FBI to Investigate Voter Intimidation Reports
By ZINIE CHEN SAMPSON, AP
RICHMOND, Va. (Nov. 7) – The FBI was investigating complaints about attempts to intimidate voters in the U.S. Senate race between GOP Sen. George Allen and Democratic challenger Jim Webb, the State Board of Elections said Tuesday.
Jean Jensen, secretary of the Board of Elections, said that her office has forwarded reports of several instances of phone calls to voters that apparently were aimed at misleading voters into staying home on Election Day or leading them to the wrong polling place.
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Voters in the cities of Covington, Hampton and Colonial Heights and the counties of Accomack, Northampton and Fairfax reported getting deceptive telephone calls in the days before the election informing them that their voting place had changed, when they had not, Jensen said.
In Arlington County, resident Timothy Daly reported getting a phone message Sunday from the “Virginia Elections Commission” telling him that he was registered to vote in New York, and therefore couldn’t vote in Virginia.
“If you do show up, you will be charged criminally,” said the message, the text of which appeared on Daly’s affidavit to the Board of Elections.
Lawrence Peter Baumann, a Northampton County resident, said in his affidavit that he got a call on Friday from a woman claiming to be from the Webb campaign, and he assured her that he planned to vote for Webb.
“She then told me that I would be voting at West Reed Street. I told her that there was no street by that name and that if she was supposed to be helping Webb, she needed to give correct information,” Baumann’s affidavit said. “She never gave me the correct precinct and never offered to get back to me with my correct precinct.”
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