After my previous diary on the Women's Voices Women Vote robocall/voter confusion issues in which spokesperson Sarah Johnson responded to a series of questions, I was invited earlier this week to submit additional questions to WVWV President Page Gardner.
Ms. Gardner was able to answer some of my questions, but not all of them. As a lawyer myself, I am loath to draw any inference from any non-answers. Given the ongoing NC Attorney General investigation (PDF) and NAACP complaint, WVWV has every right to be cautious in what it says until it is confident it has determined what happened (among other reasons for restraint). So while I'll note the non-answers below, I'm going to confine my commentary afterwards to the substantive responses.
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1. Your latest press release states that "We do not believe that people who are in fact registered to vote jump to the conclusion that they can't vote simply because they are offered another opportunity to register." Given that there were published news reports and statements from elections officials in multiple states that already-registered voters were in fact confused by hearing phone calls and receiving new registration applications which suggested that without filling out new forms they couldn't vote, what was the basis for that belief?
Every state's Department of Motor Vehicles is tasked under the so-called "Motor Voter" law with providing registration for anyone coming in for a driver's license or other DMV service. They do that every day they are open for business. They don't have a voter file there to look up whether or not you are registered when they offer you the opportunity to register and they offer the opportunity to everyone that comes in. We do not believe this confuses people that are already registered to vote. Moreover, this occurs whether the primary is more than 25 days away or less than 25 days away. Similarly, when people are approached at a shopping center and offered the opportunity to register, they are offered the opportunity whether they are already registered or not, and the groups conducting these registration efforts are not generally accused of confusing those people that are already registered to vote.
2. After Virginia, WVWV promised to stop placing robocalls anonymously and didn't. Your spokesperson said this was a "mistake". How did this mistake occur?
[No response.]
3. When was the Board made aware of the complaints as to voter confusion and the anonymity of your robocalls?
[No response.]
4. How did you arrive at your list of target states? What criteria were used? And on what dates were voters in each state called?
Target states were arrived at using criteria that included the number of unmarried women in a state that were not registered to vote or were registered to vote and had not voted compared to the same criteria for married women. In other words, what was the marriage gap in electoral participation between married and unmarried women in the state. We also wanted states from every region of the country, as well as states that have same day registration and states that do not. We also wanted some states with women elected officials at high levels (governor, US Senator) and states without. All of the pre-calls drawing people's attention to our mail and its voter registration form were delivered on the same two days, Thursday and Friday, April 24 and 25.
[According to her 5/5 diary these states were Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.]
5. Your April 24 letter to Gary Bartlett (NC Board of Elections) speaks exclusively of your work with unmarried women, not men. Why is that?
[No response.]
6. After the NC situation became public, what steps did WVWV take to inform NC voters (a) that if they were already registered, they could vote without a problem and (b) if they were not registered, they could still register and vote in person via the one-stop process? If no such steps were taken, why not?
[No response. However, in her May 5 diary, Gardner stated, "WVWV offered to make corrective follow-up calls, but upon further consideration and consultation with individuals in the state, concluded that additional calls should not be made."]
7. Are African American males the only group covered by the Voter Participation Center not already covered by WVWV? In what states has VPC (or WVWV) attempted to register male voters?
The Voter Particpation Center attempts to register under-represented demographics including African American men, African American married women and married Latinas so these are the other targets for our voter registration other than all unmarried women regardless of ethnic or racial background.
The Voter Participation Center attempts to register these under-represented demographics in every state that WVWV operates, so in the most recent mailing that meant 24 states from coast to coast.
8. For how long has VPC been involved in registering male voters? Are there print materials, or materials sent to (potential) contributors, reflecting this?
The Voter Participation Center was created as a project of WVWV by the Board of Directors in 2007 following the testing of using our direct marketing techniques to register other under-represented demographics in 2006.
9. How is VPC funded?
As a project of WVWV, the VPC is not separately funded. It is funded out of WVWV funds.
10. Was your husband's company involved as a vendor for these projects? If yes, through what kind of process was this contract awarded, and was the Board made aware of the potential conflict of interest and involved in approving such contracts?
[No response.]
WVWV also released a statement this week offering an account what what has transpired.
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Reaction: I have tried to extend to WVWV the benefit of every doubt, but I have trouble accepting its answer to the first question. There's a difference between making registration available to people at public sites, versus anonymously contacting them in their homes and suggesting that they've been specifically identified as folks who need to take additional steps in order to register to vote.
This is especially the case with regards to the "Lamont Williams" calls to African American male voters. Unlike the VPC calls to married women which stated "Hi, just a reminder: your voter registration form is in the mail and on its way to you. Your voice counts, and your vote makes them listen. Sign it, date it, and send it in. Thanks," the calls to these men was much more insistent on the need to take action with phrases like "need to do" and "then you will be able": "All you need to do is fill it out, sign it, date and return your application. Then you will be able to vote and make your voice heard." Then, as in you can't yet.
Moreover, of course, WVWV was on actual notice that voters found the calls to be confusing, via the complaints and media articles in previous states. So on the whole I just don't find this explanation plausible.
Here's a story I would find plausible, though I must stress that this is only my conjecture, based on what we know publicly and my private conversations with voter targeting professionals: suppose WVWV's primary goal was not to register as many new voters as possible, but the slightly different goals of (a) reaching out to as many targets as possible and (b) generating as many voter registration forms being filed as possible.
Both goals would generate impressive-seeming statistics which can be used to impress funders as well as the board of directors, both of which are crucial as to the group's overall viability. Assume it's true, as others have claimed, that you can generate a lot of responses from a call for registrations post-deadline, pre-primary. But if that's the case, what WVWV was also generating was a number of false positives -- registered voters being contacted who don't need to re-register, but who will do so anyway because now they believe they have to. Making robocalls and sending materials that looked official, that did not clearly disclose their source as non-governmental (certainly not the calls), and which did not make clear that already-registered-voters need do nothing ... well, that ends up furthering the goals -- if "boosting the number of forms sent in" supersedes voter confusion as a priority, and especially if boosting those numbers generates higher revenues to WVWV vendors with significant ties to the Board and leadership team.
In other words, voter confusion may have become a recognized, but undisclosed cost, accepted as necessary to maximize certain overall metrics -- and to be fair, we have no idea just how extensively voters were confused here. It could end up being a very small number -- or one which WVWV underestimated -- and we can certainly debate how much confusion might be an acceptable cost based on the number of successful new voter registrations generated.
I want to be clear about two things: (1) that's only a theory, so please don't treat it as proven; and (2) voter registration is hard, unglamorous and difficult-to-fundraise-for work. Regardless of what may have happened this year, WVWV's past successes are undeniable, and it is incumbent upon all of us to support those groups like Project Vote and Rock the Vote which do this necessary work on the ground level. This is especially true in the wake of the onerous voter ID laws now approved by the Supreme Court (with immediate dire, bizarre consequences). I hope that Women's Voices Women Vote again gives me the confidence to include them again on such a list of righteous organizations, but they've got a lot of work to do first.
