The biggest right-wing group backing “push poll” calls says it’s targeting calls to “core supporters” on Election Day.
But there’s reason to believe that the group might also use their mighty calling operation for voter suppression efforts, as well.
This morning, The New York Times checked in on Common Sense Ohio, the conservative nonprofit that’s been polling millions of voters in the closest Senate races with questions that lead hard to the right (“do you support medical research experiments on unborn babies?”).
In it, Gabriel Joseph, the proprietor of ccAdvertising, the calling firm hired to make these nasty calls, admits that “his company had tried to reach every home in Maryland.” As the Times points out, there are over two million households in Maryland. The group has also been inundating voters in Montana, Tennessee, Missouri, and Ohio with its poll — targeting the closest Senate races.
Voters in those states can expect to just keep getting similar calls through tomorrow. Zeke Swift, the Executive Director of Common Sense, told the Times that the polls “had identified core supporters, who will receive a reminder call on Election Day.”
ccAdvertising has done more than just help Common Sense identify “core supporters,” of course — they also have a good idea of unfriendly voters, information that ccAdvertising has not hesitated to use in the past, as detailed last month by Mother Jones:
an investigation of a state GOP official by Alaska’s attorney general in 2003 revealed another glimpse of [ccAdvertising’s] playbook. “If they support our candidate, the candidate comes on with a 20-second GOTV thanking them for their vote and asking them to get their friends and family to vote as well,” Joseph wrote in an email to Alaska Republican Party chairman Randy Ruedrich, according to the Anchorage Daily News. “If they support the opponent, we deliver a voter suppression message.”
Update: Not discussed in the Times piece is the fact that Common Sense has not limited their activity to push polls. Mr. Swift told me last week that they’ve also bought radio spots in Maryland, Montana and Ohio, and sent mailers in Maryland, Montana and Tennessee. You can see their Tennessee mailer here; “Bob Corker and Harold Ford are separated by more than their school colors . . .” We’re eager to see other examples of their work.
