School voter drive in Chesapeake spurs complaints

CHESAPEAKE

Chase Williams had November's presidential election in mind when he filled out a voter registration application at school last week.

The Western Branch High senior said he wasn't intending to show support for a particular candidate; he just wanted to get registered. But before he left, he was handed a paper with "Obama for America" on it.

Now, the 17-year-old says he feels deceived.

Williams later learned that the people he thought represented a nonpartisan voter-registration group were actually members of Organizing for America, an arm of the Democratic National Committee. The organization describes itself on its Facebook page as a grassroots "support effort" of President Barack Obama.

Volunteers from various organizations routinely visit the schools to register students to vote, especially in presidential election years, Chesapeake school division spokesman Tom Cupitt said. However, the drives are supposed to be strictly nonpartisan, he said, and no one should ask how a student plans to vote.

"I don't know if it's just an honest mistake that this happened," Cupitt said.

Al Spradlin, the city's general registrar, said he's investigating complaints from two teachers, a guidance counselor and a member of the electoral board over the situation. He was told that a woman claiming to be from his office headed up the voter registration drive at Western Branch High.

Spradlin also heard that the same group went to Indian River High. The person answering the phone at Indian River referred questions to Cupitt, who did not respond to messages asking about whether a second school was involved.

Spradlin said he doesn't send his employees into schools to register voters, and even if he did, they wouldn't be allowed to promote a specific candidate or political party.

"We want everybody registered that can be registered. That's our job," he said. But doing it "clandestinely through the school system ... that concerns me."

Brian Coy, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Virginia, disputed that any Organizing for America staff member or volunteer passed herself off as an employee of the registrar's office. He also said the group came at the invitation of a teacher at the school, but he did not know which one.

"It sounds like there was a mix-up with the forms," Coy said. "These were volunteers and that may have been a mistake on their part. There was certainly no nefarious... intent. It was a simple mistake by volunteers."

Williams, who turns 18 in April, said the group had a table set up in the lunchroom on Feb. 15. Members walked up to students as they ate, he said, encouraging them to register to vote and asking whom they might support.

One friend at an earlier lunch period received paperwork with "Organizing for America" on it, while Williams said his papers had the words "Obama for America."

Rosemary Williams said she isn't happy about what happened to her son. He now fears his home and email addresses, Social Security number and other personal information may end up in a database of Obama supporters, she said.

"I feel like our students are being tricked," she said. "I feel like they were taken advantage of."

Coy said the group was simply trying to engage potential voters. Information on the forms is used for nothing other than voter registration, he said.

Spradlin said he's staying in touch with school administrators. More than 170 voter-registration applications from the Western Branch drive were dropped off at his office Wednesday afternoon, he said.

"My suggestion is that we don't let any organizations in our schools to gather private personal info from 17-year-olds," Spradlin said. "If we want a system in our schools to register voters, I would suggest that our government teachers do that."

Cupitt couldn't say what actions the school system might take, if any. "I'm sure they'll look at ways to safeguard so something like this doesn't happen again."

Hattie Brown Garrow, 757-222-5562, hattie.brown@pilotonline.com