Jeff Flake Campaign Responds To Reports Of False Information In Robocalls
Arizona Republican Senate candidate Jeff Flake's campaign responded on Monday to a report that it called registered Democrats and gave them the wrong information about where they should vote.
Arizona's local NBC affiliate reported Sunday evening that at least five Democrats said they had received such robocalls from the Flake campaign, and that they didn't have any registered Republicans in their households.
Flake campaign spokesman Andrew Wilder responded in the following statement:
The KPNX story that prompted this was incomplete, and really made no sense since the calls were made to 120,000 registered Republicans and encouraged them to vote. The station elevated breathless insinuation over the real explanation for a handful of mistakes caused by some adult children registered under their parents' address, voters who had moved but not updated their registration or incorrect phone numbers in the database. The station failed to note that Flake for Senate worked with and consulted county election officials in compiling the information for our supporters about their correct polling location.
Of the dozen calls from voters with questions about the information provided, the Flake campaign was able to reconcile nearly all of them. In each case where we were informed of a mistake, we have attempted to work with that voter to give them the correct information on where they can vote. Again, this autodial was targeted to registered Republicans; it encouraged them to vote and provided them the address of their polling place. The few Democrats who may have inadvertently received the call got it because of errant information in the database owing to circumstances like those detailed above.
The campaign also attached a document explaining each case highlighted by the Arizona Democratic Party, with explanations to why the voters in question might have been called.
Flake, a U.S. House member, is running against former U.S. surgeon general Richard Carmona, a Democrat who has called the calls "troubling."
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