Election Loophole Exposed by CNN Turns Up on CBS’ ‘The Good Wife’

By Mark Joyella 

CNN senior digital correspondent Chris Moody had that “it’s deja vu all over again” feeling watching CBS’ “The Good Wife” on Sunday. In the episode, Julianna Margulies plays a political candidate who confronts her staff over their use of Twitter accounts to bypass elections laws that prohibit coordination between campaigns and political action committees.

“The team here at @CNNPolitics loved last night’s episode,” Moody tweeted to the show’s writers, including a link to his own CNN investigation that first revealed the exact practice described in the show–Republicans and outside groups using Twitter accounts to share polling data ahead of the midterm elections:

In both instances, the Twitter anonymous accounts are named after characters from the NBC series “The West Wing.” Republicans named their account after Bruno Gianelli while the Florrick account was named after Toby Ziegler. And they both used a string of letters and numbers — without any context — to transmit polling data.

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