Iowa official criticizes Cruz campaign over mailer!

HAMLIN, Iowa (PNN) - January 30, 2016 - Iowa’s secretary of state chastised the presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz (Tex.) on Saturday for sending a mailer that he said violated “the spirit of the Iowa caucuses” and misrepresented state election law.

The mailer, flagged by a handful of Twitter users and confirmed as authentic by the Cruz campaign, included a warning of a “voting violation” in capital letters at the top of the page.

It informed voters they were receiving a notice “because of low expected voter turnout in your area.”

“Your individual voting history as well as your neighbors’ are public record,” the flier read. “Their scores are published below, and many of them will see your score as well. CAUCUS ON MONDAY TO IMPROVE YOUR SCORE and please encourage your neighbors to caucus as well. A follow-up notice may be issued following Monday’s caucuses.”

Below the text was a list of names, letter grades and percentage scores.

The secretary of state, Paul D. Pate, called the effort “misleading”.

“Accusing citizens of Iowa of a ‘voting violation’ based on Iowa caucus participation, or lack thereof, is false representation of an official act,” Pate said. “There is no such thing as an election violation related to frequency of voting. Any insinuation or statement to the contrary is wrong and I believe it is not in keeping (with) the spirit of the Iowa caucuses.”

Pate added that his office never “grades” voters, nor does it maintain records of caucus participation. He said that the office also did not distribute voter records, but they were available “for purchase for political purposes only, under Iowa Code.”

The existence of the mailers was first reported by the Independent Journal.

The Cruz campaign confirmed the mailers had originated from the campaign and said there was nothing inappropriate about the materials.

“These mailers are common practice to increase voter turnout,” said Matt Schultz, the campaign’s Iowa state chairman and a former Iowa secretary of state. “Our mailer was modeled after the very successful 2014 mailers that the Republican Party of Iowa distributed to motivate Republican voters to vote, and which helped elect numerous Republican candidates during that cycle.”

Speaking to reporters on Saturday evening in Sioux City, Cruz said he would “apologize to nobody for using every tool we can to encourage Iowa voters to come out and vote.”