Raleigh, North Carolina (WNCN) – With less than a week to go until Election Day here in North Carolina, the State Elections Commission has warned voters that they are not receiving emails or emails that may contain inaccurate or deliberate misinformation. We are alerting you to text messages.
On Friday, consumer researcher Steve Sbracha told you How Scammers Are Trying to Use Text Messages They Think Are Political Campaigns Trick you into giving up money or your personal information.
The state board of elections is now warning voters about mass emails and text messages about early voting before November 8.
With just days to go until the polls close in this midterm election, voters are concerned that state commissions have said there is a lot of “noise” being generated by all sorts of groups.
“We hear from many voters about various emails being sent, text messages stating that their voting history for the last election was inaccurate, and even text messages saying they hadn’t voted yet,” Karen Brinson said. Bell said. Executive Director of State Election Commission.
Subracha was one of those who received a text saying he hadn’t voted yet, even though he voted a few days ago.
The text is from a Tennessee area code and claims to have used “public records,” but I’m not sure since when.
“Depending on when they got the information, it could be outdated,” Bell said. “Vendor information may not even be associated with voter records. If you start mixing data, errors can occur.”
As of Monday, the state board of elections revealed that about 1.2 million people had voted absentee or in person.
“North Carolina is a very competitive state, so we see a lot of activity from campaigns and advocacy groups,” Bell said. “The ‘noise’ has become part of our election, part of it is misinformation and disinformation.”
The State Election Commission is also trying to counteract some of that noise with its own ads on social media, providing accurate early voting information to every county.
If you received a text saying you didn’t vote, you can check to see if your vote was recorded with the state board of elections website Under the voter search tab.
“We are the ones who can tell you directly what your voting history is,” Bell said.
Is there one unanswered question in all of this? Will the solicitations, text messages, and mailings, in turn, get more people to vote, or do they actually make people feel bad and less willing to vote? Is not it?
“I’ll leave that to political scientists to study,” Bell said.
