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Political group to pay $100,000 for robo calls
RALEIGH, Oct 21, 2008 (The News & Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
A group that made political robo calls before the May primary that violated state law has agreed to pay $100,000 in penalties and is barred from operating in the state before the November election, the State Attorney General's Office announced today.
The group, Women's Voices Women Vote, today agreed to pay $100,000 in civil penalties, the office announced. The money will go to North Carolina schools.
The organization also agreed not to resume any voter registration, education, turnout or similar activities in the state until after the Nov. 4 election. Future voter activities would have to comply with state law, and the group would have to provide the Attorney General's Office with a written description of how it would ensure its compliance with the law.
The Attorney General's Office began investigating Women's Voices Women Vote after it began calling people shortly before the primary.
The prerecorded calls told people that they would soon receive voter registration forms in the mail, which they should fill out and submit. But the deadline to register by mail had passed, and some call recipients already were registered to vote, causing confusion, according to the Attorney General's Office.
Under state law, political campaigns and nonprofits making prerecorded calls must identify themselves and the nature of the call and provide contact information.
The calls did not identify Women's Voices Women Vote or tell how to contact them, the Attorney General's Office said. Consumers, the NAACP and Democracy North Carolina complained about the calls.
Attorney General Roy Cooper said he favored strengthening the 'Do Not Call Registry' to prohibit political robo callers. "People who don't want these calls shouldn't get them at all," he said in a news release.
People who join the Registry are protected from commercial calls under state and federal laws, but the laws currently exclude political robo calls.
To see more of The News & Observer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.newsobserver.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The News & Observer, Raleigh,
N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
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