Robosleaze

Once more with the illegal robocalls in North Carolina:

A Durham voter got another odd robocall about voting.

Christina Headrick, a former reporter for the N&O, says she received a misleading call Sunday from a "woman with a professional sounding voice" about mail-in voting.

Here is what the woman said:

"Have you ever wondered how you can vote by mail? From the convenience of your own home? Your vote has never been more important than it is in this critical election year. And this is a great way to ensure your voice is heard. If you would like to vote by mail, please press 1. If not, hang up."

Absentee ballots must have been requested before last Tuesday and returned in the mail by 5 p.m. today. In short, there is no way that it would be helpful for anyone to receive information about mail-in voting yesterday.

She tried to look for a caller ID using *69, but the number was either out of the area or from a restricted caller. It is against state law for robocallers to not identify themselves.

Just like the calls that were made earlier in North Carolina telling people that they were going to receive a form in the mail to sign to register themselves to vote, this call aims at producing voter confusion and suppressing turnout:  Oh, you mean I don't have to bother going down to to the polls and waiting in line to vote tomorrow?  Great--I'll just mail it in.

I'll bet that if the people responsible for these calls are exposed, they will sheepishly claim it was all a mistake, that they were trying to increase, not decrease, voter participation, and that they'll never ever do it again.  And I won't be surprised if a little digging reveals Clintonian connections.