Incumbent Jennifer Robinson came just a few votes shy of retaining her seat back in October’s municipal election.
She won Tuesday’s runoff with more than 53 percent of the vote, holding off challenger Lori Bush.
Wednesday, though, a political action committee supporting Bush filed a complaint with the North Carolina Board of Elections.
Steering committee members for the political action committee say DavisandHighHouse.com looks a lot like DavisandHighHouse.org.
“It’s just sort of disrespectful to the whole democratic process of voting,” said Karl Thor with DavisandHighHouse.org.
The unidentified person who runs the dot-com imposter made it look a lot like the original, except the new one criticizes the original dot-org.
And here’s where it gets a little more confusing: earlier this week, the two competing DavisandHighHouse sites sent out identical looking emails, with the dot-org asking people to vote for Lori Bush, and the dot-com endorsing Jennifer Robinson.
Wednesday, the dot-org PAC filed a formal complaint with the state BOE, saying whoever is behind the dot-com has “not followed North Carolina campaign finance laws.”
“We want the officials to look into it and say, ‘Hey, here’s how the game should be played,’ and whatever they decide on, both sides can have an understanding of what’s expected from them,” Thor said.
The dot-org folks say they have no reason to believe the imposter Web site and e-mail came from the Jennifer Robinson camp itself.
“I’m guessing it’s just a very exuberant supporter went out on their own and acted a little bit sophomoric,” Thor said.
Robinson declined an interview request saying nobody from her campaign was behind the copycat, and she’s proud of the way her committee handled the election.
She added that she wants to move past campaign bickering and focus on her duties on town council.
State Board of Elections officials said they received the complaint, but have not had a chance to review it.
