Unmarked Mailers Seek to Secretly Kneecap GOP Turnout

A series of last-minute direct-mail pieces are seeking to depress Republican turnout in key congressional races, and whoever is behind the mailers is a mystery, drawing allegations of illegal politicking.

A pair of recent mailers sent to voters in Montana targets Republican Senate candidate Matt Rosendale.

“If Matt Rosendale gets his way, Montanans will have government drones and patrols hovering outside our windows, keeping an eye on our private lives,” one of the glossy postcards warns. It offers words of support for Rick Breckenridge, the Libertarian candidate who on Wednesday threw his support behind Rosendale’s candidacy.

That mail piece, and another one hitting Rosendale on trade policy, contain no “paid for by” disclaimers as required of any political committee sending such mailers. But they do list one key piece of information: the U.S. Postal Service code WC MLG 08899. The numbers are simply a ZIP Code—this one an area in Edison, New Jersey—but the preceding letters correspond to a specific sender.

That doesn’t necessarily tell us who paid for the mailers, but it does suggest at the very least a common vendor with other recent mail pieces that have used the same code.

In a memo released to reporters Wednesday, the Rosendale campaign identified the company Allied Printing Resources as its suspected culprit, citing its offices near Edison and its work with Democrat organizations this cycle and in the past—particularly the League of Conservation Voters, for which Allied produced direct-mail pieces backing Sen. Jon Tester’s 2012 re-election bid.

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