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Secretary Pate reveals Finkenauer for Congress campaign was source of erroneous text messages to voters
Paul D. Pate
Secretary of State
State Capitol
Des Moines, IA 50319
Iowa Secretary of State Seal WEBSITE: sos.iowa.gov
E-MAIL: sos@sos.iowa.gov
OFFICE OF THE IOWA SECRETARY OF STATE
MEDIA CONTACT:
Kevin Hall
Communications Director
Kevin.Hall@sos.iowa.gov
(515) 725-2942
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 6, 2018

MEDIA RELEASE: Secretary Pate reveals Finkenauer for Congress campaign was source of erroneous text messages to voters


DES MOINES – Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate announces that the source of text messages sent to Iowa voters with incorrect polling place information was the Abby Finkenauer for Congress campaign. Secretary Pate was made aware of the erroneous text messages late in the evening on Monday, June 4.

Following an investigation by the Secretary of State’s Office, it was determined Abby Finkenauer’s campaign was the source. She is a Democratic candidate for U.S. Representative District 1.

The Finkenauer campaign and its vendor were cooperative with our investigation, and stated that a corrective text message had been sent out to voters. After speaking with the campaign and their vendor, Secretary Pate has concluded that the inaccurate text messages were the result of the campaign’s data management error, and were not malicious in nature.

While some voters outside of Iowa’s First Congressional District received the erroneous text messages, Secretary Pate has confirmed that the known cases were due to a data match error that occurred within the Finkenauer campaign’s files.

“I encourage all Iowans to utilize the polling place look up tool on our website, sos.iowa.gov,” Secretary Pate said. “Moving forward, I also encourage candidates to include an attribution statement in all messages sent to voters. The inclusion of an attribution statement makes it easier for voters to contact a campaign if issues arise.”

Additional questions or concerns related to this issue should be addressed to the Finkenauer for Congress campaign

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