{"id":40847,"date":"2022-05-02T10:07:53","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T16:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/coloradans-can-expect-a-wave-of-anonymous-political-texts-as-2022-campaign-revs-up\/"},"modified":"2022-05-02T16:07:53","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T16:07:53","slug":"coloradans-can-expect-a-wave-of-anonymous-political-texts-as-2022-campaign-revs-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/coloradans-can-expect-a-wave-of-anonymous-political-texts-as-2022-campaign-revs-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Coloradans can expect a wave of anonymous political texts as 2022 campaign revs up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Many
Many of the 3,700 delegates at the Republican Party state assembly on April 9 received text messages slamming some U.S. Senate candidates. (The Colorado Sun)<\/span>The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The text messages about Republican candidates for U.S. Senate landed in quick succession at about 1:30 p.m. April 9, the day of the Colorado GOP\u2019s state assembly.<\/p>\n

Four blasted conservative radio host Deborah Flora. Two attacked state Rep. Ron Hanks, while another criticized former Olympian Eli Bremer.<\/p>\n

None of those seven texts \u2013 which were sent to delegates at the assembly \u2013 identified the sender, even though the Federal Election Commission requires disclosures. And they almost certainly won\u2019t be the last political text messages sent to Coloradans as the 2022 election cycle kicks into high gear.<\/p>\n

Anonymous political messages in Colorado aren\u2019t new \u2013 two years ago, for instance, someone sent an unsigned email blast lambasting several Weld County primary candidates \u2013 but such texts are poised to play an even bigger role in this year\u2019s primary and general elections. State and federal authorities rarely enforce disclosure laws when it comes to electronic messaging, so Coloradans may be left wondering in the weeks and months ahead who is behind the missives trying to sway their vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis area of the law is really a mess,\u201d said Adav Noti, vice president and legal director for the Campaign Legal Center. \u201cThe rules for disclaimers on these sorts of messages are decades old.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noti predicted the issue of anonymous text attacks on candidates will only get worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis seems to be one of the primary new focuses for the \u201822 election cycle, peer-to-peer texting,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a tough thing to file a complaint about when you don\u2019t know who\u2019s sending the messages. It\u2019s the wild West.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Secretary of State Wayne Williams, a Republican, said he has a policy to disregard the information he receives in anonymous messages.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I get something that\u2019s not attributable to somebody, I give it a lot less credence,\u201d he said. \u201cIf something is true, for the most part people should be willing to say it is and say who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear if the anonymous messages can sway the outcome of a contest.<\/p>\n

\"Eli
Eli Bremer speaks at the GOP state assembly on April 9 in Colorado Springs. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span>Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Bremer said he doesn\u2019t think the texts made a difference at the state assembly, where he failed to pick up enough delegate support to advance to the primary. Hanks was the only candidate to make the June 28 ballot, with Flora, Bremer and Campana finishing after him in that order.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, someone wanted to take a pound of flesh out of me,\u201d Bremer told The Sun. \u201cI don\u2019t think it made a hoot of difference in how people voted. From what we can tell, that result was largely baked in the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delegates at the assembly also received a text from Campana\u2019s campaign praising the former Fort Collins city councilor on election security and vowing that \u201c2020 will never happen again!\u201d<\/p>\n

Bremer said he had lunch with Campana last week, and the Fort Collins business owner said the texts didn\u2019t come from his campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI trust that he didn\u2019t personally have anything to do with it,\u201d Bremer said.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Campana\u2019s campaign didn\u2019t return voicemails or a text message requesting comment.<\/p>\n

Flora\u2019s campaign declined to talk about the texts, and Hanks didn\u2019t return a voicemail from The Sun.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/div>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

require people, groups behind political text messages disclose who they are, but that seldom happens<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,233,266,28,29,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-40847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40847"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=40847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}