A D.C. advocacy group called Women’s Voices, Women Vote is being accused of waging a high-tech voter suppression campaign, after voters in predominantly black districts in North Carolina began receiving automated phone calls implying that they hadn’t properly registered to vote in the upcoming Democratic primary.

The controversy underscores the mounting tension in the Democratic primary race. Polling in North Carolina currently favors Barack Obama over rival Hillary Clinton for the May 6 Democratic presidential primary there. Blacks, who overwhelmingly favored Obama in primaries in Virginia and Maryland, make up about 22 percent of the population in North Carolina, according to the U.S. Census.

Voters began complaining to The Raleigh News & Observer last week that they were receiving the automated calls, which the paper reported were primarily going to black households. The calls play a 20-second message voiced by a man who calls himself "Lamont Williams."

"In the next few days, you will receive a voter-registration packet in the mail," the Williams recording said. "All you need to do is sign it, date it and return your application. Then you will be able to vote and make your voice heard. Please return the voter-registration form when it arrives. Thank you."

The recording does not identify the group behind the calls. But what most concerned some recipients of the calls is that they had already registered to vote. And, notwithstanding the message’s promise, the calls were placed well after the deadline for submitting a new registration.

The Institute for Southern Studies, a Durham, North Carolina nonprofit, investigated the mysterious calls and traced them to Women’s Voices, Women Vote, a nonpartisan group dedicated to "improving unmarried women’s participation in the electorate and policy process," according to the group’s website. The organization has not endorsed a candidate.

On Wednesday, the women’s group acknowledged making the calls, but dismissed the charges of voter suppression. President Page Gardner said the calls were an extension of a legitimate voter-registration drive that the group began in July 2007. In that effort, the group mailed out some 3 million authentic voter-registration cards, after placing automated calls telling residents to expect them.

"We understand North Carolina’s primary-registration-effort deadline was April 11, (other than those participating in early voting who may register and vote at the same time this week)," Gardner wrote in a statement. "We apologize for any confusion our calls may have caused."

Gardner does not address why the phone campaign was conducted anonymously. Nor does the statement explain the specific phrasing of the message, which implies that the voter must await, fill out and return a new registration packet in order to vote in the primary.

The Institute for Southern Studies notes that North Carolina isn’t the only state in which Women’s Voices, Women Vote has caused a ruckus among voters and election officials, and that many of its officials have connections with Hillary Clinton, either by having worked in President Bill Clinton’s administration or through campaign donations.

"Gardner, for example, contributed $2,500 to Clinton’s HILLPAC on May 4,

2006, and in March 2005 she donated a total of $4,200 to Clinton, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org. She has not contributed to the Obama campaign, according to the database," wrote Executive Director Chris Kromm on the institute’s blog.

A spokeswoman for Women’s Voices, Women’s Vote did not return repeated phone calls Wednesday.

The North Carolina Department of Justice is investigating the incident, said Jennifer Canada, a department spokeswoman. North Carolina enacted asked campaigning politicos to voluntarily comply with a political "do-not-call" list last year, after its residents flooded the state attorney general’s office with complaints about political robocalls during the 2006 election season.

Don Powell, who runs a political phone-calling company in Portland, Oregon, says the fact that the autodial campaign was performed anonymously suggests it wasn’t an innocent mistake. In general, he says, anonymous, automated campaigns are designed to suppress voter turnout.

"It does happen in North Carolina," he said. "It works, or they wouldn’t bother. It’s sleazy money, and it affects people like me who would never think about doing this."

Update: Women’s Voices Women Vote has agreed to North Carolina State Attorney General Roy Cooper’s demand to stop the anonymous robocalls. The AG’s office notes that they’re illegal because North Carolina’s law requires such calls to identify their sponsors, and to offer recipients information a way to stop them.

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