Two conservative operatives have charged with felony voter intimidation for allegedly orchestrating racist robocalls that spread false information about voting.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a number of charges against Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, including conspiracy to commit an election law violation and using a computer to commit the crime of election law.
In what appeared to be a blatant attempt to scare Black voters away from casting a mail-in ballot, Detroit residents were targeted with messages that claimed, falsely: “Mail in voting sounds great, but did you know that if you vote by mail, your information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants? And will be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debt? The CDC is even pushing to give preference to mail-in voting to track people for mandatory vaccines.”
The calls went out to nearly 12,000 Detroit residents in August, according too the attorney general.
“Any effort to interfere with, intimidate or intentionally mislead Michigan voters will be met with swift and severe consequences,” Nessel said. “This effort specifically targeted minority voters in an attempt to deter them from voting in the November election.”
Michigan is a battleground state in the presidential election, and recent polls have shown Democrat Biden with a consistent lead.
Updated
Amy Coney Barrett, the supreme court nominee, signed off on an advertisement in 2006 that called for the overturning of Roe v Wade, and called the landmark abortion rights decision “barbaric” and a “raw exercise of judicial power”.
The two-page ad, published by the St Joseph County Right to Life group, an extreme anti-choice organization in South Bend, Indiana, is the most striking evidence to have emerged to date of Barrett’s personal opposition to Roe v Wade.
The Guardian first reported the existence of the advertisement, which Barrett has not disclosed in documents submitted to the Senate ahead of her confirmation hearing.
The first page of the ad, which is signed by Barrett and her husband, Jesse, states that life begins at “fertilization”. The ad, which the organization publishes every year to mark the anniversary of Roe v Wade, was signed by Barrett while she was working as a law professor at Notre Dame.
On the second page of the two-page spread, the group condemns Roe and claims that “the majority of those abortions were performed for social reasons”. It also claims that an “increasing majority” of Americans are opposed to abortion as a “method of birth control”.
“It’s time to put an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe v Wade and restore law that protects the lives of unborn children,” it states.
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