Texas Gov Rich Perry and Dwayne Horner. Oct 2014 via facebook
Dwayne Horner, campaign manager for Leigh-Anne Bellew’s 2013 Bayshore Tea Party backed primary campaign against State Senator Joe Kyrillos, received an early Christmas present earlier this month when he was admitted into the Pre-Trial Intervention (PTI) Program.
The 45 year old resident of Little Elm, Texas woke up thousands of Monmouth County voters with a 4 am robo call on June 4, 2013 the morning of the primary election. The call purported to be from the campaign of Kyrillos and his running mates Assembly members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon, informing Repbulican voters that the still had four hours to vote. The calls were caller ID spoofed to falsely indicate that they came from a phone number owned by the Monmouth County Republican Organization.
A robo call went out to Republican primary voters in the 13th Legislative District at 4am this morning urging people to vote for Senator Joe Kyrillos and Assembly Members Amy Handlin and Declan O’Scanlon.
“You have four hours to get out and vote…” the call said. The obvious impression was that the call was supposed to go out at 4PM.
The Monmouth GOP did not order the call. Kyrillos, Handlin and O’Scanlon did not order the call. Both campaigns say they had no calls scheduled for 4PM.
The caller ID was a secondary number of Monmouth GOP’s, yet the call did not mention the county candidates, Sheriff Shaun Golden or Freeholders Tom Arnone and Serena DiMaso.
O’Scanlon said the call looks to be a dirty trick.
Monmouth GOP Chairman John Bennett is furious. He said the call was a crime. He’s gathering data and plans to file a complaint with the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office this afternoon.
“We’ve never had this from the Democrats and they have not had it from us,” Bennett said, “I’m not accusing anyone, but we will get to the bottom of it and file a criminal complaint. This was a dirty trick and attempted voter suppression, pure and simple.”
Both Bennett and O’Scanlon said they became aware of the call before 4:30 this morning when they received phone calls from friends who had been woken up by the call.
MMM left a voice mail and a text with Bayshore Tea Party Group cofounder Barbara Gonzalez asking if she knows anything about the 4am robocall. Gonzalez has yet to respond. The Bayshore Tea Party Group is supporting the slate of challengers running against the LD13 and Monmouth County Republican incumbents.
