The key response will come from the North Carolina Attorney General after his investigation. Is the NC press covering this story at all?

It is no surprise that a nonprofit seeking to register future Dem voters would have some Clinton or Obama supporters on board.
Supporters are one thing. People who are paid to get their candidate elected are something else.

Maggie Williams was on the board of WVWV and WVWV paid her firm $88,000 for "strategic planning" in 2006. Maggie Williams is now working to get Clinton elected. Is she using any of the "strategic planning" paid for by the nonprofit to help Clinton? Is the nonprofit now robocalling voters in a way that helps Clinton and hurts Obama?

It is not enough for a couple of Obama supporters who don't know much about the day to day running of WVWV to try to gloss over this. Why haven't we heard from Maggie Williams?

Funny thing, WVWV promised to stop making anonymous phone calls back in early February after they were contacted by Virginia police:
http://www.southernstudies.org/facingsouth/

However, WVWV is a legit operation and is run by progressive people who want to turn out progressive leaning voters. But at the same time, it's a little too early to totally rule out the possibility that a staff person or consultant didn't run amock with their tactics in a heated and divisive primary. It's not impossible. I'm sure that these board members are pretty far removed from the day to day operations of this organization.

Otherwise, WVWV has demonstrated that they are simply bumbling idiots who couldn't be bothered with things like state by state voter registration rules and deadlines. But it does boggle the mind that they could be repeatedly told that their tactics were confusing voters (by the police!) and they refused to change them.

From Daily Kos diarist Stefanie's post, which I reposted in Reader Comments last night because of the great amount of pertinent information in her original Kos post:

"In case you are unaware of the situation, WVWV has robo-called black North Carolina voters (using the name "Lamont Williams") with the message that they needed to return a voter registration packet by mail, despite the fact that North Carolina does not register voters by mail, the voter registration deadline in North Carolina is April 11, and many of these voters are already registered (but the calls make them think they are not).

It is a Class I felony in North Carolina "to misrepresent the law to the public through mass mailing or any other means of communication where the intent and the effect is to intimidate or discourage potential voters from exercising their lawful right to vote."

And in response to the John Podesta response that she received:

Thanks for responding, John. I'm glad to hear that you've requested an accounting of what's happening in North Carolina but frankly North Carolina is just the tip of the iceberg - WVWV has apparently executed similar "lapses in judgment" in Virginia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, Colorado, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas, usually immediately before those states' primaries. I have an incredibly difficult time believing this is anything less than voter disenfranchisement - if their intentions were good, why wouldn't WVWV identify themselves on the call? Why target black voters? Why use a fictitious identity for the call, and why else use the name Lamont, if not to immediately establish the caller's racial identity? Why choose the week before an election to suggest to these (largely black) voters that they may not be registered to vote?

From my perspective, the odds of all these factors being coincidental is virtually nill. But I look forward to the full accounting, which I hope you will encourage WVWV to make public. Thank you.

Stef

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/30/211016/253/775/506710

If it were a legitimate effort to register voters, why would they have the drive immediately before the primary? If I were trying to register voters, I would get the materials into their hand as early as possible - under the assumption that people aren't going to fill them out right away and fedex them in.

And, not only did they not get them in the mail as early as possible, they did so after the registration deadline.

The only reason to have them immediately before the primary would be to create confusion in a way that wouldn't leave people with enough time to resolve it before the primary.

When you add the fact that they didn't include legally required identifying information in the call, that they blocked the number on caller ID, that they persisted in using misleading language after being repeatedly warned by state authorities, etc. it becomes very doubtful that this is just a perfect storm of innocent mistakes.

Two birds with one stone.

You establish an organization that helps register women voters who will support your candidate. You make sure they are called before the Primary and are given correct information so they can vote.

This establishes credibility for your organization and will provide cover should the whole thing blow up.

Then, after the registration deadline, you begin calling African-American voters and providing them with misleading information telling them that if they want to vote (In the Primary? Or in the General?) they'll need to submit some paperwork. But when the voter receives it (if they receive it) the deadline has passed, so obviously they can't vote. Unless, of course, they were already registered, in which case, it was all a mistake.

Karl Rove would be proud.

Possible Clinton mole operative behind the robo-calling, giving plausible denaibility to higher-ups.

I don't trust the Clinton's, their track record of low ethical standards and behavior makes me think there's more to this than meets the eye.

Non-profit board members probably meet once or twice a year. When the board does meet, they would discuss
1/fundraising to keep the organization going 2/compensation for nonprofit employees
3/other budgetary matters
4/organiaztional programs

I would not expect Podesta or any other of the non-staff board members to know the intracacies of how WVWV is conducting its programmatic business. That's how nonprofit boards work.

I want Page Gardner on the phone now, aswering these questions.

There are a few posts at Daily Kos that are all over this, including the one I mentioned above. Here's some links:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/30/211016/253/775/506710

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/30/11055/6499/141/506343

And here are some Clinton connections that some of the commenters on my Stefanie repost cited:

"Thanks for post with the list of its board. Some obvious Clinton names jump out. Joe Goode Maggie Williams Gloria Steinem Pat Griffin, also, is a lobbyist with close ties to Hillary." Posted by Maria Gomez

"More names from the board close to Clinton:
Hal Malchow
Ashley james
Mim Mager
Holly Schadler
One has to wonder if this story will get real attention in the media."
Posted by Maria Gomez

"If this is actually tied to the Clinton campaign then it puts her in the same company as Bush's George and Jeb, Karl Rove and Katherine Harris."
Posted by DF

"Another board member Michael Lux, is a former aide to Bill Clinton, whose group American Family Voices has run political telephone operations.
Not only are these people connected to Clinton, they are making money at it. No doubt here that it's a Clinton op.
You should repost this blog, especially because of the e-mails with the group."
Posted by Maria Gomez

A couple of points to consider: as a non-profit organization which is required to file annual tax returns (IRS Form 990), WVWV has to show that their funds are used to carry out the organization’s tax-exempt charitable purpose. Wasting money on ineffective and late voter registration programs and claiming “oops, my bad” could bring the organization’s tax-exempt status under scrutiny by the IRS.

All non-profit organizations are required to have very specific conflict of interest provisions in place to receive tax-exempt status from the IRS. If, as claimed above, the husband of a Board member is a major beneficiary of the organization’s revenue and that fact was not made known to the other Board members prior to spending those funds there may be a conflict of interest which could also jeopardize the organization’s tax-exempt status.

Also, I do not profess to be conversant in federal election laws to know if an actual crime has occurred with the voter registration operation in North Carolina, but WVWV has a history of late calls to minorities which may generate confusion in a targeted audience. WVWV has also been put on notice by at least one law enforcement agency about their improper/illegal actions yet apparently continues to commit these acts. While some commenting here, including WVWV Board members, might say these allegations are innocent or circumstantial keep in mind there are people in prisons in this country who were convicted of crimes based on circumstantial evidence.

Now would be a good time for WVWV to sit down with a competent lawyer to determine if the actions of their organization have violated federal or various state laws and if so is the organization legally liable or can any liability be directed to “rogue” operatives. Also, if I were WVWV’s lawyer, I would limit the written statements of Board members and surrogates of the organization are making in various forums until all legal ramifications have been analyzed.

If you believe Bush and the others who voted to go to war in Iraq did so because the intelligence was faulty then you are quite likely to believe a group with this strong a professional staff with a long history of doing election work just continues to be so incompetent. The fact is they have done this in other states and when caught claimed they were just incompetent. This excuse should not be allowed to work a second time, let alone a tenth time.

This is far more serious than Rev. Wright. Why isn't the story showing up in the corporate media?

The more I think about this, the madder I get. The possibility that my Obama campaign contributions are being used to finance Inegral Reserach's operations infuriates me. I refuse to donate another cent to the Obama campaign until I get some answers.

This story is about to drop off the TPM home page.

What a shame, as it definitely merits more consideration, esp. when a Dem-run outfit is behaving just the like Repug-run ones Dems supposedly detest.

Bye-bye

If all it takes is blatant bullshit to escape wrong doing then we had better go get a pair of waders. Come on now!...this was no mistake.

Just so you know, Maggie W. is not the only connection to the Clinton campaign. I spent just 15 minutes yesterday jogging back and forth between WVWV, their links and opensecrets.org and this is what I found (the numbers may be from previous quarters):
John Podesta (former Clinton Ch. of Staff):
Donated $2300 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign
Mimi Mager:
$2,000 Clinton
Maggie Rheinstein:
$900 Barack Obama (so you don't think I'm just posting the fishy stuff)
And the affiliated WE Vote—national co-chair:
Geraldine Ferraro
Heidi Hartmann—Pres. of the ALSO affiliated Institute for Women’s Policy Research
$2,300 to Hillary Clinton

This story could be huge, if someone with the time to dig would jump on it! At the very least, North Carolina voters need to know about it.

Facing South is the authoritative source of reporting on this issue.

The NC AP did a report that covered everything except the political connections to the Clinton campaign.

Here is an update from Facing South, book mark their site and check frequently:

May 1 Update from Facing South: "...In North Carolina, Women's Voices has been conducting a robo-call and mailing campaign that the state Attorney General has confirmed is illegal, that has been secretive and deceptive, and will likely have the effect of confusing and discouraging North Carolina voters.....Women's Voices is made up of some of the most seasoned and sophisticated political operatives in Washington."

http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2008/05/womens-voices-responds-sorry-for.asp

An accident? A mole? Incompetence? Please, people. Grow up. The organization is called "Women's Voices, Women Vote." Is that a clue? Last I checked, Hillary was a woman. If it was an A-A political organization, would anyone doubt their motive? Million-dollar-per-speech Bill is now out pushing the "Obama is an elitist" line. Why do you think only Republicans can pull this crap?