Progressive DC group, with some ties to Clintons, behind robo-calls that are "potentially disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters" in NC

Yesterday, I wrote a post about what I called "a big story developing in North Carolina." Progressive South, in a recommended diary at DailyKos, reported that African-American households were receiving deceptive phone calls about voting -- and that similar calls had taken place in several other states.

There's more today. I am really trying to get my head around this latest bombshell from Chris Kromm from Facing South in another recommended post at Daily Kos exposing who is behind the calls in North Carolina:

Who's behind the mysterious "robo-calls" that have spread misleading voter information and sown confusion and frustration among North Carolina residents over the last week?

Facing South has confirmed the source of the calls, and the mastermind is Women's Voices Women Vote, a D.C.-based nonprofit which aims to boost voting among "unmarried women voters."

What's more, Facing South has learned that the firestorm Women's Voices has ignited in North Carolina isn't the group's first brush with controversy. Women's Voices' questionable tactics have spawned thousands of voter complaints in at least 11 states and brought harsh condemnation from some election officials for their secrecy, misleading nature and likely violations of election law.

This is, to put it simply, stunning. I have to include a major segment of the post from Facing South to give context to this story:

In correspondence with North Carolina election officials, Women's Voices founder and President Page Gardner merely said that the disruptive timing was an "unfortunate coincidence" -- a strange alibi for a group with their level of resources and sophistication.

There are other questions about Women's Voices' outreach efforts. Although the group purports to be targeting "unmarried women," their calls and mailings don't fit the profile. Kevin Farmer in Durham, who first recorded the call, is a white male. Many of the recipients are African-American; Rev. Nelson Johnson, who is a married, male and African-American, reported that his house was called four times by the mysterious "Lamont Williams."

And as Farmer asks, "Why are they using a guy for the calls if the target audience is single women?"

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.

"The reports from other states are very disturbing, especially the pattern of mass confusion among targeted voters on the eve of a state's primary," Democracy North Carolina's Bob Hall tells Facing South. "These are highly skilled political operatives -- something doesn't add up. Maybe it's all well-intended and explainable. At this moment, our first priority is to stop the robo-calls and prevent the chaos and potential disenfranchisement caused by this group sending 276,000 packets of registration forms into North Carolina a few days before a heated primary election. We need their immediate cooperation."

While Hall says his group has "begged" the group to stop the mailings, Women's Voices has refused to do so -- even though the mail-in voter registration deadline for the primaries passed April 11.

State election officials say they are bracing for the deluge of confused phone calls and complaints that are sure to follow.

Wow. This isn't what anyone would have expected from Women's Voices Women Vote. It is an organization with a very specific mission of finding and engaging unmarried women in the electoral process. Something appears to have gone very wrong. I am quite sure this is not the last we hear of this.

At the start of his post, Kromm includes this note:

Please note: Women's Voices Women Vote appears to be a legitimate organization; people we respect support their work. However, we believe that the tactics revealed in our story, as well as the effect they are having on confusing and potentially disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters -- especially right before critical primaries -- are cause for deep concern and raise critical questions about ethical election practices. -- Chris

In matters like these, I defer to the people on the ground in the states who see and experience the real world impact of what DC groups do (Facing South thinks the calls are likely illegal). Why would a progressive group want to sow confusion and bear the responsibility of disenfranchising voters -- after they've been warned? Smart, savvy organizations know better than to distribute any information that will potentially confuse voters. This is very disturbing -- and it doesn't make sense.

Atrios put it best: Uh...this is pretty bad.