Oklahoma prisoners were paid $2 an hour to make political calls linked to a conservative super PAC while a private contractor paid the state $10 for every inmate hour worked, under a prison call-center program operating inside four state correctional facilities.
The call centers were established through a partnership between the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and HBW Leads. Contracts obtained by Oklahoma Watch through public records requests expressly allow “telemarketing and political polling activity.”
Four incarcerated workers interviewed by Oklahoma Watch described the call-center operation. Some said political scripts went beyond traditional polling, criticizing candidates, promoting their opponents and asking voters for support.
Workers said some scripts identified Make Liberty Win, a Virginia-based conservative super PAC that works to elect conservative state lawmakers, as paying for the calls.
Federal Election Commission records provide a separate financial link. Make Liberty Win paid nearly $600,000 this year to Visible Trends for political calling services. Visible Trends was launched by HBW Leads as a separate political calling business, and the companies share an Ohio address.
HBW Leads operates the prison call centers, while Visible Trends handled the political calling work purchased by Make Liberty Win.
Make Liberty Win Executive Director Barrett Young said the super PAC did not know prison labor was being used. He said the organization had already ended...
In a 2017 piece in The New York Times, voting expert Ari Berman wrote, “The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed tactics that prevented blacks, Hispanics and other minority groups from voting. But fo...