Even as many in mainstream media repeatedly insist that there’s nothing to see here, so let’s move on, cheeky activists like James O’Keefe continue to use new technologies to expose dubious doings (and worse) on the political left.
O’Keefe first earned notoriety by recording employees of Planned Parenthood seeming to endorse a racist agenda, and, later, ACORN workers seeming to endorse a criminal one. Planned Parenthood didn’t suffer much of a cost from the ensuing controversies. But ACORN lost congressional funding and eventually shut its doors.
Not entirely, however. Some elements of the organization continued under different guise. O’Keefe’s Project Veritas recently recorded admissions by a field organizer, Jennifer Longoria, for Battleground Texas (BT), an ACORN successor outfit. According to Longoria, BT routinely scrapes voter information from voter registration rolls on behalf of the gubernatorial campaign of Democrat Wendy Davis.
Longoria confesses the chicanery even though BT staff have been warned not to fall prey to O’Keefe-style inquiries about values and practices.
“[E]very time we register somebody to vote, we keep their name, number.…”
“And that’s from the voter registration form?” asks an O’Keefe associate.
“Right, from the form. That data collection is the key.”
The Texas Secretary of State makes clear that voter registrars are prohibited from copying telephone numbers from registration forms. It’s against the law.
A “news gathering” outfit like the Texas Tribune may downplay the revelations, but the cat’s out of the bag. As they say, data collection — and distribution — is the key.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.