Consumer alert: New York voters receive text messages with false poll data

The New York State Board of Elections has issued an urgent warning about a text message voters across the state are receiving directing them to their polling place. The problem? Voters are being sent to the wrong location.

A News10NBC employee received one of these messages, which listed his name and correct address but directed him to the wrong polling place, Susan B. Wiley Elementary School. The message suggested double-checking the information on the New York State Board of Elections’ official website.

To get to the bottom of the matter, I first consulted with Reg Harnish, CEO of cybersecurity company OrbitalFire.

Deanna Dewberry: “The link you’re supposed to click on looks exactly like the one from the Election Commission. So what could be going on here?”

Reg Harnish: “The address is absolutely 100 percent legitimate. What we now have to distinguish is legitimate and incomplete.”

This raises the question: Was this voter misinformation disguised as legitimate by using the real election board website? Further investigation revealed that this was not a cybercrime attempt to steal personal information or install malware.

But could this be voter fraud? I contacted the state election authority for answers.

Deanna Dewberry, News10NBC: “One thing that seems to be getting through is that this is the wrong polling place. Do you think this is a nefarious attempt to suppress voters?”

Kathleen McGrath, Director of Public Information, NYS Board of Elections: “One of the things I did was I reached out to the company directly. The text message was signed by an organization, a grassroots organization that advocates for voter turnout. So I reached out to them and said this is a problem. People are getting incorrect polling data and we cannot tolerate this kind of confusion in the lead up to the primary election today. The company has been very apologetic. They have admitted that it was a human error that resulted in the data being sorted incorrectly in terms of voters and polling places.”

The group Vote-FTW wants to give voters the opportunity to participate in the democratic process. On its website, it apologized for the error and said it sent text messages explaining the error and directing people to the election board’s website.

While this appears to have been an honest mistake by a legitimate grassroots organization, voter disinformation campaigns pose a real threat. If you ever have questions about your polling place, go directly to the New York State Board of Elections’ polling place locator page.

If you believe you have been the victim of an election law violation or if you notice anything suspicious, you can report it to the state Division of Election Law Enforcement.

I emailed the organization that sent the emails, VoteFTW. A spokesperson said the error was the result of human error and affected 5 to 10 percent of the text messages they sent. Here is the group’s full statement:

We agree with the New York City Board of Elections that the best election and voting information is available directly from the New York City Board of Elections and county boards of elections. That is why our initial texts – including those with the fake images – directed New Yorkers to the official polling place locator tool at https://voterlookup.elections.ny.gov/We have contacted the New York City Board of Elections and sent an apology and correction to anyone who received incorrect information and directed them to this website.

This was not an act of voter suppression, but a human error that affected a small subset of the people we texted. We apologize for the texts containing misleading information. This was due to a data and technical issue on our end. While we had the correct voter information, in some cases (we estimate this was about 5-10% of the texts we sent) we inadvertently assigned the voter to the wrong polling place. We are investigating this to make sure this does not happen again. When we learned that some texts contained the wrong polling place information, we immediately stopped sending new texts.

Our organization’s goal is to mobilize voters to make their voices heard. While we regret our mistake, we believe technology and digital outreach can help get important election information to Americans this election cycle. We will always direct voters to official platforms, such as their county and state election commissions, to ensure they receive the most accurate information.

For more information, see your statement: https://www.voteftw.com/statement-regarding-new-york-polling-location-images

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