Italo Medelius was leading a volunteer drive to put Cornel West on North Carolina's presidential ballot last spring when he received an unexpected call from a man named Paul who said he wanted to help.
Though Medelius, co-chairman of West's "Justice for All Party," welcomed the assistance, the offer would complicate his life, provoking threats and drawing him into a state election board investigation of the motivations, backgrounds and suspect tactics of his new allies.
Across the country, a network of Republican political operatives, attorneys and their allies is trying to shape November's election in ways that favor former President Donald Trump. Their goal is to prop up third-party candidates such as West who offer liberal voters an alternative that could siphon away support from Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
It's not clear who is paying for the effort, but it could be impactful in states decided by miniscule margins in 2020.
It's money West's campaign does not have and he has encouraged the effort. Last month the academic told The Associated Press that "American politics is highly gangster-like activity" and he "just wanted to get on that ballot."
Trump has called West "one of my favorite candidates." Another is Green Party candidate Jill Stein. He favors both for the same reason. "I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100% from them. He takes 100%."
Democrats are exploring ways to lift Randall Terry, an anti-abortion presidential candidate for the Constitution Party, believing he could draw voters from Trump.
But the GOP effort appears to be more far-reaching. And after years of Trump accusing Democrats of "rigging" elections, it is his allies who are now mounting a sprawling and at times deceptive campaign to tilt the vote in his favor.
"The fact that either of the two major parties would attempt financially and otherwise to support a third-party spoiler candidate as part of its effort to win is an unfortunate byproduct" of the current election laws "that facilitate spoilers," said Edward B. Foley, a law professor who leads Ohio State University's election law program.
One key figure in the push is Paul Hamrick, the man on the other end of the call with Medelius in North Carolina.
Hamrick is counsel for the Virginia-based nonprofit People Over Party that has pushed to get West on the ballot in Arizona, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Virginia, as well as North Carolina, records show.
In an interview, Hamrick declined to say who else besides him was orchestrating the effort and would not divulge who was funding it. He disputed any suggestion he was a Republican, but acknowledged he wasn't a Democrat, either.
Hamrick was chief of staff to former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, a one-term Democrat booted from office in 2003 and later convicted and sentenced to prison on federal bribery, conspiracy, and mail fraud charges. Hamrick was charged alongside his former boss in two separate cases. One was dismissed; he was acquitted in the other.
Hamrick voted in Alabama's Republican primary in 2002, 2006 and 2010, according to voting records maintained by the political data firm L2. He was tapped briefly in 2011 to work for the Alabama state Senate's Republican majority. Since 2015, federal campaign finance disclosures show, he has contributed only to GOP causes.
Hamrick denied voting in any Republican primaries, suggesting that the voting data was inaccurate.
For years, he was a consultant for Matrix LLC, an Alabama firm known for its hardball approach.
Matrix LLC was part of an effort in Florida to run "ghost candidates" against elected officials who had raised the ire of executives for Florida Power & Light, the state's largest utility.
Daniella Levine Cava, the current mayor of Miami-Dade County, was a target, but the effort failed and she won her race for county commissioner, the Miami Herald reported in 2022.
A company Hamrick created paid a spoiler candidate a $60,000 salary and rented a $2,300-a-month home for him, according to the newspaper and business filings made in Alabama. Hamrick said the candidate worked for him to help recruit business. Hamrick denied having anything to do with the man's campaign.
Hamrick is playing a prominent role to place West's name on the ballot in battleground states. Hamrick surfaced in Arizona two weeks ago after a woman told The Associated Press that a document was fraudulently submitted in her name to Arizona's secretary of state, in which she purportedly agreed to serve as an elector for West. She said her signature was forged and she never agreed to be an elector.
After the AP published her account, Hamrick said he spoke to the woman's husband, attempting to rectify the situation and "gave some information." Hamrick declined to say what information was shared. He also tried to persuade another elector who backed out to recommit to West, according to interviews and voicemails.
The next day, with the deadline to qualify for the Arizona ballot hours away, Brett Johnson, a prominent Republican lawyer, and Amanda Reeve, a former GOP state lawmaker, made house visits to each as they tried to persuade them to sign new paperwork to serve as West electors.
Johnson and Reeve work for Snell & Wilmer, which has done $257,000 worth of work for the Republican National Committee over the past two years, campaign finance disclosures show.
Hamrick declined to comment on the role of Johnson and Reeve, who did not respond to requests for comment.
West did not qualify for the Arizona ballot.
Medelius, the North Carolina co-chairman of West's "Justice for All Party," said the partisan battles over third-party candidates amounted to a "gang war."
"If they want to use us for cannon fodder, there's not much I can do about it," he said.
