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Pair targeted NY's Black voters with disinformation in 2020. Now it'll cost them.
By
Arun Venugopal
Published Apr 9, 2024
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Photo Illustration by Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
By
Arun Venugopal
Published Apr 9, 2024
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Two right-wing activists who led a disinformation campaign ahead of the 2020 election to discourage thousands of Black voters in New York and other states from voting by mail have agreed to pay a settlement of up to $1.25 million, Attorney General Letitia James said Tuesday.
The effort, which deployed robocalls in the months ahead of the election, included threatening Black voters by falsely stating they would be tracked down for mandatory vaccinations, warrants and outstanding debts if they voted by mail, officials said.
In a statement, James said Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman had “orchestrated a depraved and disinformation-ridden campaign to intimidate Black voters in an attempt to sway the election in favor of their preferred candidate.”
“The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, and it belongs to everyone. We will not allow anyone to threaten that right,” said James, whose office litigated the case alongside private counsel.
A judge still needs to sign the settlement, which follows a $5.1 million penalty against Wohl and Burkman by the Federal Communications Commission last year. In August 2022, James announced a settlement with robocalling platform Message Communications for its role in sending out the robocall designed by Wohl and Burkman.
The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, and it belongs to everyone. We will not allow anyone to threaten that right.
Letitia James, New York attorney general
“Our clients are pleased that we have entered into an amicable settlement with the plaintiffs,” said David Schwartz, an attorney with Aidala Bertuna & Kamins, which represents the Washington, DC-based Wohl and Burkman.
According to the agreement, the robocall campaign targeted more than 85,000 numbers in New York, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Illinois, including 5,500 in New York, with a script performed by a person identified as “Tamika Taylor from Project 1599, the civil rights organization founded by Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl.”
“Mail-in voting sounds great, but did you know that if you vote by mail, your personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts?” the caller asked.
“The CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] is even pushing to use records for mail-in voting to track people for mandatory vaccines,” Taylor continued. “Don’t be finessed into giving your private information to the man, stay safe and beware of vote by mail.”
Last year, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York found that the defendants had violated the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 through their actions.
Attorney Marc Epstein, who represented the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and eight individual plaintiffs in the case, said the KKK Act “was passed in response to people who used intimidating tactics like burning torches to get Black people to not vote.”
“This is just the modern corollary to those tactics,” said Epstein, senior counsel for the Digital Justice Initiative at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “People are relying on modern technology, like the ability to send robocalls to specific zip codes, like in this case, where they thought they would predominantly reach Black people to suppress their votes.”
Epstein said the script relied on language ostensibly meant to appeal to Black people, including use of the phrase, ‘the man.’
Amy Walsh, an attorney with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe who served as co-counsel with Epstein in the case, called the settlement a “welcome victory.”
“The timing of this settlement is immensely important as we approach the November presidential election,” Walsh said in an email, “and we hope it sends a clear message to those who are considering a strategy of voter suppression that we will use all the tools of our legal system to shut down those efforts and seek the maximum punishment possible for trying to rig elections.”
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public safety
Politics
Race And Justice Unit
Arun Venugopal
Arun Venugopal is a senior reporter for the WNYC and Gothamist Race & Justice Unit who focuses on issues of race and bias in our region. His reporting also tackles the topics of immigration, faith, and inequality. Arun serves as the regular fill-in host of the station's "U.S. of Anxiety" program. Arun was the creator and host of Micropolis, a series about race and identity. He is a contributor to NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He has appeared on PBS Newshour, On the Media and Studio 360, and has been published in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal and Salon. He also frequently serves as an emcee and moderator of panel discussions on race, religion, and identity issues and has been a guest host of NPR's "Fresh Air." He lives with his family in Queens.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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