Ted Cruz’s Texas Senatorial campaign has sent hundreds of thousands of mailers seeking donations that are meant to look like official county summons, a high-ranking campaign official confirmed to Newsweek.
The brown envelopes read “SUMMONS ENCLOSED- OPEN IMMEDIATELY” in large black letters, and have a return address of “official county summons.”
While the letter inside the envelope is a donation form for the Cruz campaign, there is some fear that certain voters may be confused by the mailer and think that they are required by law to pay a fee.
“Received this for my 88-year-old grandma,” wrote Sean Owen of Austin on Twitter. “Says it’s a summons from Travis County, but is actually asking for money for Ted Cruz. Did your campaign authorize this? Is this even legal? Shame on you.”
Mailers of this kind are not illegal, so long as they include a clear disclaimer that the communication was paid for.
A Cruz campaign official told Newsweek that they had only seen a few anecdotal complaints from confused people. Everyone else, they said, knows it’s a campaign mailer.