The text message urged recipients to vote for Mandy Pomeroy for Park City Board of Education. But for some, it appeared in a thread that began with the phrase “Welcome to PCSD text alerts,” giving the impression that the endorsement was an official school district communication.
Park City School district officials said they reviewed their internal messaging system Tuesday and found the message didn’t originate from within. They also said the district does not endorse candidates, but indicated they would not send a follow-up text to alert families that the campaign text wasn’t from PCSD.
Pomeroy, who serves on the Park City school board as an interim member, confirmed Tuesday that the message was sent through a list service her campaign works with, and said it was “likely misnamed.”
She declined to provide the name of the list service.
KPCW determined that her campaign is linked by text to Raindrop Texting Solutions, a Lehi-based company that bills itself as technology designed by and for conservatives.
In a Facebook video, Raindrop’s vice president of sales and marketing, Mike Brown, explained the company’s philosophy.
“Our mission is to help those conservative candidates or organizations use these powerful tools and texting is very important right now because it's a way to bypass social media censorship. We have clients that use us solely for that so they can interact directly with their with their supporters. So whether it's a large organization like turning point USA or Family Research Council, or a local organization, local school board candidate, texting is very powerful to reach your supporters.”
Raindrop did not respond to requests for comment.
Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson’s office oversees elections in Utah. A spokesperson in her office said campaign texts that don’t accurately reflect who they’re coming from don’t violate state law, but it could be illegal for the district to send such a text - whether through its own system or a service.
Though Pomeroy said it came from her campaign, screenshots show that at least some people who received it opted in to Raindrop texts claiming to be from PCSD on January 19, months before Pomeroy announced her candidacy.
Drew Frink, chief technology officer for the school district, said that to the best of his knowledge, the district has no contract with Raindrop.
It may be possible for a person to create a Raindrop account with PCSD’s name on it without the district’s knowledge. It’s unknown what identity or authorization requirements Raindrop requires to set up accounts.
The federal Telecommunications Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA, regulates robo-texts, robo-calls and other electronic spam. That act requires robo-texts to identify who they’re coming from and can only be sent after someone has opted in to the sender. The texts KPCW reviewed didn’t indicate that people who received them had opted in to texts from either Raindrop or Pomeroy’s campaign, and people who shared them said they had not done so.
Violations of the TCPA can result in fines of up to $1500 per text received.
Pomeroy said Wednesday she didn’t know why the texts showed opt-in messages related to PCSD from January. She said she could correct any false impressions made by the text.
“There should have been no reference to the school district, it was not set up that way. I'm not honestly sure how that came about. I have other people who did receive the text message and it didn't come across that way so if that's something that needs to be corrected that can be done.”
KPCW hasn’t learned of any corrective action taken by Pomeroy.
Also on Tuesday, Pomeroy received a cease and desist letter from Meredith Reed’s lawyer over the use of Reed’s children photo in Pomeroy’s campaign material. Reed is Pomeroy’s opponent for the District 4 school board seat.
The photo shows Reed and her children at a bus stop, with a heading asking voters if they want a board member who only gets that close to schools.
Reed did not give Pomeroy use of her family photo and during a candidate debate Tuesday asked Pomeroy not to use her children’s images. Pomeroy did not agree to stop.