Efforts To Mislead, Pressure Voters As Election Nears

With the election fast approaching, there are increasing reports of efforts to pressure and even mislead voters.

Voters in Florida, Virginia and Indiana have complained to elections officials that they've received phone calls wrongly telling them they don't have to vote in person and can instead vote by phone. One Republican voter in Florida tells Reuters that he received such a call from a man identifying himself as a Florida state elections official.

In Ohio and Wisconsin, a division of Clear Channel, which is co-owned by Mitt Romney's former private equity firm Bain Capital, is bowing to community pressure and has agreed to take 140 billboards that an anonymous client put up in many African-American neighborhoods warning that "voter fraud is a felony" punishable with prison time and a $10,000 fine.

And, following the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, Koch Industries' Georgia Pacific is among the employers who are putting together controversial voter information packets that some say could make employees feel coerced into voting for certain candidates.