Michigan officials decry robocall that dissuades mail voting

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan's attorney general and secretary of state on Thursday were investigating what they called a racist robocall that falsely warns residents in majority-Black Detroit who vote by mail that they could be subject to arrest and debt collection.

In the recording, which a recipient provided to radio station WWJ, the caller claims to be from Project 1599, which was founded by conservative activists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, though Wohl denied their involvement in the robocall. The caller says if people vote by mail, their personal information will be part of a public database that police can use to track down old warrants and that credit card companies can use to collect outstanding debt.

It was not known how many people were targeted with the robocall, which urges listeners to not give private information “to the man.”

“This is an unconscionable, indefensible, blatant attempt to lie to citizens about their right to vote,” Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said in a statement. “The call preys on voters' fear and mistrust of the criminal justice system — at a moment of historic reckoning and confrontation of systemic racist and the generational trauma that results — and twists it into a fabricated threat in order to discourage people from voting.”

Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel said her office was working to find the “bad actors” behind the call. The state's robocall team was alerting counterparts across the country.

Michigan — a battleground state that President Donald Trump narrowly won in 2016 in part due to less turnout for Hillary Clinton in heavily Democratic Detroit — allows voters to cast an absentee ballot for any reason, either by mailing it in, dropping it off or filling one out at a clerk's office. Benson said voting absentee,...