail for a particular election in West Virginia is 20 days before the election … We hope that this unfortunate coincidence in timing does not lead to any confusion or aggravation for either your state’s voters or registrars.”

Not intended to encourage registration specifically for the primary? The voting deadline had passed so there would be no legitimate and honest way to encourage registration for the primary at all. As for it being an “unfortunate coincidence in timing”… if it happens in one state, it might be a coincidence. If it happens in every state you target, it is a pattern. Whether the group has ill intent or not, the fact that they keep “magically” hitting the window between the end of registration for a primary and the actual primary is an extremely bad operating method.

Tags: voting fraud, Women's Voices Women Vote, North Carolina primary, West Virginia primary