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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Voting rights groups say Wisconsin students got texts that could scare
them away from voting, call for investigation
By Katelyn Polantz, CNN
Updated:
1:37 PM EDT, Wed October 16, 2024
Source: CNN
A text message last week to young voters in Wisconsin is stirring new
concerns in the battleground state about a messaging campaign that
could intimidate college students from casting ballots this election,Â
released Tuesday.
The unsolicited text, sent from at least one 262- number to cell phones
of people in their early 20s on University of Wisconsin campuses and
elsewhere, says: “WARNING: Violating WI Statutes 12.13 & 6.18 may
result in fines up to $10,000 or 3.5 years in prison. Don’t vote in a
state where you’re not eligible.”
The two state codes that the text message cites refer to laws that
govern former Wisconsin residents who vote absentee and the
consequences of committing election fraud in the state.
But it’s the text message’s warning and wording of “don’t
vote” that are causing much of the alarm among the voter protection
groups who call the message “threatening” and warn the message
could “frighten eligible young voters into not voting.”
“It’s trying to convince students living in Wisconsin they don’t
have a right to vote there,” Courtney Hostetler, the legal director
of the non-profit group Free Speech for People, said on Tuesday.
Hostetler’s group and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin alerted
investigators and the public of the text message and their concerns
about it on Tuesday, in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland
and Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul that the groups released
publicly online. The letter urges Garland and Kaul to investigate.
The League said it had learned about the text message from some of its
own staff members who are in their 20s and from a community outreachÂ
center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Mark Pitsch, the university system’s spokesman, said the Universities
of Wisconsin “have no indication how many students may have received
such texts, which also may have been received by members of the general
public.” Pitsch added that his office hadn’t received specific
reports about the text message as of Tuesday.
Hostetler said her group fears voter intimidation campaigns could be
effective if they go undetected.
“If it’s successful, people won’t report it. They’ll just
believe it,” she said. “It’s scary, and it makes people really
think [that] the safest thing may be for me to not vote.”
College students may be susceptible to the text messages, Hostetler
added, given that students may not know where they are eligible to vote
and if they can vote while living on their college campus away from
home.
In Wisconsin, students who have lived in one voting area for 28
consecutive days and plan to continue staying there can vote in those
places, according to the state’s election commission. Even if a
college student returns to his or her parent’s house on weekends
temporarily, they can still vote where they primarily live, such as on
a college campus, .
“Once a student has established residency at a campus address, the
student may vote using the student’s campus address until the student
establishes a new voting residence,” the WEC guide says. “This is
the case even if the student is temporarily away from campus and does
not know their campus address for the following school year.”
Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission,
said Wednesday that “a couple of voters” had contacted the
commission with concerns about the text.
“Our best guidance to folks is, again, if you’re getting these
concerning or questionable contacts from third-party groups, I
wouldn’t trust that information, I would go right to the official
source – I’d call your election official,” Wolfe said. “And of
course, if a voter feels like something that they’ve received
constitutes as voter intimidation, they should also report it to their
law enforcement as well, so that they can look into it.”
Free Speech for the People and the League’s letter on Tuesday
specifically asks for law enforcement authorities to identify who sent
the text and investigate it further.
The organizations said they haven’t heard back yet from the
authorities they wrote to seeking help, and the Wisconsin attorney
general’s office didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry from CNN.
“We want a larger investigative engine than any of our little
nonprofits to figure out who is behind this text message,” Debra
Cronmiller, president of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin,
told CNN on Tuesday.
She said the text message is the type of intimidation tactic her
organization had envisioned could happen this election cycle — though
significant situations of widespread voter intimidation in the past
have been spread more often orÂ
This story has been updated with additional reaction.
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