Did Women's Voices Women Vote mislead N.C. elections officials?

In a statement posted yesterday to the website of Women's Voices Women Vote, the D.C. nonprofit behind the illegal and deceptive robo-calls placed to North Carolina residents, President Page Gardner claims her group notified the N.C. State Board of Elections about their activities in the state before sending out registration forms to voters:

In advance of the mail, a letter was sent to Gary Bartlett in the North Carolina Board of Elections Office. A copy of the letter and a press release sent to North Carolina media announcing the registration effort is attached.

There is no copy of a letter or press release attached to the posted statement. But more important, the group did not notify state elections officials about their registration effort in advance, as Gardner claims -- at least not the whole of that effort. The following e-mail was sent today, May 1, by Board of Elections attorney Don Wright to Joyce McCloy, an elections watchdog with the N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting:

As of yesterday's mail, this office had not yet received a mailed copy of the Women's Voices, Women Vote letter. The attached faxed copy was faxed to me around 5:50 pm on Monday April 28th. As you can see, it does not say anything about automated phone calls, and informs this office that the voter registration mailings "will arrive in homes the week of May 1st". Prior to this fax, this organization had not communicated to this agency about its current actions.

We are aware of the statement posted on their website and the fact it refers to attachments that are not available.

Don Wright
General Counsel

Gardner's faxed letter [PDF] leads one to believe that the group is making an effort to notify the state elections officials about their activities in North Carolina. However, as Wright points out, it mentions only the mailings and not the robo-calls, which were already being placed to residents by the time the group faxed its letter to the Board of Elections.

McCloy is urging the state Attorney General Roy Cooper to file charges against the group.