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Fraud in Texas? "It looks like there was data entry error. You ended up being coded as BOTH a Hillary Clinton and a Barack Obama delegate."

By Ann Althouse

Yesterday, I blogged about how the Obama campaign sent my son a postcard urging him to vote for Obama at the Texas county convention. He's a delegate representing the people who caucused for Clinton at one of the district caucuses in Austin, Texas. Today, someone whose email address indicates his name is Matthew Berg sent this email to me and my son Chris:

Hello Chris (and Ann),

I am a volunteer for the Obama campaign in Texas. I saw this post (via Marc Ambinder), and was surprised, because I thought we were only contacting Obama delegates. That's what we've been in my part of TX, anyway.

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2008/03/in-texas-obama-campaign-tries-to-win.html

So I checked the voter file (screenshot attached), and it looks like there was data entry error. You ended up being coded as BOTH a Hillary Clinton and a Barack Obama delegate. Apparently both the Texas Democratic Party and the Travis County Party added your data, and it looks like one of them made a mistake. I think the postcards are being sent to anyone coded as an Obama delegate, which (mistakenly) includes you. I deleted the Obama delegate code, so you shouldn't get mistakenly bothered again.

Anyway, have fun at your convention.

Thanks,

Matt

Yeah, have fun, kids. Play at your little democracy thing. Meanwhile ? you, you pesky little blogger-connected county delegate ? you won't be seeing any of our mailings anymore. We've stricken your name from our list. And if anyone else shows up and complains about Obama mailings to Clinton delegates, we can fix their double-coding too. Now, go off and don't worry anymore.

Do you trust the caucus process?

UPDATE: Chris emails:

I just asked some of the other delegates if they've gotten material from the Obama campaign. The only one to respond was a Clinton delegate, who said he's also received fliers from Obama, and is just surprised that he's gotten material from Obama but not from Clinton. Now I don't think it was a mistake. I think they just tried to make it look like one after the fact.

Full post as published by Althouse on March 27, 2008 (boomark / email).