Growing increasingly desperate in a tight presidential race, leftist groups appear to be turning to the intimidation game just days before the election.
The Maryland Attorney General’s Office is warning the infamous Voter Participation Center to stop sending mailers to residents “threatening to expose” their voting records.
Attorney General Anthony Brown, a Democrat, sent the VPC a cease-and-desist letter after Marylanders complained of receiving the group’s so-called “voting report card” attempting to shame people into voting.
“We’re sending this mailing to you and your neighbors to share who does and does not vote in an effort to promote election participation. While we have hidden the name and street number of your neighbors to protect privacy, these are their true voting records,” the mailer warns. “We will be reviewing these records after the election to determine whether or not you joined your neighbors in voting.”
In a press release, Brown admonished the voter registration activist group that “any action that intimidates prospective voters, especially on the eve of such a consequential election, will not be tolerated.”
“Voting is among the most important rights that Marylanders have,” the AG wrote. “Let me be clear: these unnerving letters are unacceptable, and Maryland voters should know that their decision to vote this Election Day is entirely theirs to make.”
‘It’s Really Gross’
The VPC, which bills itself as a “non-profit, non-partisan organization” with a mission to “help members of the New American Majority register and vote,” has been using such tactics for the better part of two decades, said Parker Thayer, investigative researcher at the Capital Research Center. He said the VPC and groups like it are rarely held accountable. They use the First Amendment to push their intimidation campaign.
Maryland residents aren’t the only Americans receiving threatening voting messages.
“This particular bullying tactic to try and intimidate or bully people into voting has been incredibly popular this election cycle,” Thayer told me in a phone interview Friday afternoon from battleground Michigan. “This is a tactic of desperation.”
As Thayer noted on X, the leftist group NowThis Impact created a website that shows users how to “stalk the voting history of an ex, friend, or family member and bully them for not voting.”
“You go to didmyfriendsvote.org, you put in their name, age range, and the place that they’re registered to vote,” a young woman in a video on the site explains. “As an example, I did my mom, and she’s actually voted quite a bit.”
“But then I did this boy who I used to be involved with in college. I thought he was a voter this whole time, and nope! Just keep in mind that it’s more difficult for some to vote than others; there are a lot of barriers to voting. But this man didn’t have any barriers, so I will be having a conversation with him,” the young activist shouts while pointing her finger at the camera. “And yeah, babes, just remember that this is a double-edged sword. No one can see who you voted for, but they can see if they voted. So if you’re sharing a lot of Instagram graphics, you’d better be backing that sh-t up in November on Election Day.”
Thayer said leftist NowThis Impact, which bills itself as a media outlet, is among several leftist organizations pushing out voter participation threats in the name of expanding voter participation.
“It’s really gross. We’ve had a lot of toxic elections groups say that they are fighting for democracy while they are doing everything they can to make this election as toxic as possible,” Thayer said.
‘Inaccurate and Potentially Misleading’
The Voter Participation Center was founded in 2003, starting out as Women’s Voices Women Vote, according to InfluenceWatch, Capital Research Center’s nonprofit tracker.
“The group initially focused on registering the strongly Democratic-leaning voting bloc of single women to vote; today, the group organizes registration of numerous Democratic-leaning voting populations,” InfluenceWatch notes.
The VPC has long operated a direct-mail campaign, targeting “unmarried women, minorities and millennials,” according to InfluenceWatch. With ties to the Clinton Foundation, the Democrat Party, and other leftist groups, the VPC has faced a litany of criticisms, allegations, and charges about unethical, even fraudulent practices. In 2020, Fairfax County, Virginia, warned voters “about an inaccurate and potentially misleading mailing from the Center for Voter Information,” the VPC’s sister nonprofit.
“This group is mass mailing pre-filled, absentee ballot applications to county voters without their request — and the mailer includes return envelopes to send the application to the City of Fairfax, not Fairfax County,” the county warned residents.
In March, the Alabama Secretary of State advised residents of a “misleading, unsolicited mass mailing of pre-filled voter registration forms targeting Alabama mailboxes.” The mass mailings were the products of VPC and the CVI.
‘They Don’t Stop’
The VPC’s threatening mailers this election cycle are popping up around the country. I received a “Voting Report Card” at my home in Iowa. My colleague Logan Washburn found one of the VPC’s threatening missives in his mailbox.
States have pretty straightforward laws on intimidation. While Maryland law allows a requester to receive a copy of the voter registration list, including voters’ election participation history, statutes prohibit conduct aimed at influencing or attempting to influence a voter’s decision — “whether to go to the polls to cast a vote, or vote by other lawful means, ‘through the use of force, fraud, threat, menace, intimidation, bribery, reward, or offer of reward,’” Brown wrote in his press release.
Brown said that Marylanders have “uniformly described feeling intimidated, threatened, shocked, and ill-at-ease by this mailing, as the letter suggests that there will be follow-up after the election. This threat to publicly expose the recipient’s voting record violates both Maryland and federal laws.”
Brown gave the VPC until the end of the business day on Friday to affirm receipt of and compliance with the letter, warning that the leftist organization could face fines and officials could face imprisonment for continuing to violate state and federal law.
Thayer doesn’t expect the VPC and other leftist voter activist groups to change their tactics anytime soon.
“Those tactics work. They’ve been using them since 2008,” he said. “It’s been controversial the entire time they’ve done it. They’ve been asked to stop by secretaries of state, by left-wing journalists. They don’t stop though.”
For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
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