Tens of thousands of so-called election deniers are involved in conversations on Telegram about preventing what they say will be widespread fraud in the Nov. 5 election.
Conspiracy theorists who believe Donald Trump won the 2020 U.S. election are making plans online to monitor and film polling places in U.S. swing states, an effort that civil rights groups say risks suppressing voter turnout.
Participants in the Telegram discussions say they’re seeking to prevent what they describe as a well-financed global plot to use phony ballots to alter the election result, according to the documents. There’s no independently verifiable evidence of any conspiracy to alter the outcome as discussed in the chats, and many of these Telegram communities circulated debunked claims that Trump won in 2020.
A key tactic for voter suppression groups is to broadcast their intent to be on watch for any fraud, sending the implicit message that aggressive monitors could be at a ballot box even when they’re not, Whaley said. Assertive poll watchers can harass legitimate voters, she said. That activist groups are declaring their intention to stand outside election locations and livestream footage also threatens to spook volunteer poll workers, Whaley added.
Voting rights groups such as the nonpartisan League of Women Voters have tried persuading courts to stop activist groups from congregating near ballot boxes. The Justice Department during the 2022 midterm elections warned that demonstrators who monitor ballot boxes could be engaging in voter intimidation that’s not protected by the First Amendment.
The messages contained in the DDoSecrets files are part of a nearly 200-gigabyte trove of videos, screenshots and chat transcripts focused on election interference. The group says it obtained the database from an unidentified source who spent two years undercover among U.S. militia groups, then used that access to leak details to media outlets including ProPublica.Voters drowning in ads from ‘obscene’ amounts of cash flooding Montana U.S.
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