Several media reports this week warned Americans to beware of a new text message scam informing recipients that they are not yet registered to vote. A little digging reveals that the hackers were sent by a California political firm as part of a well-intentioned but controversial get-out-the-vote effort that had all the hallmarks of a phishing campaign.
Image: WDIV Detroit on YouTube.
On Aug. 27, Channel 4’s local affiliate WDIV in Detroit warned of a new wave of SMS messages that they say could keep registered voters from voting. The story did not explain why the scam would prevent eligible voters from voting, but it did show one of the related text messages, linked to the site. all-vote.com.
“We have you on our records as you are not registered to vote,” advised the unsolicited SMS. “Check your registration status and register in 2 minutes.”
Similar warnings came from an ABC station in Arizona, and an NBC affiliate in Pennsylvania, where election officials recently issued a warning to watch out for scam messages from all-vote.com. Some people interviewed who received these messages said they realized it was a scam because they knew it was them be who are registered to vote in their state. WDIV even interviewed a Canadian seventh-grader who said he also received an SMS saying he was not registered to vote.
Someone trying to determine if All-vote.com was legitimate might visit the main URL first (as opposed to just clicking a link in an SMS) to find out more about the organization. But visiting all-vote.com brings you directly to a login page for an online service called bl.ink. DomainTools.com finds that all-vote.com was registered on July 10, 2024. Red flag #1.
Information requested from people who visited votewin.org through an SMS campaign.
Another version of this SMS campaign told recipients to check their voting status at a location called ivotiwin.orgDomainTools claims it was registered on 9 July 2024. There is little information about who runs votewin.org on its website, and the contact page leads to a generic contact form. Red Flag #2.
In addition, Votewin.org asks visitors to provide their name, address, email address, date of birth, mobile phone number, while pre-checking visitor sign-up options for additional notifications. Big Red Flag #3.
The Votewin.org Terms of Service refers to a California-based voter forum called VoteAmerica LLC. The same voter registration inquiry form advertised in SMS messages is available when one clicks on the “check your registration status” link at voteamerica.org.
Founder of VoteAmerica Debra Cleaver told KrebsOnSecurity that the organization responsible for SMS campaigns telling people they are not registered Movement Labsa political firm in San Francisco.
Cleaver said his office has received many questions about the messages, which violate a key rule of election outreach: Never tell the recipient what their voting status might be.
“That’s one of the worst habits,” Cleaver said. “You never tell someone what the voter file says because the voter files are unreliable, and they’re usually out of date.”
Reached by email, founder of Movement Labs Yoni Landau he said the SMS campaigns target “underrepresented groups of voters, young people, migrants, low-income households and the like, who are not registered in our database, with the aim of helping them register to vote.”
Landau said that filling out the form on Votewin.org simply checks if the visitor is registered to vote in their state, and tries to help them register if not.
“We understand that many people are confused by the messages – we tested hundreds of different messages and found that this one had a big impact on whether someone would sign up,” he said. “I am very sorry for anyone who may have received the message in error, who is registered to vote, and we are looking at our content now to see if there are any variations that may not be as proven but still effective in production. a new legal registration.”
Cleaver said Movement Labs’ SMS campaign may have been ineffective, but it wasn’t cruel.
“If you’re working to mobilize voters, it’s not enough to want to do good, you actually need to be good,” he said. “At the end of the day the end result of incompetence and corruption is the same: increased chaos, reduced voter turnout, and long-term damage to our democracy.”
Source link