Yes! on Prop 2 – Californians for Humane Farms, a group supporting the ballot measure, filed an initial complaint on Sept. 3 against the United Egg Producers, Inc., the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association and No on Prop 2 that charged the entities were hiding major donations by filtering them through corporate channels. The donations, many of which had been announced by the United Egg Producers in a July 15 fund-raising letter, fell under California regulations that donations of $5,000 or more be reported within 10 business days. State law also requires contributions of more than $1,000 made within the final 90 days before an election be reported within 24 hours.

On Sept. 5 — two days after the initial complaint had been filed with the ethics board — the opposition group submitted a 76-page late contribution report to the state, listing more than $4.5 million in contributions. Each of the contributions were listed as being received through the United Egg Producers, which served as an “intermediary” for the transactions. Three additional reports detailing late contributions have been filed, but all three combined don’t compare to the Sept. 5 filing.

The group supporting Proposition 2 filed a second complaint with the ethics board following the massive disclosure by the opposition.

“The opponents of Prop 2 have been caught red-handed in one of the biggest campaign money laundering schemes of all time,” charged Jennifer Fearing, manager of the Yes! on Prop 2 campaign. “The infusion of millions of dollars from out-of-state factory farms provides plain evidence that the national factory farming industry is deeply worried that passing Proposition 2 will result in increased scrutiny of their own inhumane practices.”

Iowa companies whose campaign contributions were disclosed on the September late filing statements are:

• Center Fresh Egg Farm, Sioux Center — $40,000
• Dooyema & Sons, Sioux Center — $4,500
• eCow, Waukon — $2,500
• Fremont Farms of Iowa, Malcom — $25,000
• Galt Real Estate, Galt — $100,000
• Great Plains Protein, Iowa Falls — $1,000
• Henning Construction Company, Johnson — $10,000
• Henning Construction  Company, Johnson — $5,000
• Hy-Line North America, West Des Moines — $30,000
• MC. Anderson Pullets, Sioux Rapids — $1,000
• Naturally Recycled Proteins, Johnson — $2,500
• Sioux Country Egg Farm, Sioux Center — $10,000

Prior to the late filings, three Iowa companies had donated to the opposition campaign. They are Hy-Line North America of West Des Moines ($10,000), Iowa Poultry Association of Urbandale ($1,000) and Bosma Poultry, Inc. of Sibley ($100).

If found guilty, both the United Egg Producers and its donors could face criminal prosecution and fines, which could range from $5,000 to a maximum of three times the unreported contribution for each violation.

“But that’s all going to change in 2008,” it then notes.  By voting absentee, Vote Hope says, Californians can cast ballots before Iowans trek through winter weather to school gymnasiums, neighbors’ homes and civic centers to caucus for their preferred candidates.  And that, they imply, is a good thing.  Inspired “by Barack Obama’s life experience, his vision for the country, and his calls for people to self-organize in a new wave of political participation,” they seek to diminish the impact Iowa will have in their state.In other words, they are motivated not by the desire for “direct democracy” through a national primary day or by similar philosophical arguments for abandoning Iowa’s (or New Hampshire’s) “first in the nation” status; they are driven by strategic concerns, and their primary goal is supporting Obama, the Democrat from Illinois.

The question to ask, then, is why use this strategy?  Does Vote Hope think that Obama is best served if the supporters he has when California’s absentee ballots are mailed out  (Jan. 7) before the caucus results are announced?

From a purely numbers-based standpoint, Vote Hope’s strategy is a good one.  For any campaign, absentee votes are all upside, no downside.  If someone is willing to support your candidate two weeks before Election Day, why not encourage them to vote right then?  An absentee ballot eliminates the risk that a voter will change his or her mind in the final two weeks (usually packed with controversial debates and last-ditch attack ads), not to mention the risk that the voter just won’t show up at the polls on election day.  It also conserves valuable campaign resources in the final weeks, because absentee voters stop receiving campaign literature in the mail, and they do not require “GOTV” phone calls on Election Day.

Vote Hope hopes to have 500,000 absentee votes for Obama returned to election officials in California before Jan. 27.  This, they note, “represents more Democrats than voted total in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries in 2004.”  To put that in a bit more perspective, that is more than double the total number of absentee votes recorded for Iowa’s most recent general election (224,774), and it is nearly five times the number of Democrats who voted absentee in that election (109,862).  And those absentee turnout numbers were unexpectedly high.

As a member of the Iowa Democratic Party’s 2006 field staff, I know how hard turning out absentee votes can be.  Both the Republican and Democratic parties had dozens of trained, experienced field staff on the ground in Iowa for six months leading up to the Nov. 7 election.  Will Vote Hope have that kind of organization or funding?

If they hope to meet their 500,000-vote benchmark, they will have to do even better than both of Iowa’s state parties combined, because primary elections introduce even more challenges than general elections.  In particular, voter targeting requires expensive voter identification programs to determine individual voters’ candidate preferences.  While in a general election, state parties can rely primarily on a voter’s party registration (a matter of public record, available for little to no money) to determine whom to target for absentee ballots, primary elections do not afford campaigns and other groups that convenience.  To know who supports Obama, Vote Hope will have to ask voters directly — likely over the phone.  If each successful call costs between 5 cents and 15 cents, and they need to reach at least 2,000,000 voters to find 500,000 willing to vote absentee for Obama (the number of Obama supporters willing to vote absentee will be a small subset of Obama supporters in general), then they could be forced to spend $150,000 before the real work of getting ballot requests processed and ballots returned even begins.

Ironically, the best tool available for this type of political work was developed right here in Iowa, and Vote Hope plans to use it to “beat” us.  Their About page explains that they are “contracting with California VoterConnect so that pledges made on our website, through traditional organizing methods like canvasses and phone banks, and at our events, will be matched with the voter file so we can work to turn [pledges of support for Sen. Obama] into votes.”  The voter file they mention is the Voter Activation Network (in Iowa lingo, “the VAN”), which VoterConnect used with success in 2006 and will likely continue using.

Developed in 2002 for the Iowa re-election efforts of Sen. Tom Harkin and former Gov. Tom Vilsack (official VAN history), the VAN has been used by the Iowa Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign ever since.  And after the success it achieved in Iowa, the VAN spread to other states.  It is now the country’s premier Democratic voter file.

But the VAN is no silver bullet, and Vote Hope will not escape the need for solid organization or funding simply by having access to it.

All things considered, then, will Vote Hope’s project be worth the time, money and effort?  If they reach their goal, it will certainly go a long way toward winning the California primary for Barack Obama.  And, if Obama has a weak showing at the Iowa Caucuses, a press release from Vote Hope claiming that 500,000 absentee votes have already been cast in California may help keep his campaign alive — if there is enough evidence that the claim is true.

But the results of the California primary will not be announced until Feb. 5, and even then many absentee votes will not have been counted.  The media will still latch onto Iowa and New Hampshire, and a press release claiming something that no one will be able to prove for weeks isn’t likely to get much play.

(And, of course, there’s this elephant in the room.)

Although Vote Hope aims to support Obama, campaign finance rules prohibit them from coordinating with Obama’s official campaign.  Neither Vote Hope nor Obama’s Iowa campaign immediately responded to requests for comment.