Technical Glitch Spews Out Emails From Melnick Campaign

They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Congressional candidate Lainey Melnick hopes that isn't true.

As a result of a technical glitch, hundreds of people have received multiple emails from the Melnick campaign over the past few days. A search for "Lainey Melnick" on Twitter turns up reports that some people have received as many as 20 emails a day from Melnick's office.

Melnick is running on the Democratic side for the 21st District Congressional seat currently held by Lamar Smith. She officially announced her campaign on July 1.

On her website, Melnick has apologized profusely in two posts yesterday and today, saying complaints are coming to her office via email and phone and that some have suggested she drop out of the race.

"I cannot express in words the extent of my devastation about the emails that just won't stop," Melnick writes today. "I completely understand the frustration, the anger and wish that I could just put a stop to this. I am trying to respond to them all, but I am overwhelmed."

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jeff Beckham in News on July 7, 2009 11:56 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

bug138

In fairness to Lainey, she is running for US Congress, not Sysadmin-In-Chief.

wattage

That doesn't change the fact that she and her staff (theoretically chosen by her and not the bogey man) shouldn't have ever had access to my email address.

Grape Ape

Is it out of the realm of possibility that maybe a friend signed you up thinking you would like to be included? It only takes them doing it one time on one list that is allowed to be shared. Just saying, it may not be as evil and intentional as you make it out to be.

wattage

Doubtful, since it was to an email address that I set up for mailing lists, etc. I don't know why any of my friends would have that.

I don't think it's necessarily evil (or even intentional), I'm just a little annoyed. And curious.

Grape Ape

If your friends don't have it, it is unlikely that they would have it. Seems like you must have provided it and consented to it at some point.

wattage

Hey genius, that's why I'm wondering *how* she got it.

I'd never even *heard* of Lainey Melnick until I received 16 emails from her, so the odds of me voluntarily giving my name/email *directly* to her either via a website or someone with a clipboard is slim to none.

If the Texas Democrats (or Barack Obama or MoveOn) shared my email address, that would seem to be counter to the privacy agreements *most* organizational email lists provide. It's very possible that joining those lists had more fine print than I recall (ie, we won't share your email with BestBuy, but we reserve the right to share it with candidates you may also enjoy!)... but I somehow doubt that. In which case, I'm still wondering how she got my email address.

This isn't keeping me up at night, I just have become more curious the less Ms. Melnick explains (ie, originally it was a technical glitch and now it's malicious activity).

Random

Grape Ape, do you actually sign your friends up for mailing lists? Or is this acceptable in your circle of friends?

Lainey Melnick

I am Lainey Melnick. It seems that there has been some malicious activity on my site. We are tracking down the IP address responsible with the cooperation of my host. In order to get control of this issue we've shut down my site and disabled the email panel. The emails should be completely stopped now. I am very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused and ask for your forgiveness and understanding. While my site is down, you can contact me on Facebook, Twitter or contribute to my campaign through ActBlue. They say what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. That's how I'm feeling tonight.

Lainey Melnick

Candidate for US Congress TX District 21

http://www.laineymelnick.com

kenneth1

Speaking of technical glitches, when is Austinist going to update the IST-List?

ttrentham

She's not running for my district. I've gotten 4 e-mails from her campaign so far, but that's 3 too many. I'm guessing she tapped into the Texas Democrats mailing list. I'm unsubscribing from that list and all of the others. She definitely didn't make a good first impression. Incompetence from the people representing you is not a good way to introduce yourself.

sam_miller

I've only gotten nine emails from her, but that was definitely nine too many. They all say I requested to be subscribed to her announcement list, which of course I did not. She must be renting the list from the Texas Democrats. Hope she gets it fixed. Anyone got odds on whether this will make it on the local news tonight and further embarrass her? I'm going to say 3:1.

Seanjohntx

Received a whole bunch of emails from the candidate. First impression not so good. Wondering if this is how she'll run her congressional office. To make matters worse, I accidentelly clicked on the confirmation and now I'm really on the list. And I couldn't find a way to get off of it. I wonder who gave her my address as well, have a bone to pick with them.

LoudMouth

I'm with wattage. I have never heard of this woman before but I've had about 6 or 10 emails a day from her for the past 3 days or so. I was also subscribed to MoveOn, Firedog Lake and Texas Democrats, but I unsubscribed to all those sites and lists too. I want to know how the hell she got my email address and who she's using for marketing and web services because this shit is unreasonable.

wattage

As a recipient of at least 16 emails from her, what I'd like to know is how she got my email address.

I unsubscribed from the Texas Democrats email list months ago as well as MoveOn and anyone else who got my email during the run up to the 2008 election. It's a bit disturbing that not only do I have to opt out from an email list that I never wanted to join, but that I'm getting spammed over and over and over again.