Another Argument For Banning All Robocalls

I appreciate the goal of Women's Voices, Women's Vote, an effort to mobilize young women (the largest voting bloc that Democrats need to get to the polls regularly). But if this is true, that they've been putting out deceptive robo-calls in primary states which have the effect of depressing turnout and disenfranchising voters, that's really not good.

First, a quick recap: As we covered yesterday, N.C. residents have reported receiving peculiar automated calls from someone claiming to be "Lamont Williams." The caller says that a "voter registration packet" is coming in the mail, and the recipient can sign it and mail it back to be registered to vote. No other information is provided.

The call is deceptive because the deadline has already passed for mail-in registrations for North Carolina's May 6 primary. Also, many who have received the calls -- like Kevin Farmer in Durham, who made a tape of the call that is available here -- are already registered. The call's suggestion that they're not registered has caused widespread confusion and drawn hundreds of complaints, including many from African-American voters who received the calls.

The calls are also probably illegal. Farmer and others have told Facing South the calls use a blocked phone number and provided no contact information -- a violation of North Carolina rules regulating "robo-calls" (N.C. General Statute 163-104(b)(1)c). N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper further stated in a recent memo that the identifying information must be clear enough to allow the recipient to "complain or seek redress" -- something not included in the calls.

The same calls have gone out in Virginia and elsewhere during the primary season. For their part Page Gardner at WVWV responded to the controversy, and while it's noble to put resources into voter registration drives, doing it during an ongoing primary when the deadline has already passed, and framing it in such a way to sow confusion, is really awful.

I don't know where this is going, but one thing I'll say for sure - people need to lay off Digby. She was picked by WVWV in an online poll as their favorite blogger, and she appeared in a WVWV commercial a year ago. That's the sum total of her "coordination" with this group, and to impugn her motives is ridiculous. She has more character and integrity than anyone I know, and I'm proud to call her a friend. Anyone that wants to give her a bunch of crap for this needs to go through me.