Paul Kiel December 26, 2006, 10:58 AM

A new investigation into harassing robo calls from November´s election may lead to the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC).

The Nebraska Public Service Commission has launched an investigation into one of one of the more egregious examples of attempted voter suppression this year. In the 3rd District there, voters reported receiving repeated (often back-to-back) calls featuring a recorded voice that seemed to belong to Democrat Scott Kleeb. The calls, which went out to an unknown number of Nebraskans, prompted a flood of complaints to Kleeb´s campaign office.

Kleeb, who was leading Republican Adrian Smith in polls just before the election, ultimately lost by approximately 20,000 votes, garnering only 45 percent of the vote.

Since the low-quality calls reportedly sounded like a recording of a recording of Kleeb´s voice, Kleeb´s camp suspects that the perpetrators simply taped one of Kleeb´s calls and then used it to harass potential voters. People reported getting the calls sometimes six times in a row, sometimes late at night or very early in the morning.

According to the Public Service Commission, which has a recording of one of the calls, the calls did not identify the source at any time.

the NRCC paid a firm called Direct Strategies approximately $3,500 for phone banking in Kleeb´s district just before the election, but neither Direct nor the NRCC has confirmed that they were behind the Kleeb calls. Direct also was paid for calls in Pennsylvania´s 10th District, where there were complaints about repeated calls targetting Democrat Chris Carney, but it wasn´t conclusively established whether the NRCC was responsible for the calls there, either.

The Nebraska calls were more misleading than the robo calls the NRCC used in approximately twenty districts across the country. In those districts, an anonymous male or female voice began the call with something like “Hi, I’m calling with information about [the Democratic candidate],” then continued to give negative information about the candidate. The true source of the calls was not identified until the very end, when they informed the listener (if he/she bothered to stay on the line until the end of the call), that the NRCC had paid for it. Voters reported being called again and again. A number of Democratic campaigns reported receiving complaints from voters who thought that the calls were coming from the Democrat, because of the calls’ lead-in. You can listen to recordings of some of the calls here.

The first order of business for investigators in Nebraska will be to determine who was behind the calls. If the NRCC is found to be responsible, then it could be hit with fines for violating federal rules. At this point, criminal charges seem unlikely, since there´s really no federal law that covers it. Democrats plan to change that, though, as one of their first orders of business.

Election 2006