Phoenix City Council candidate Yassamin Ansari called on the City of Phoenix and County Attorney to launch an investigation to identify an anonymous group sending mail containing misinformation to registered Democrats in district seven.
Ansari is a city council candidate running to represent district seven with a progressive policy agenda focusing on issues such as climate change, COVID-19 management and affordable housing for all residents.
However, in an attempt to distort public perception of Ansari’s platform, an anonymous, dark money group, under the name “Americans for Progress,” distributed fake Ansari campaign mail to registered Democrats in district seven containing graphics and slogans which falsely imply that Ansari supports former President Donald Trump.
The fake campaign mail reads, “Don’t let another election get stolen! Yassamin 2021,” and “Make Phoenix Great Again.” The fake campaign mail also contains a thin blue line flag, and promises to “drain the swamp,” “stop fake news,” and “protect our elections from voter fraud.”
Ansari took to Twitter on Thursday, Feb. 11, explaining that the campaign mail was entirely untrue, and called on the City of Phoenix and the County Attorney for action.
“As a lifelong Democrat, I am outraged & disgusted by this slanderous attack,” Ansari wrote. “PLEASE let your friends/family know that this is entirely untrue.”
An outside, dark-money group is telling voters in District 7 that I am a Donald Trump protegée & pro-MAGA candidate.
As a lifelong Democrat, I am outraged & disgusted by this slanderous attack.
PLEASE let your friends/family know that this is entirely untrue.
THREAD (1/5) pic.twitter.com/7gGAOfYMPT
— Yassamin Ansari for Phoenix City Council (@yassaminansari) February 11, 2021
Ansari went on to explain that the anonymous group that sent the fake campaign mail is not registered with the City of Phoenix, which means that this group may be in violation of Proposition 419, a proposition effectively outlawing the use of “dark money” in city elections.
In order to determine who the anonymous group is that sent defamatory campaign mail, Ansari asked the City of Phoenix and the County Attorney to launch an investigation and look into the anonymous group attempting to undermine her campaign.
Emma Galligan, the regional field director for the Ansari campaign, said that the baseless misinformation being spread by the dark money group is dangerous for both the voters and the campaign.
“It’s preventing voters from making informed decisions, which is a key part of the American democracy,” Galligan said.
Gregg Leslie, the executive director of the First Amendment Clinic at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at ASU, shared similar sentiments about the spread of misinformation.
“Our election system really depends on truthful information, and a lot of people feel they’re not getting it from either side,” Leslie said. “To have somebody come in and purposely inject false statements is really dangerous and undermines the credibility of the whole system.”
Leslie also said, “I would think they would want to [investigate] anytime there’s an allegation of this kind of blatant fraud going on.”
Leslie said that if an investigation is initiated and the group is successfully identified, proving that the fake campaign mail was defamatory might be more difficult than it seems.
“It can be tough to prove that they did it knowingly because in a sense, you have to get into their state of mind,” Leslie said. “You have to figure out what they really did and didn’t know, which is very difficult.”
At this time, there has been no update as to whether the City of Phoenix or the County Attorney will take action to investigate the anonymous group distributing the fake campaign mail.
However, Galligan believes that the recent swell of misinformation surrounding the campaign is a clear indication that their opponents are afraid of Ansari’s qualifications and the amount of community support the Ansari campaign has received.
“They resorted to these dirty tactics to try to undermine her support, but honestly, it’s been backfiring,” Galligan said.
The runoff election is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, March 9.
The deadline to request a mail-in ballot for the March 9 election is February 26 at 5:00pm. Mail-in ballots can be requested here.
Contact the reporter at clparri2@asu.edu.
Cami is Downtown Devil's co-executive editor. Cami is a third-year student studying print journalism and political science. When she's not writing or editing, she enjoys hosting radio shows, playing piano and bass, and teaching art classes at a local art studio.
