BALTIMORE — Some Maryland residents have expressed concern about getting letters recently that show their neighbors' voting records and their own voting history.
They're saying it's voter intimidation - and Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown agrees.
He's ordering the nonprofit Center for Voter Information/Voter Participation Center (CVI/VPC) to stop sending out the letters, calling them illegal under state and federal law. Brown's office announced last night that they sent a cease-and-desist letter to the D.C.-based organization.
The letters are labeled "Voting Report Cards," and have comments like: “We will be reviewing these records after the election to determine whether or not you joined our neighbors in voting.”
Brown is ordering the organization "to immediately stop sending letters to Maryland voters that threaten to publicly expose those registered voters who do not vote in this year’s election, to refrain from sending threatening communications in the future, and to agree not to follow through on threats to embarrass non-voters by publishing that information to their neighbors."
One resident angry about the mailing was Dorothy O'Bannon, president of the Langston Hughes Community Association in northwest Baltimore.
She said the information about the voting history in her mailing wasn't even true. She said a lot of young people follow her, and she doesn't want them to get turned off of voting if they see - incorrectly - a letter that claims their neighbors aren't voting.
O'Bannon, who noted she's 60 and has voted since age 18, called herself a "super-voter" and said voting is extremely important to her.
It's the privacy part. It's nobody's business whether I voted or not... I was cussin' and fussin' on social media, because my vote is more important than my money.
The Attorney General said it is legal to send a copy of the voter registration list with voters' participation history - but state law does ban conduct designed to “influence or attempt 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.”
The Center for Voter Information/Voter Participation Center's attorney said in a reply to Brown that there's nothing illegal in the mailings, which use "very standard [get out the vote] messages, using typical 'social pressure' language"...
Attorney Scott Thomas also wrote:
What is more disturbing than this effort to suppress constitutionally protected GOTV activity is the use of quoted statements that are not from VPC or CVI mail or text messages. Neither VPC nor CVI has sent text messages in Maryland, or elsewhere, during this General Election season. It is reckless and disparaging to state, without a basis in fact, that VPC or CVI sent mail or text messages with the statements “go to the polls to cast a vote; or vote by any other means” and “We’ll be sharing a report after the election of those who didn’t vote.”
