Barbs continued to fly even as ballots were being cast today in the 36th Congressional District campaign between Democrat Janice Hahn and Republican Craig Huey.
Hahn's campaign accused Huey's campaign of "an organized, escalating and highly illegal campaign" of "voter suppression and voter intimidation activities."
Specifically, Hahn's campaign claimed Huey supporters were calling potential Democratic voters and telling them that Hahn had requested a one-day postponement of today's election because of her mother's death Monday. The goal, according to Hahn's campaign was to suppress voter turnout in a district where about 45 percent of registered voters are Democrats.
Hahn's campaign said in a press release Tuesday their campaign had received "several troubling reports" of such calls; a second press release later in the day characterized the calls as "widespread."
Later in the day Hahn spokesman John Shulman said the campaign had received "probably a dozen" such calls.
The district has more than 340,000 registered voters.
"The Hahn campaign strongly condemns these actions that so willfully intrude upon the right to vote and that attempt to sabotage the Democratic process," said Hahn attorney Stephen J. Kauffman, who called for investigations by the District Attorney's office, Justice Department and California Attorney General.
Hahn's campaign said it would provide details of the calls to the relevant authorities.
However, the county Registrar-Recorder's Office, which runs elections, said it had received no such complaints whatsoever.
"It's pure crazy talk," said Huey spokeswoman Jennifer Jacobs. "My guess is if it's anything then it is a
prankster. I tend to doubt this is far and widespread because then you would have heard about it from lots of people.
"We're extremely confident we're getting a large sum of votes from across all party lines so then we want everybody to vote - the more people vote, the better it is for us."
Asked why people would call the Hahn campaign to report such incidents, rather than the government agency charged with conducting a fair election, Shulman said: "They are probably going to get a more interested recipient of the call when they call the campaign directly."
