No Wrongdoing Found in Election-Eve Robocalls

Robocalls to thousands of voters just days before the Nov. 8 general election don't appear to have violated the law, Oregon Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins announced on Tuesday.

Oregon Live is reporting that Atkins had enlisted help from the Oregon Department of Justice, United States Attorney's Office and the FBI to investigate complaints from voters around the state that they received automated phone calls telling them they were not registered to vote and their ballots would not be counted.

The Oregon Republican Party, which acknowledged responsibility for at least some of the calls, said they were actually a get-out-the-vote effort aimed at Republican or Republican-leaning voters whom elections officials had placed on inactive status. Inactive voters would not have received ballots -- which Republicans noted in a script for the call -- but they could still vote at their local county clerk's offices.

The Secretary of State's office said the calls "caused confusion and frustration" for many people who "were, in fact, active registered voters" and in some cases, had already returned their ballots.

"Ultimately, while the investigation confirmed that many people were unhappy and confused by the calls, there was no direct evidence that the calls contained deliberately false information that affected a person's voting behavior," Molly Woon, a spokeswoman for the Secretary of State's office, wrote in an email.

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