In a since-deleted VoteAlert put up reviewed by WIRED, a consumer wrote: “I’m most likely going to be fired for this however I used to be employed by the Riverside County Registrar of Voters as an Election Officer in Hemet, CA. Since I’m in cost at this polling middle, I’m asking for citizenship ID of anybody that appears suspiciously like they’re not right here legally.”
The put up went on to recommend that the Riverside County Sheriff’s Workplace wouldn’t intervene in her scheme. “It’s only a drop within the bucket however I’m going to do my half to cease election fraud,” she wrote. “Want me luck🙏”
WIRED traced the e-mail related to the put up to a California lady who describes herself as an individual who’s “FED UP with all of the bullsh*t,” in keeping with one app profile. “You’re solely getting the exhausting, smack-your-face TRUTH from me.”
The lady, whose identify WIRED is just not publishing as a result of it was revealed via a safety flaw, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
In a telephone name, Riverside County public data officer Elizabeth Florer confirmed that the county had employed an election employee matching WIRED’s findings, and dedicated to making sure all election legal guidelines are adopted, confirming that the county is investigating the incident. Florer added that further personnel have now been deployed to the Hemet polling middle to supply oversight and guarantee strict compliance with election legal guidelines.
True the Vote is maybe finest recognized for its position within the extensively debunked movie 2,000 Mules. The movie relied closely on the group’s analysis to allege that “poll mules” had been paid to fraudulently accumulate and ship ballots for Democratic candidates in key swing states in the course of the 2020 election. Nevertheless, an investigation by the Associated Press discovered that the movie was primarily based on flawed and improper evaluation of cellular phone location information. After a defamation lawsuit, the movie’s publishers, Salem Media Group, retracted the movie, removing it from its platforms, and stated there would not be any future distribution of the e-book. In addition they issued an apology to a voter falsely portrayed as illegally voting within the movie.
Undeterred, in 2022 True the Vote launched an online app referred to as IV3, which it claimed led to the problem of tons of of 1000’s of voter registrations. A WIRED analysis discovered that the app’s methodology was unreliable and liable to error, with specialists warning that IV3 weaponizes public information and is extra more likely to take away eligible voters from the rolls than to detect widespread fraud—an issue they observe is nearly nonexistent within the US.
In information obtained by the nonprofit group American Oversight and shared with WIRED, in Might 2024, a person with the username “Totes Legit Votes” apparently used IV3 to problem the eligibility of 5,000 folks in Florida.
True the Vote has struggled to supply courts with significant proof to substantiate its claims of widespread voter fraud.
In 2021, the group filed a criticism with Georgia’s secretary of state, alleging widespread unlawful poll stuffing in Atlanta in the course of the 2020 election and subsequent runoff. Nevertheless, when ordered by a choose to supply proof, True the Vote admitted it had no names or documentation to support its claims.
The next 12 months, court marshals arrested True the Vote founder Engelbrecht and board member Gregg Phillips after they defied a court docket order to supply proof in a defamation case introduced by the software program firm Konnech. The lawsuit accused True the Vote of falsely claiming that Konnech saved US election staff’ private data on an unsecured server in China.
