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Robo Call Gives False Voting Info to North Carolina Voters

Here's another for the annals of vote suppression. Calls have gone out to an untold number of North Carolina voters telling them that they need to fill out a registration form before they vote. Democracy North Carolina, a government watchdog that has posted audio (wav) of the call, says that the calls went out to "black neighborhoods."

It seems not to be a scheme limited to North Carolina. As Facing South reports, the same call evidently went out to some voters in Columbus, Ohio two days before municipal elections there last November, and also in Virginia the week before the Democratic primary there this February.

Here's how one reader of the Buckeye State Blog described the Ohio call back in November:

From memory, a stentorian voice reminiscent of James Earl Jones says: "Hello. This is Lamont Williams. In a few days you should be getting a voter registration form in the mail. Please fill it out and return promptly and you will be able to vote. Thank you."

Since the election is Tuesday, the message is nonsensical. Also, I can't find any information on this Lamont Williams. The caller ID was blocked ("unknown caller").

A transcript of the call released by the North Carolina State Board of Elections matches that description:

"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 sign it, date it and return your application. Then you will be able to vote and make your voice heard. Please return the voter registration form when it arrives. Thank you."

And in Virginia, the Washington, DC NPR affiliate WAMU reported in February that "at least a dozen people in central and southern Virginia have received automated phone calls this week telling them to expect a voter registration packet in the mail." Facing South reports that the a state elections board spokeswoman said the matter had been referred to state police, and that it wasn't clear whether the calls also claimed to come from a Lamont Williams. But certainly the parallels are suspicious.

If Lamont has popped up anywhere else or pops up anywhere else, let us know.


34 Comments

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but Republicans aren't racists... are they?

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Follow the money.
Who is paying for these phone calls.

If necessary, get the NSA to track where they are comming from and who is making them.

Gosh, who would want to suppress black turnout in the Democratic primary?

It's not just a Democratic primary next Tuesday. I know Saint Obama is the center of your myopic little world but there is also a Republican primary as well as state office candidates and initiatives on the ballots across the state.

But hey, one more chance for small-minded Obama supporters to put their tin-foil conspiracy theories to work.

Ha ha ha - keep drinkin that Kool Aid, hack.

It's well known that GOPers would rather run against Hillary Clinton. The more you know.

It should be clear by now that it's not the republicans that are behind this...

Really? . . .
And whom might you think is the perpetrator of this felony?

This is classic "voter caging". They use the returned forms as proof that someone is eligible to vote and match the forms to the ballots and challenge the ballots of those who haven't returned the form. It's been going on for generations, and it's highly illegal. Not like anyone's going to do anything about it though -certainly not the republicans and probably not the Clinton campaign either since a low black turnout favors them.

Now before the Hillaroids get their undies in a wad -that's not a claim that the Clinton campaign is racist -it's just a fact. The AA demographic does not belong to Clinton in NC.

Just read the above and to make doubly clear: the "fact" is not that the clinton campaign is racist -the fact is that the AA demographic strongly favors Obama.

This isn't caging. It's akin to sending someone a get-out-and-vote letter that lists the wrong date. If these folks believe they're not registered, and that the path to registration is on it's way (falsely), or if they think registering is going to be burdensome, then they won't vote.

They are not racist... as far as we know.

They are not racist... as far as we know.

I mean, they say they aren't...

A good Voter ID law should fix this right up!

I'm loath to pin this on the Clintons or their supporters without a "smoking gun." We'll likely hear stories of this going on in November even if Hillary gets the nomination.

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I'm loath to pin this on the Clinton campaign without a smoking gun as well.

But aside from that, your logic is faulty. OF COURSE the Rethugs will use it against the Dem candidate in the fall, no matter who it is.

That doesn't mean that the Clinton campaign isn't using it against her Democratic opponent now.

They've already proven themselves ready to use Atwater/Rove tactics against Obama, including tactics that WERE used against them in the 1990s.

They've already also proven themselves good at the "plausible deniability" game.

So I'd rather have a smoking gun, but I'm keeping my mind open. I wish I could say I'd put this past the HRC campaign. But I can't.

So is this illegal? and if so how is it possible with today's technology not to be able to trace the source.

Why is it not a federal crime to intentionally tamper with elections?

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This is happening to much. Ohio, Virgina, and now North Carolina. Why isn't this a Federal case.

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tomjuarez,

"The AA demographic does not belong to Clinton in NC."

So this makes you "HA"?

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That "Lamont Williams" said nothing that was not true in those calls. He didn't say "only if you sign and return...." Or, even "you can't vote if you don't....". But, in a state where African American voters are harassed in every possible way, I can see that depressing the voter turnout. I don't know if N. Carolina is one of those states.

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It's got some truth if they receive a voter registration form. Did the people in Ohio receive anything after their calls? I doubt it, because then the source could be tracked. A mass mailing like that, if it was sent bulk, would have some official record of the senders at the USPS. And if it was sent with stamps and had anything approximating the Election Division's name or address on it, that would be undeniable fraud.

The perpetrators put forth an "if—then" proposition to those receiving the calls when they said, "All you need to do is sign it, date it and return your application. Then you will be able to vote and make your voice heard."

Being able to vote is contingent upon returning the application, according to Lamont. "Only" is not required to give it this meaning, Hoppy.

So this is intimidation of the worst kind, because it implies that the call is official, making the receivers doubt whether or not they are validly registered. And, there's a not-so-big leap from the information given that people who return the form (if and when they receive anything at all) will still be able to vote—even if election day has already passed. It's devious and downright evil.

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This great news for Hillary!

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I think they meant Lamont Sanford, not Williams. Those GOP vote caging operations can't even get their AA TV characters straight.
Surely the NSA can tell us who the terrorists are that are intimidating black voters.

Just FYI--I got one of these calls last week. Not from Lamont Williams, but from a female voice. Since I live in a state that voted in February, and has same-day voter registration, I thought it was odd. There has been some speculation on other sites that it is an identity theft scheme, although since nothing has arrived in the mail, it also seems pretty ineffective if they are trying to steal my identity. If I do get something in the mail, I'll report back. But as a vote-suppression scheme, well, the timing is off.

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It's a practice run.

And yeah, the phone company (thank you, surveillance state) will have logs of all of these calls, assuming the times the call were received can be accurately reported.

I am sure that the FBI and Mukasey's department will get right on it.

Josh's Joe-Lieberman-like smear against Clinton--without, as far as I can tell, ANY evidence to back it up--on the front page today is really a new low. So much for intellectual honesty . . .

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Did you read the article he linked to?

Some have also questioned the ties between Women's Voices operatives and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton. Gardner, for example, contributed $2,500 to Clinton's HILLPAC on May 4, 2006, and in March 2005 she donated a total of $4,200 to Clinton, according to The Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org. She has not contributed to the Obama campaign, according to the database.

Women's Voices Executive Director Joe Goode worked for Bill Clinton's election campaign in 1992 as a pollster; the group's website says he was intimately involved in "development and implementation of all polling and focus groups done for the presidential primary and general election campaigns" for Clinton.

Women's Voices board member John Podesta, former Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton, donated $2,300 to Hillary Clinton on April 19, 2007, according to OpenSecrets.org. Podesta also donated $1,000 to Barack Obama in July 2004, but that was well before Obama announced his candidacy for president.

That's not definitive proof Hillary is behind these calls, but it certainly shows a strong leaning toward her. And Josh didn't declare Hillary ordered these calls. He merely pondered about what the relationship is between the campaign and these despicable calls.

And one of the other board members is an Obama supporter, as further digging has shown. Your point? Josh has so far NO facts to back up any accusation that Clinton knew or approved this. Implying that she did, as he has done (just who else would "by hook or by crook" refer to???), is what Lieberman did in the Connecticut race regarding Lamont's allegedly responsibility for the crash of Lieberman's website on election day. It's, at *very* best, shoddy journalism, and at worst just this side of libel, since there's a possibility this may turn out to be a criminal offense. IMHO, he's having a great deal of trouble distinguishing between his role as reporter and his role as editor--most newspapers have two separate staffs to do that. Maybe he should make it clearer he's editorializing, and not reporting.

And now he has updated that post--glad to see that . . .

According to the article, the group that has taken credit/responsibility for these calls is "Womens Voices Womens Votes", headed by a woman named Page S. Gardner.

Her husband, Ronald F. Rosenblith, is the CEO and President of a political tele-marketing firm called Integral Resources. He was John Kerry's first Senate chief of staff, and made a $1,000 contribution to HRC's Presidential campaign on Oct 18, 2007.

I'm not attempting to connect any dots; just putting some info out there for the good researchers among you to dig into.

Was this a simple mistake?

This is an easy one - if they were targeting Urban areas with AA's rather than Rural low income whites then you know beyond any doubt that they are lyers.

Lying - the trademark of the Hillary Campaign. Like Hope except the total opposite.

I will apologise if some can demonstrate that the calls were random or aimed equally at Hillary profile voters (who happen by shear co incidence to hang out in Mccain/Huckabee districts)

Good God, why would you apologize? They are behind so many lying, dirty, underhanded tricks , it would take a million years to sort them all out!

Look, everyone, use your common sense, this has the Clinton's fingerprints all over it. This "fair and balanced" media spin has turned all of us into non-thinking robots! We all have to have "proof" for everything (supposedly), even if real "proof" is staring us in the face! When you take the main players in this group, lumped together with the lies by the dozens (which she also didn't think she would get caught in), the nasty, dirty smears, the releasing of pictures and information secretly sent to right wing organizations, the snide racist comments, the Press Club 'inviting' Reverend Wright to speak (arranged by a Hillary supporter) the continual moving of the goalposts to the path to the nomination and the clinton's record of 'obliterating' their opposition, well, I think it is reasonable and even PROBABLE that they are behind this little voter suppression scheme. ANYTHING to win!!

The NSA? Lol. They are Bush's pets.

This campaign has brought out the worst in people, and it is a sad state of affairs. It has made the Clintons into racists, when in the past they were know as the first people in the White House to help and acknowledge the need of the black people. But when doing an interview that lasted over 30 minutes, a person with a grudge against Bill Clinton,(David Shuster)made a 30 second sound byte that has turned a life time of good into a person that is hated. How who are the racists, that would not even let the man that had help them in the past explain the point he was trying to make. Jesse Jackson himself, a Barack Obama supporter listened to the whole speech and said it was Not Racist, but the damage was done. This whole election was to unite the country against to GOP but the Main Stream Media, has set race against race but twisting words so they get their ratings. I hope your happy with what you have become in pushing your candidate, what ever the cost may be.

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