An announcement from the community organizing group Acorn this month that they had registered 1.3 million new voters was an overstatement, according to the New York Times.

RALEIGH, N.C. — A group that made political telemarketing calls that did not comply with North Carolina law has agreed to pay $100,000 in penalties and is barred from operating in the state before the November election, Attorney General Roy Cooper said Wednesday.

The group, Women’s Voices Women Vote, began calling people in North Carolina shortly before the May primary election.  The prerecorded calls, also known as robo 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.

Political robo calls are prerecorded telephone calls made by candidates, campaigns and advocacy groups using automated dialers.  Under state law, political campaigns and non-profits making prerecorded calls must identify who is making the call, the nature of the call, and provide contact information for the group that makes the call.

The calls did not identify Women’s Voices Women Vote or tell how to contact them, so people who were confused by the robo calls were not able to ask for clarification.

“My office takes quick action against robo calls that don’t strictly follow the law,” Cooper said. “People who don’t want these calls shouldn’t get them at all.  The law needs to be stronger so that the Do Not Call Registry applies to political robo callers just like any other telemarketer.”

Cooper launched an investigation in April into calls made by Women’s Voices Women Vote and demanded that the group stop the calls.  Cooper’s office received complaints about the calls from consumers, the NAACP and Democracy North Carolina.

Women’s Voices Women Vote today agreed to pay $100,000 in civil penalties for its prerecorded calls to North Carolina residents.  The money will go to North Carolina schools.

In a statement released to the media, Page Gardner, president of Women’s Voices, Women Vote, said the nonprofit group mails registration applications to people it beleives are not registered, or may have moved from their registered address.

“These mailings are frequently preceded by automated telephone calls (“robocalls”) advising the household that they will soon receive voter registration materials.  Unfortunately, due to an inadvertent error, these calls failed to identify WVWV as the organization sponsoring the calls.  WVWV understands that this failure was inconsistent with North Carolina law and, consequently, has entered into a settlement agreement to resolve the North Carolina Attorney General’s investigation of this matter.”

Gardner said it was not the group’s intention to cause confusion. 

Under the settlement agreement, Women’s Voices Women Vote agrees not to resume any voter registration, education, turnout or similar activities in the state until after the Nov. 4 election.  Any future voter activities by the organization in North Carolina must 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.

WVWV seeks to register unmarried women, who constitute 26 percent of the election, and to encourage them to vote.  During the course of its history, WVWV’s efforts have resulted in the submission of more than 1 million voter registration applications across the country, with nearly 900,000 in this election cycle alone.  In North Carolina, WVWV’s efforts have generated more than 42,000 registration applications, including more than 32,000 in 2008.

With Election Day just weeks away and early voting already underway, North Carolinians are receiving more political robo calls from other groups and campaigns.  Earlier this year Cooper urged political parties and candidates to honor the Do Not Call Registry and reminded them to abide by state law that requires disclosures on robo calls.

People who join the Registry are protected from commercial calls by both state and federal laws, but those laws currently exclude political robo calls.  Cooper had asked lawmakers to include political robo calls in the Do Not Call legislation.

“Telemarketers that break our laws will face action from my office, whether they’re calling to pitch you a product or to win your vote,” Cooper said.  “If you get illegal telemarketing calls, let my office know about it.”

To report telemarketers or candidates that make calls unlawfully, consumers can call 1-877-5-NO-SCAM toll free within the state or download a consumer complaint form at www.ncdoj.gov.

To check on their voter registration status, people can visit the state Board of Elections web site at http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/VoterLookup.aspx or contact their local county board of elections.

WAKE COUNTY, N.C. -  Waves of procrastinators filed into the Wake County Board of Elections Friday, the last day to register in North Carolina.

ATLANTA – Federal officials have asked election officials in six states to investigate whether social security number checks are being improperly run on people registering to vote.

Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue sent a letter Friday to the secretaries of state of Alabama, Georgia and battleground states Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. The letter noted they had submitted “extraordinarily high levels” of verification requests.
 
“Such a volume appears to be much greater than one would expect, given that states of comparable or larger populations have a significantly lower number of verification requests,” Astrue wrote in his letter to Georgia officials.

With nearly two million requests since Oct. 1, 2007, Georgia has made far more social security number verification requests than any other state, according to the Social Security Administration. Alabama was second with about one million requests.

Helen Butler, of the independent Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda, said she would like an explanation why the number of requests far exceeds the number of newly registered Georgia voters.

“We certainly will be following this very closely because we want to make sure the process is being carried out correctly,” said Butler, whose advocacy group educates voters.

Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Rob Simms said Tuesday that Astrue’s letter arrived a day earlier and it was the first time state officials were alerted to an unusually high number of requests.

“At this point today, I would dispute those figures,” Simms said in a phone interview.

By Monday’s deadline, Georgia registered just over 406,000 new voters this year for the Nov. 4 election, said Matt Carrothers, a spokesman for Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel.

Alabama Secretary of State Beth Chapman attributed the high number of verification requests to the large number of people registering to vote. Alabama residents have until 10 days before the ballot to register.

“We have had a record number of people register to vote … If that’s increasing the number of times the Social Security Administration is having to check numbers that’s an excellent problem to have, and it means more people are involved in democracy,” Chapman said.

Because of the letter, Chapman said she is asking voter registrars to first check drivers’ licenses whenever possible.

Gary Bartlett, director of North Carolina’s State Board of Elections, said the Social Security Administration was questioning why the state has had almost 400,000 social security validations for the year. But the state also has had some 700,000 voter registrations ahead of Friday’s deadline.

While drivers’ license are used to verify many voters, Bartlett said North Carolina’s large military and college communities could be registering with out-of-state licenses. He said others may have used social security numbers as the easiest to remember.

Under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, many states have an agreement with the Social Security Administration requiring them to submit the last four digits of a new voter’s social security number for verification if the person does not have a valid state-issued ID such as a license.

“Rest assured, we think this is just absolutely off-base,” Bartlett said.

Astrue wants the six states that received the letters to make sure their officials are verifying only those new voters who don’t have acceptable state-issued identification, in line with their agreements with the agency, Social Security Administration spokesman Mark Lassiter said Tuesday by phone.

CARY, N.C. — Talking is prohibited in most movie theaters, but at Galaxy Cinema this Friday, talk will be the main event. The Cary independent theater is opening its doors to a free live screening of the first presidential debate between candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. 

Tickets for the event are free, but seating is limited and advance ticket reservations are recommended. Debate watchers will be seated in the cinema’s Theater 5 screening room, which is equipped with state-of-the-art digital projection equipment. 

All four of the presidential/vice-presidential debates will be presented at Galaxy Cinema.  The vice-presidential debate is Thursday, October 2; the third presidential debate is Tuesday, October 7; the fourth and final presidential debate is Wednesday, October 15 (the day before North Carolina’s new One-Stop Early Voting begins at various polling sites in Wake County).  All four debates begin at 9 p.m.; doors open at 8:30 p.m.

Galaxy Cinema marketing director Kim Yaman says it’s not unusual to have a full-capacity crowd attend a community event.

“Nearly 300 people attended the live presentation of Sen. Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in August,” says Yaman.  “We always see tremendous support for community events we offer on our big screens.” 

Because the theater offers WiFi in addition to digital screening technologies, it can offer an interactive environment for bloggers and others who want to share a big-screen community event with others.  The August event, for instance, featured hundreds of speech watchers who blogged and text-messaged the evening away while watching Sen. Obama speak.

Through October 10 (the deadline for voter registration in North Carolina), Galaxy moviegoers are also able to register to vote, thanks to an effort to provide voter-registration and address-update forms at the concierge desk.   Between shows and during intermissions for Galaxy’s renowned Bollywood films, the theater features slides on its screens that encourage voting and voter registration.  It’s been a novel yet popular activity at the Cary cinema known for its savvy arthouse films, director Q&A’s, Bollywood offerings and other international movies, documentaries, and independent flicks.

In addition to the Democratic convention watch party, plans are under way to provide film-related forums for other candidates for public office during this historic election season.  “We welcome virtually anyone who wants to reach out to our community,” says Yaman.  “It’s easy as pie to host a postfilm discussion or to rent a theater to bring people together to support a cause.”

To learn more, contact Kim Yaman at Galaxy Cinema (919-463-9959 by phone, or via e-mail at mygalaxycinema@gmail.com). 

For regular film schedules, moviegoers can call the Galaxy Cinema Movieline at 919-463-9989 or visit Galaxy on the Web at www.mygalaxycinema.com. The theater is located at 770 Cary Towne Blvd., near Cary Towne Center, just off I-40 Exit 291.