Report: NAACP Members Illegally Acting At Dallas Early Polling Station, Advocating For President Obama

Reports out of Houston that an early polling station located in downtown Houston is experiencing some blatant voter polling station law abuse by the NAACP. NAACP members were seen at the early polling place inside the building, handing out water bottles to those on line and advocating for President Obama according to Town Hall.

Eve Rockford, who was trained by voter integrity group True The Vote, saw three NAACP members at the precinct with 50 cases of bottled water and approached those who had shown up at the early polling station to vote. The members were wearing NAACP labeled clothes and were talking to voters about their plans to fly to Ohio to promote the President Obama. Election laws at both early polling stations and on Election Day say advocates must maitain a distance from the early polling station building if they plan on advocating for a candidate or cause.

Rockford claimed she approached Polling Supervisor Rose Cochran and tried to alert her to the problem but was ignored.

Rockford claimed in a True The Vote Incident Report:

“I went to the polling supervisor and let her know that it was not appropriate that they were in the building handing out water. She ignored me. I repeated my statement. She told me that she would handle it. She did nothing. I then went to the assistant supervisor and he stood up, walked over to another table and then sat down. I then walked into the waiting room and they were reloading another dolly with more cases of water.”

Rockford claimed that she saw the NAACP members moving voters from the back of the line to the front and talking to them about voting procedures and who they were going to vote for. She said she then received a phonecall from someone downtown telling her to “stand down” because advocating at early polling stations was allowed with 100 feet of the early polling station.

Rockford noted in her report:

“All of the sudden one of the clerks, Dayan Cohen, said that someone wanted to speak to me on the phone. It was someone from downtown. I got on the phone and she said she was from downtown and that I needed to stand down and that it was okay for the NAACP to be within 100 feet. and they could hand out water. I told her that the NAACP was inside the building, wearing the NAACP clothing and caps and were handing out water and moving people from the back of the lines to the front of the lines,”

She noted that at this point the NAACP members were told they had to turn their clothing inside out and to stop escorting voters to the front of the line. They refused to do both.

Rockford Said:

“The NAACP basically ran this poll location and the judges did nothing about it.”

Texas State Representative Sylvester Turner, a former Texas NAACP leader, was outside the building talking to voters at the time this happened.