The Yes-on-Proposition 318 campaign says an unidentified opponent of the ballot measure built a website with a nearly identical name, URL and visual presentation, without identifying who paid for it. The campaign has filed a complaint with the Attorney General and Secretary of State’s offices and wants state officials to investigate. “They’re hiding,” says Tim Mooney, Yes on 318 spokesman. “If they’re so proud of their position, come on out.”
The Yes campaign’s website is ProtectGirlsSportsInAZ.vote. A few days ago, a lookalike site, ProtectGirlsSportsAZ.vote, appeared. The Yes campaign alleges the opposition site copies its branding and visual style and lacks the required campaign disclosures.
No state agency has yet determined that the opposition site violated the law. But Mooney says the site hasn’t listed a campaign committee, lacks a “paid for by” disclaimer, hides its ownership information, and may violate campaign-finance, copyright and consumer-protection laws. The mysterious new website, he says, is “more than amusing. It’s illegal.”
The Globe contacted both the Secretary of State’s Office and Attorney General’s Office shortly before publication, but neither responded.
Mooney says he discovered the site four or five days ago when he was trying to reach the Yes campaign’s own website and the other site appeared instead. KJZZ has already reported that Progress Arizona and the National Center for LGBTQ Rights deny operating the site. Progress Arizona is associated with a separate, openly identified No-on-318 website. The Globe submitted a request for comment through the mystery site’s own contact form, but hasn’t yet received a response.
Prop. 318 would expand Arizona’s existing restrictions on transgender girls in girls’ school sports and add sex-based rules for sports-related bathrooms, locker rooms, showers and other private spaces. A Yes vote enacts the changes; a No vote keeps current law in place. The anonymous website, Mooney says, is part and parcel with the bill’s opposition. “Just like a biological male pretending to be a girl,” he says, “they’re pretending to be something that they’re not.”