Deceptive Election Practices and Voter Intimidation -
The Need for Voter Protection

Common Cause and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights
Under Law

July 9, 2012

http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7Bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665%7D/DECEPTIVEPRACTICESREPORTJULY2012FINALPDF.PDF

Robo calls telling voters in Wisconsin that if they signed
the recall petition, they did not need to vote in the
election... Election Day emails falsely informing Virginia
college students that voting was postponed 24 hours... Text
messages alerting Florida students that Tuesday voting was
for Republicans only... 100,000 robocalls telling Maryland
Democrats their candidate would win without their votes...

These are all real-life voter suppression case studies
exposed in a shocking new Common Cause report [1]. And
they're just a taste of the onslaught of bullying,
misinformation and sabotage voters may face in 2012.

Common Cause has a plan to fight back -- and protect the
fundamental right to cast a ballot for hundreds of thousands
of voters across the country -- but your involvement is
essential...

These aren't just "dirty tricks," they're crimes that should
have severe consequences -- not just for individual voters,
but for our democracy itself. We can help stop them.

Please join our team of election protection volunteers in
your state.

The 2012 election will be one of the most hotly contested,
and critically important, of this decade. And in most
states, political vandals will get away with sabotaging it
-- if we don't fight back.

Let's get to it,

Bob Edgar and the rest of the team at Common Cause

==========

This report, "Deceptive Election Practices and Voter
Intimidation: The Need for Voter Protection," follows the
2008 report, "Deceptive Practices 2.0: Legal and Policy
Responses," issued by Common Cause, the Lawyers' Committee
for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Century Foundation.

The 2008 report examined the sufficiency of state and
federal laws in protecting voters from deceptive election
practices, with a focus on false information disseminated
via the Internet, email and other new media. At the state
level, our examination focused on anti-hacking and computer
crime laws, as well as laws on the unauthorized use of state
seals and insignias, and impersonation of public officials.
On the federal level, we examined the utility of copyright,
trademark, and anti-cybersquatting laws, the Computer Fraud
and Abuse Act, the Wire Fraud Statute, Section 230 of the
Communications Act, and the Can-Spam Act. We also explored
the power of state and federal election laws in combating
deceptive online practices.

"Deceptive Practices 2.0" recommended a number of ways that
existing laws could potentially protect voters from
deceptive election practices and be updated to combat the
growing problem of electronic deceptive election practices.

To read the 2008 report, please visit 
www.commoncause.org/deceptivepracticesreport 
and
http://www.866ourvote.org/newsroom/publications/body/0064.pdf

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