Robocalls Tellings MD Voters To 'Relax' Came From Dem Supporting GOP Nominee

[Joanne98]

Two hours before polls closed on Tuesday, over 50,000 Maryland voters started receiving mysterious phone calls instructing them to "relax" and not bother voting because Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) had already won re-election.

The Baltimore Sun reported that calls were sent from the account associated with a controversial Democratic operative, Julius Henson, by Rhonda Russell, a former director of Progressive Maryland.

Russell, now a Universal Elections employee, placed the order with Robodial.org, a Pennsylvania company which works exclusively with Democrats. Universal Elections is the company of Henson, a longtime Democratic operative who is based out of Baltimore but worked as a consultant for the former Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R) this election cycle in his campaign against O'Malley. In an interesting twist, Hanson previously called Ehrlich a "Nazi," but eventually took at least $32,000 in consulting fees from the Ehrlich campaign, according to the Sun.

"The individual who initiated these calls had been working for Democrats in the past, she had an account with us for more than a year, and we assumed she still was," Robodial.org owner Mark Hampton told TPMMuckraker. "Some of the calls she made this year looked like Democratic calls to us, and hadn't flagged this account as being something we should keep an eye on. It was a bad judgment call, looking back."

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/robocalls_tellings_md_voters_to_relax_came_from_dem_supporting_gop_nominee.php?ref=fpb