Part Two of Campaign Watchdog

Nov. 3, 2000 -- Some people have no shame.

One prank aimed at more gullible voters is circulating, and not for the first time. An e-mail ascribed to the fictitious “2000 Presidential Election Commission” warns that in order to alleviate expected crowding at the polls Republicans and Libertarians will be allowed to vote on Tuesday while Democrats, Greens and Independents will be allowed to vote on Wednesday.

Of course, Tuesday is Election Day for everyone and electioneering is overseen by the Federal Election Commission. This hoax is merely a means of dissuading those of certain parties from casting ballots.

One person who sent out the prank e-mail, according to its header code, was a woman at a bank in San Antonio, Texas. We’ll think twice before asking for her financial advice.

Alias Smith and Jones

Readers of the Voice, a free Salt Lake Valley community newspaper in Utah, may not have had reason to question the glowing article about Republican congressional candidate Derek Smith.

But they might have taken the author’s praise with a grain of salt had they known that “JoAnna Groves” — the byline on the piece — was none other than Smith’s communications director, Laurie Maddox.

According to press coverage in Salt Lake City, the newspaper’s publisher had suggested she write a piece under a pseudonym so that he would not appear to be colluding with the candidate. And Maddox, in speaking with the Salt Lake Tribune, defended the action by claiming, “Literary history is filled with pen names.”

Ah, but is radio history? A few days later, two Smith campaign aides called into a KALL radio show under assumed names, trying to steer conversation away from a recent story about Smith’s business dealings.

Smith campaign manager Todd Thorpe, who appeared on air as “Frank,” admitted his alias but then said: “I don’t think it’s important.”

All this might make John Q. Voter angry enough to write a letter. And someone did, to the Deseret News, complaining about the “liberal” endorsements being received by Smith’s opponent, Democrat Jim Matheson. What the author of the letter, Spencer Call, didn’t mention was that he is the husband of another member of Smith’s campaign staff.

Hold the Phone

Residents in Michigan and other states have been bombarded with alarming, pre-recorded advocacy calls. One has actor Ed Asner warning about Bush’s Social Security proposals. The other is an anti-Bush ad of a woman recounting the death of her husband due to nursing home neglect.

Neither ad identifies an organization or contact phone number, a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which was enacted to protect consumers from unscrupulous telemarketers.

Even more questionable is a false identification. A woman in Northwoods, Minn., received a phone call that began, “This is an emergency phone call. Please stand by.” She panicked at first but soon became irate when a message began: “Hello, this is Senator John McCain. I want to talk to you about George W. Bush.”

A resident of Whitmore Lake, Mich., awaiting a call from his cardiologist, redirected calls from his home phone to his cell phone. Despite the fact that telemarketing-type calls cannot be placed to cell phones, the man received autodialed anti-Bush messages that he had to pay for.

He was ultimately able to track down the source to the Michigan Democratic State Central Committee, which admitted outsourcing the calls but defended their legality.

And even though he asked several times to be taken off the call list, he received two more calls a few days later. He has now filed suit.

A footnote: one of the senators who voted in support of the 1991 law regulating autodialer calls? Al Gore.

Signs of the Times

Judging from the number of reports sent in to the Campaign Watchdog, one of the most common problems this election season is vandalism. Campaign signs and posters have been defaced, torn, stolen, and replaced with signs extolling the opposition candidates. There have been unsubstantiated reports that youths have been bribed by party precinct leaders, or union members coerced, to steal signs ($1 for small signs, $4 for large).

John Velehradsky of the Oregon Republican Party says they have distributed 3,000 GOP lawn signs, and several hundred have been slashed or defaced, some with “Nader” painted over them.

“We also have signs for the Congressional candidate Charles Starr that read ‘Bush/Starr,’” Velehradsky said, “and we’ll find where someone took a knife and cut out ‘Bush’ and leave ‘Starr’ there.”

One correspondent in Michigan, commenting on the Green Party candidate’s name spray painted on a Gore sign, asked facetiously if the spray paint were toxic.

The Dorchester Republicans Web site has posted pictures of bigoted vandalism on signs in South Carolina.

One woman in Rochester, N.Y., had her Buick “keyed” shortly after posting a Hillary Clinton sign in her rear window.

The magnitude of the problem is hard to gauge; for example, reports vary that between 150 and 400 Hillary Clinton signs have disappeared off the lawns of homes in the Syracuse, N.Y. area.

And the culprits are persistent: When Columbus, Ohio, homeowners found their Gore sign replaced with one for a Republican congressional candidate, they X’d out the GOP sign themselves, only to discover a fresh one in its place the next day.

But at least the mystery of the missing Hillary Clinton signs has an answer: they’ve been turning up on eBay, at $15 to $25 a piece.

ABCNEWS.com’s Brian Hartman and Mary Marsh contributed to this report.