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Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was criticized in September 2018 after a Twitter user posted a photograph of a fundraising mailer that he claimed was intended to deceive voters. The tweet included a photograph of the mailer, which was labled as an official summons from the recipient's county and sent by a Voter Enrollment Campaign Division. Instead of a city of origin, however, the third line of the letter stated that it emanated from Ted Cruz for Senate 2018: The Twitter user, Sean Owen, told news outlets that he felt the mailer went over the line in resembling a legal document. It made me mad because my grandmother suffered from some dementia, and could easily have followed the urgent request inside to send money, he said. A Texas state lawmaker, Democratic Rep. Gene Wu, also criticized the mailers, saying on his own Twitter account that they could violate a provision of state law banning simulating legal process: The fake summonses did indeed originate with Cruz's campaign, but a spokesperson for the Federal Election Commission (FEC) said that because the mailers contain a disclaimer stating that they originate with a campaign, they do not violate federal election law: The senator's re-election campaign confirmed in May 2018 that they sent 50,000 such mailers in San Antonio but said that only one recipient complained to local media. That statement was a reference to an editorial published in the San Antonio Express-News urging Cruz, who is running for re-election against Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke, to rethink the use of the mailer. It's understandable [Cruz] would want to summon conservative support, the editorial stated. But certainly his campaign can do that without making it look like a legal threat, right? Cruz's campaign responded by saying, Our mail efforts have been both effective and critical to identifying and engaging our supporters, and getting them involved in our campaign efforts to keep Texas strong.
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