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GOP Election Mailers Mystify Hillsborough Democrats

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By CHRISTIAN M. WADE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 18, 2008

TAMPA - Charles Hobbs is a Democrat who votes in nearly every election.

So when the 79-year-old Plant City man got a letter in the mail asking him to donate money to the Republican Party, he figured they must have had him mixed up with someone else.

The mailer, which came with a prepaid envelope and a return address in Minnesota, requested a donation from $45 to $1,000. It addressed Hobbs as having an "unconfirmed party affiliation" and listed his voter registration number in a small box. It wasn't his registration number, though.

Hobbs mailed the index card back to the sender - with a "nasty" letter inside.

"I don't know if it was a scam or not," he said. "But they won't get a penny from me."

Hobbs is one of many local Democrats who have received mailers from the Republican Party in recent weeks questioning their voting status and hitting them up for cash.

Staff at the Hillsborough County Democratic Party offices in Tampa have been getting barraged with phone calls from party members who have received what they say are deceptive mailers.

Some of the mailers sought support for Republican presidential candidate John McCain; others simply asked for a donation to the Republican National Committee. Most of the voters who have received them are elderly and registered Democrats, local party officials said.

"I still don't understand their angle," said Michael Steinberg, the county Democratic Party's executive committee chairman. "Frankly, it doesn't really make any sense."

One possibility, he suggested, was "vote caging." By sending the mailings to registered voters in envelopes that can't be forwarded, groups can compile lists of voters who might have moved or are part-time residents. Those lists could then be used to challenge the voters' registration and prevent their absentee ballots from being counted in the general election.

A spokesperson for the Republican National Committee could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

State election officials said they were not aware of complaints about so-called "cage lists" but that they have received calls from voters across the state who have received confusing mailers.

"We've gotten a lot of complaints," said Jennifer Davis, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Kurt Browning. "Anytime there is an effort to mislead the voters it concerns us."

Reporter Christian M. Wade can be reached at (813) 259-7679 or cwade@tampatrib.com.

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