Women's Voices, Women Vote

During five election cycles, I have worked with the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition where I co-directed targeted voter registration campaigns and 'get out the vote' efforts to the African American community. I have also had the great privelege of serving on the Board of Directors of Women's Voices, Women Vote -- a non profit, non partisan organization whose mission is registering underrepresented Americans, primarily, unmarried women.

I am also a voter. And in this election, I am supporting Barack Obama, whom I've known and worked with for years. I am also an elected delegate to the Democratic Convention for Barack Obama.

Given my candidate preference and my background and associations in voter registration efforts, I can say with great conviction, there was no effort to suppress or confuse African American voters, or any other voters in the state of North Carolina by Women's Voices, Women Vote.

I have seen up close the work of Women's Voices. Women Vote and know well the commitment, passion and leadership our organization has shown in helping make the voices of unmarried women and other underrepresented voters heard. There may have been mistakes made in this particular registration drive in North Carolina, but Women's Voices, Women Vote's motives were not malicious or intended in any way to confuse voters. Ironically, just the opposite. I know the staff is making every effort to right the situation.

By William McNary, President of USAction, Co-Executive Director Citizen Action/Illinois and Board Member of Women's Voices, Women Vote

Comments

[PorkBelly]

Nobody is buying this line. Too many individual elements in play to just be an error or a coincidence.

Who benefits?

[ched]

Oregon? Oops, sorry, won't happen again. Virginia? Oops, sorry, won't happen again.
Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona? Same, same same.
Sorry, buddy, the "oops" excuse doesn't work more than once, especially for a GOTV organization, Looks like your Clinton supporter friends at Women's Vote were using their resources to suppress minority votes. Of course, you have to claim that it must have been an innocent mistake, since otherwise you'd be admitting to knowing about it, or at least not paying attention.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[jsarbee2]

I'm sorry sir, but if I am to take you at your word, you were being duped as a member of this board. An organization that is doing legitimate work does not rack up the number of complaints WVWV has and completely fail to remedy any of the issues that cause people to say they are being misleading and attempting to suppress the vote. One or two complaints might be excused as incompetence. Eleven demonstrates that there is criminal malfeasance. I do wonder when you were asked to join this board and whether the invitation was made in recognition of the overwhelming presence of Clinton supporters and former staff members at all levels of the organization. Your presence and post here today seem an effort at plausible deniability but an ineffective one at best.

I've served on boards before and I know that in most organizations, there are one or two people running the show while the rest sit back and rubber stamp the agenda that is put before them. Is the atmosphere at WVWV different from the norm? Do you take an active day to day role in the decisions that are made and strategy discussions? If you do, and you thought this GOTV campaign was well planned and executed, then you are not doing the due diligence required of you as a board member.

[Obamamo]

With all due respect sir, I think you have been bamboozled. I also believe you are just being courteous to the HilLiar’s Campaign and deep down you know the purpose of these generated phone calls. The intent from this confusion on the part of Women's Voices is to STEAL the nomination from Obama. If I believe that they had no ill intentions then I should believe that HilLiar misspoke about the Bosnia LIE.

[juliatours]

I'm sorry, but 11 complaints? With numerous high profile names in leadership positions?
How is this allowed to go on?

[standard]

You say, "Given my candidate preference and my background and associations in voter registration efforts, I can say with great conviction, there was no effort to suppress or confuse African American voters, or any other voters in the state of North Carolina by Women's Voices, Women Vote."

I have no reason to doubt your sincerity. However, what was reported was such an "effort". You apparently meant to say "no intention". Even so, your candidate preference, background, associations, conviction and sincerity are all irrelevant. None of them qualifies you to offer evidence on the facts in the specific matter in North Carolina. All they can do is help you form a personal opinion: a guess.

I wonder, as a general matter, what competent legal counsel would ordinarily advise a client who is considering making a gratuitous, indelible public statement about an alleged instance of election fraud--or of any other crime. My guess? He or she would tell the client, "Say nothing!"

[Softnsweet]

Get out of here! We know the deal! You guys think we are crazy. They using a AA person here and Hillary just did an in North Carolina and Indiana using Maya Angelou's indorsement.

[Siren]

quotes from Sarah Johnson

WVWV spokeswoman is quoted on Feb 9th saying:

http://hamptonroads.com/...

Sarah Johnson, communications director for the organization, said Friday that not including information about the source of the voter registration effort was "absolutely an accidental omission."
She said the group was changing its nationwide phone alerts to make clear who is coordinating the effort.

and then Sarah Johnson is quoted again today, April 30:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmem...

But that practice would stop, she said. "This not identifying ourselves on the call, that's not something that is going to continue as we move forward. Our phone calls in the future will correct any confusion about the calls." When I asked if there had been any particular strategy behind not identifying the group as making the calls, she said no.

So from a promise Feb 9 to change the illegal practice of hiding your groups id from voters, a practice polling groups do not like if they are doing legit business, to yet another statement of apology April 30th for the same thing and you want people to think this group has nothing to hide. if WVWV had nothing to hide, it should have freely given its identity to voters. It refused to do so when called on it by a reporter Feb 9th. This is done when a companhy WANTS to hide its identity because they know they are engaging in caging.

[Jezreel]

OK. But why did WVWV have to be outed by Facing South? Why didn't they just come forward without an investigation? Your organization is a 501(c)3 corporation, like the League of Women's Voters. Why not just identify yourselves during the robo calls? Were they trying to deliberately mislead AA voters by using an ethnically sounding name?

And finally, every AA and most whites know that the oldest trick in the book is to use an AA as a cover when you're trying to hide race based politics, so tell us more about Lamont Williams?

[Jezreel]

OK. But why did WVWV have to be outed by Facing South? Why didn't they just come forward without an investigation? Your organization is a 501(c)3 corporation, like the League of Women's Voters. Why not just identify yourselves during the robo calls? Were they trying t

[Siren]

Ms Johnson is quoted in feb saying the omission of your groups identity would be corrected, it never was. she is quoted yesterday again apologizing for the identity omission in the calls and seems to forget all about her conversation feb 9 with a reporter concerning Virginia calls made that offended voters there.

Why should you expect to be believed given this? Ms Johnson also claimed your group had never had complaints in other states. Not true. Arizona and Wisconsin at least had lots of complainst, again no id on the calls, misleading info, calss made past the registration deadline upsetting and confusing voters.
And why is Gardener sending business to her husbands company. Nepotism? greed?

[nsiah7]

Good, but you have not answer the question, who is Lamont William? If you think the calls are genuine why disguise it? I don't care who you support and I don't give a toss about whether you are a pledged delegate or, the facts are that the method WVWV is using is illegal. Did you say it is non-partisan? Go tell Clinton that. You spinning the truth. Same old dumb American politics.

[GaryCalifornia]

Hmmm. Hope you're not one of the elected delegates that Hillary Clinton will be able to "poach".

[drblack]

It sounded illegal and misleading and no amount of spin will change that.
They got caught and now they are trying to weasel out of it like a naughty child.
This proves Hillary Clinton is a republican.

[speciallady2003]

Are you serious? They've been doing this in other states and there have been complaints there too. They had plenty of time to fix this if that was their intention.
They are an organization that has been dedicated to voter registration for years and you want us to believe they didn't know the laws governing this. Maybe they followed the law while you were there, but they sure aren't now.