How the GOP used Twitter to stretch election laws

Campaign finance laws and Twitter – murky waters at best, potential Republican collusion at worst.

CNN recently learned Republicans and outside groups used anonymous Twitter accounts to share internal polling data ahead of the midterm elections. The practice raises concerns over campaign finance law designed to prohibit coordination between outside groups, such as political action committees, and campaigns.

CNN reports the profiles were publicly available but meaningless without knowledge of how to find them and decode the information.

Tweets such as: "CA-40/43-44/49-44/44-50/36-44/49-10/16/14-52-->49/476-10s,” were not just gibberish, but rather represented polling data for various House races. Posting the information on Twitter made it public, potentially exposing a loophole in the law.

The National Republican Congressional Committee and at least two outside groups knew about the accounts, including a super PAC founded by Karl Rove and the American Action Network.

While the accounts were created months ahead of the Nov. 3 elections and active during that time, they were deleted minutes after CNN contacted the NRCC with questions. CNN reports one Twitter account was named after Bruno Gianelli, a fictional character in “The West Wing” who pressed his colleagues to use ethically questionable "soft money" to fund campaigns.

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