Reporters Threatened Not to Cover Children Exploited in GOTV Effort in WI

During last June’s Wisconsin recall election, Voces de la Frontera, a radical left-wing front group for Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES), ran a get-out-the-vote operation using school children during school hours. Today, the group is back at it. 

After new media and citizen journalists exposed the group last June, a spokesman for the group is now threatening to report any adults who attempt to film or photograph the students during today’s Election Day effort to the Wisconsin Election Protection hotline and the police.

The Journal Times.com reports:

RACINE — More than 450 Racine Unified students are registered to go out and encourage voting on Election Day, even though the same event during the recall sparked concerns of inappropriate partisan behavior. 

“The attention we received last time just affirms how important it is for youth to take leadership in the community and how critical and needed this (voting) message is,” said Kate Werning, youth organizer for immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, which holds the event. “The students are committed more than ever.”

The students are high schoolers who volunteer to go door-to-door on Election Day encouraging people to cast ballots. Although Voces de la Frontera supports Democratic causes like immigrant rights and restoring collective bargaining, the students do not tell people who to vote for, Werning said.

Before heading to homes, they’ll be trained, as they’ve been in past years, on what to say and do. This time the training will also stress avoiding partisan arguments and reporting adults who may follow them with video cameras, Werning said.

Breitbart News exposed the outfit last June after I spotted a group of school-aged children participating in GOTV activities during school hours. The children informed me they were instructed not to talk to any reporters. A spokesman for the group informed me they were from YES.

On June 6, at an Occupy Milwaukee rally, Breitbart News also documented spokesmen from YES and Voces de la Frontera boasting how effective it was for them to use the school children in their GOTV effort to oust the Governor.