Election calls scare, anger voters

JEFFERSON, Ga. --- Hundreds of Banks and Jackson County residents were startled Tuesday afternoon when they received telephone calls warning that they would be taken off of the voter rolls if they didn't vote in Tuesday's primary runoff.

Authorities are searching for the person who commissioned the barrage of computer-generated calls, but no one seems to know whether the messages broke any laws.

"I don't know if what they did was illegal," said Jackson County Sheriff Stan Evans. "But I know a lot people who want to know where it came from."

Sheriff Evans, Banks County registrar Fred Wendt, Jackson County Election Superintendent Margaret Deadwyler and Jackson County Voter Registrar Brenda Fulcher all got a number of inquiries Tuesday from voters who were worried about the calls.

The voice on the call told voters that records showed that they had not voted in Tuesday's runoff, and it warned voters that if they did not vote in the runoff that they would be taken off of the state's active voter list.

The claim that voters would be stripped from the active voting list is completely false, said Matt Carrothers, the spokesman for the Georgia Secretary of State's Office.

Still, the calls confused voters who already had voted Tuesday. Some returned to the polls and made poll workers confirm that their votes would be counted, Sheriff Evans said. Some voters frantically called the registrar's office because they thought they would not be able to vote in November's general election, Ms. Fulcher said. Other voters were terrified that someone had such easy access to their voting records.

"I think that there still is something in the Constitution preventing this kind of thing," said Flora Stowe, a Commerce resident who was angry that she received a call Tuesday. "This is a scare tactic, plain and simple."

While some voters who received calls felt threatened and intimidated, the calls won't affect the validity of Tuesday's runoffs, Ms. Deadwyler said.

Voter turnout in Jackson County was about 15 percent higher than was projected, but Ms. Deadwyler doesn't think that the robocalls played a role in getting more people to the polls.

Officials with the secretary of state's office are investigating the calls, Mr. Carrothers said Wednesday morning. He would not comment on whether Secretary of State Karen Handel's investigators considered the calls a possible crime or whether other agencies were involved with the inquiry. Ms. Handel's office never has investigated this type of complaint, Mr. Carrothers said.

"Secretary Handel considers this a very serious issue, and we're investigating it," he said.