The Texas Election Code states, ‘The registrar may not transcribe, copy, or otherwise record a telephone number furnished on a registration application.’ That didn’t seem to matter to Democratic grassroots organization Battleground Texas.
In his latest undercover investigation, James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas have exposed Battleground Texas saving voters’ personal information to use in later attempts to get people to the polls. For instance, volunteers are shown calling voters on behalf of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis.
Here's some insight from Battleground Texas Field Organizer Jennifer Longoria:
“Every time we register somebody to vote, we keep their name, address, phone number,” Longoria said.
She then explains what her organization will do with that information:
“People that we registered today, we will be calling in like a year and saying hey I registered you to vote it’s time to go.”
And in case it wasn’t clear the first time:
“Once we register people to vote tonight we will all turn in our cards and our data person will enter not all the information but name, address, and phone number and then whoever registered them into a database and because that information will be pulled back up again once elections come up and we can then call everyone here and say, hi I registered you to vote.”
Maybe the fact Texas is a solidly red state has Democratic organizations getting desperate. With a not-ready-for-primetime candidate, maybe we shouldn’t blame them. I wonder, during these phone banking campaigns, do they remind Texans exactly why Davis became so popular?
Whatever reasons Battleground Texas has for sinking to illegal levels, I doubt a phone call will change voter’s minds.
Check out O’Keefe’s whole exposé here: