Three more FEC nominees were referred today for votes by the full Senate. But, with Republicans blocking a floor vote, don't expect the deadlock at the FEC to end anytime soon.

Over the weekend, there were reports of robo calls during Louisiana's 6th District special election, during which State Rep. Don Cazayoux had narrowly beaten Republican Woody Jenkins. In the calls, which went out to Baton Rouge's African-American neighborhoods on election day, a voice told voters to teach white Democrats a lesson by staying home and not voting. It signed off "Friends of Michael Jackson," according to The Advocate.

But Jackson, an African-American state lawmaker who'd lost in the primary to Cazayoux, said he had nothing to do with the calls. So whodunnit?

The answer: Darrell Glasper, who told me that he was a political independent who'd made the calls because he said African-Americans "have been loyal for so long and received so little." Glasper, an African-American, said that he was an acquaintance and supporter of Jackson's, but that he'd made the calls without Jackson's knowledge and had stopped the calls at Jackson's request. He'd made 10,000 or so by that time, he said.

Glasper's company Magnolia Computers came up on the caller ID for the robo calls, reported a reader of the local blog The Daily Kingfish. The Daily Kingfish also had a transcript of the calls:

"I'm very upset that the National Democratic Party favored Don Cazayoux from New Roads over Michael Jackson. The Democratic Party raised $850,000 for Don Cazayoux which is the only reason Michael Jackson lost in the Democratic runoff. The National and State Democratic Parties always seem to back the white democrat over the black democrat and that's wrong. A lot of us who are supporting Michael Jackson feel the National Democratic Party need to be taught a lesson. We're not voting for Don Cazayoux because we believe Woody Jenkins will be a lot easier to beat in November when Senator Barack Obama is on the ballot. You haven't heard many black elected officials supporting Don Cazayoux. On Saturday we're going to stay home and see how the National Democratic Party do without us."

"Paid for by Friends of Michael Jackson."

Glasper told me that he'd been frustrated by the Democratic Party's lack of support for Jackson when he'd run in the primary against the white Cazayoux -- there was no get out the vote operation, he said, and "without money in the community Jackson couldn't make it." But that support, he said, materialized on Cazayoux's behalf in the general election. "That's my interpretation of how they play the political games." (Of course, there's nothing remarkable in the fact that the party did not run a GOTV effort within the Dem primary but did against the Republican candidate.)

When I asked him why he'd signed off the calls "Friends of Michael Jackson," when the calls were not in fact from Jackson's campaign, he said "I'm a friend of Michael Jackson's." When I pressed, he said that the calls "may have said friends or by a friend," he can't remember.

But Glasper, who up until recently served as chairman of BREC, an agency that operates public park and recreation facilities and programs throughout East Baton Rouge Parish, was unapologetic about the calls. When I told him that the Louisiana State Democratic Party said the calls violated election law and were likely to take the matter to court, he told me "This is America, you can say what you want."

Since we last posted this morning, there are number of other things to update you on those calls by Women's Voices Women Vote.

First off, North Carolina officials were not the first to specifically object to the group's failure to identify themselves and instead use "Lamont Williams" on the calls. As Facing South points out, back in February, after Virginia police investigated the calls and mailings as a possible identity theft scam, the group's spokeswoman told The Virginian-Pilot that "not including information about the source of the voter registration effort was 'absolutely an accidental omission.'" She also said that the group would be changing the calls so that the group was identified as the source.

Obviously, that didn't happen. When I asked the group about that, a spokesperson told me that the failure to change the script was a "mistake" and added "we're doing our best to figure out how the old script got used."

Meanwhile, a group spokeswoman Sarah Johnson explained in a Q&A at DailyKos that the name Lamont Williams was used because that was the name of the actor reading the script. The calls using Williams' voice went to men -- because she said while the group mainly concentrates on unmarried women, they also target "African Americans, Hispanics and young people" -- and a call using a woman's voice went to women.

And finally, anti-robo call activist Shaun Dakin provides some context for the North Carolina attorney general's accusation that the group's calls were illegal because the group was not identified and did not provide a call back number. Dakin, who heads up Stop Political Calls, a group devoted to combating automated calls by establishing a National Political Do Not Contact Registry, writes that Women's Voices Women Vote is breaking the law, but pretty much everybody else does too:

The reality is that there are more than likely several campaigns and other non-profit organizations that are "failing to disclose who sponsored the call" and "failing to offer the org's contact information to get the calls to stop".

In fact, I know of no political campaign at the national level that offers voters a way to opt out of further calls.

Today, two more board members from Women's Voices Women's Vote have released statements offering support of the group, which apologized yesterday for its misleading and illegal robo calls to North Carolina residents.

The first is president of USAction William McNary, who in apparent response to the reported myriad connections between the group and the Clinton campaign, makes a point of saying that he's an Obama supporter while vouching for the group. The voter registration campaign, he says, was a "mistake," but not a "malicious" one.

And John Podesta, President Bill Clinton's former chief of staff and currently the president of the Center for American Progress, has sent us this statement:

Women's Voices. Women Vote has a strong record of registering disenfranchised people so that they can participate in the political process. As a board member, I was aware of the general parameters of the group's voter registration program, but not the details of its execution. With respect to the calls and mailings made in North Carolina, I understand that remedial action is being undertaken. I agree with fellow board member William McNary that the North Carolina state calling program was a mistake of judgment and execution, and not an attempt to disenfranchise voters, and have been assured by Page Gardner, President of WVWV, that the organization will conduct a full and prompt accounting of the circumstances of the voter registration program for its board of directors.

Yesterday Tim Lux, another board member, made a similar statement.

Meanwhile, here's what the Obama campaign had to say about it:

Bob Bauer, an attorney for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign, said the calls were "extremely disturbing" and fit "the classic model of voter suppression" by sowing confusion just before the May 6 primary.

But he stopped short of saying the calls were designed to discourage voters.

"They have said it's inadvertent, and I understand it will not happen again," he said.