N.C. GOP congressional campaign accused of poll intimidation, illegal robocalls
The campaign of the candidate challenging a two-term congressman from North Carolina is raising eyebrows over questionable and possibly illegal tactics.
Poll workers associated with U.S. House District 13 candidate Bill Randall, a Republican businessman challenging incumbent Democrat Brad Miller, have taken actions at early voting sites that appear to cross the line from observing voters to intimidating them.
Randall is the politician who gained notoriety earlier this year when he suggested the BP oil disaster was a conspiracy between the company and the Obama administration who "[m]aybe wanted it to leak."
Randall's poll workers have drawn at least two dozen complaints from voters to date, the Raleigh News & Observer reports. The complaints allege that the workers have aggressively approached voters and election officials inside voting sites, hovered near voters during the voting process while taking down their names and addresses, and questioned established voting law.
The actions have distracted poll officials from their work, according to the paper:
Earlier this week, voters in the district received robo-calls endorsing Randall from Marie Stroughter with the group African-American Conservatives.
The number that showed up on caller ID was 919-521-8593. But it turns out that number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. Another person who got the robocall on his cell phone reports the number that showed up was from a fictitious 555 exchange.
That would appear to be a violation of North Carolina law, which requires the person making the call to provide contact information. (For a memo on robocalls from the N.C. Attorney General's office that's been shared with the state's major parties and the N.C. Board of Elections, click here.)
When one woman who received the call contacted the Randall campaign to have her name stricken from the call list, she was contacted by Randall's treasurer, Tom Price, who told her that the call came from Washington Political Group, a Georgia-based consulting and communications firm. The group has also done work on behalf of numerous state Republican Parties well as Americans for Prosperity.
According to a report on the number at the website Who Called Us, the number has also been used on calls related to the N.C. Tea Party Summit.
Following a 2008 Facing South investigation that exposed the Democratic organization behind illegal robocalls made in North Carolina and other states, the N.C. Attorney General obtained $100,000 in civil penalties from the group.
Poll workers associated with U.S. House District 13 candidate Bill Randall, a Republican businessman challenging incumbent Democrat Brad Miller, have taken actions at early voting sites that appear to cross the line from observing voters to intimidating them.
Randall is the politician who gained notoriety earlier this year when he suggested the BP oil disaster was a conspiracy between the company and the Obama administration who "[m]aybe wanted it to leak."
Randall's poll workers have drawn at least two dozen complaints from voters to date, the Raleigh News & Observer reports. The complaints allege that the workers have aggressively approached voters and election officials inside voting sites, hovered near voters during the voting process while taking down their names and addresses, and questioned established voting law.
The actions have distracted poll officials from their work, according to the paper:
Election supervisors have spent a lot of time dealing with poll watchers when they should have been focused on getting people through the voting process, said Gary Sims, deputy director of the Wake elections board.Randall's campaign has also been involved with automated robocalls that appear to violate state law.
"Instead, they've had to spend a lot of time explaining the law," Sims said. "We stop it when it happens; it's just a lot of effort for our supervisors."
Earlier this week, voters in the district received robo-calls endorsing Randall from Marie Stroughter with the group African-American Conservatives.
The number that showed up on caller ID was 919-521-8593. But it turns out that number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. Another person who got the robocall on his cell phone reports the number that showed up was from a fictitious 555 exchange.
That would appear to be a violation of North Carolina law, which requires the person making the call to provide contact information. (For a memo on robocalls from the N.C. Attorney General's office that's been shared with the state's major parties and the N.C. Board of Elections, click here.)
When one woman who received the call contacted the Randall campaign to have her name stricken from the call list, she was contacted by Randall's treasurer, Tom Price, who told her that the call came from Washington Political Group, a Georgia-based consulting and communications firm. The group has also done work on behalf of numerous state Republican Parties well as Americans for Prosperity.
According to a report on the number at the website Who Called Us, the number has also been used on calls related to the N.C. Tea Party Summit.
Following a 2008 Facing South investigation that exposed the Democratic organization behind illegal robocalls made in North Carolina and other states, the N.C. Attorney General obtained $100,000 in civil penalties from the group.
Tags
Sue Sturgis
Sue is the editorial director of Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies.