I’ve gotten the following text 3 Mondays in a row from 3 different phone numbers (826- area code, N. VA and DC).
“Hi [my first name], our records show someone in your house may have voted in the primary but you STILL haven’t. Tomorrow is your last chance to vote! stop=end”
The only other person in my house is my wife who is not a US citizen
The primaries for where I live (CA) and for where my area code is (WA) were both in March.
The last primary anywhere in the US was in June.
So who is sending these and what happens if I text back “stop”?
I do just block and junk them. There’s no way I am replying. But they use multiple phone numbers to text from. I’m just curious about what the sender is trying to achieve.
You can’t if they use a different number every time. I mean block them, of course, by all means, but apart from that, just ignore them. They will stop eventually.
Still weird. And no, I don’t know what the purpose of this scam is.
I got several similar ones in the days before the primary. I had voted already and had received the usual confirmation that my ballot had been received, signature verified, and counted. I just deleted and reported as spam.
The only thing I can think is that they want me to show up on Election Day thinking that my mail-in ballot was lost and try to vote, then somehow use that attempt to discredit mail-in voting (“See? Attempted voter fraud!”).
I get a lot of political spam texts. I always block them, of course, but they keep coming. I always assumed that their first goal is to confirm that they have a live one, i.e. someone who will take the trouble to answer, even if only to text “stop.” They might have bought your cell number cheap, and once they have you as a live one, maybe they can sell it on for more money to the really serious scammers.
What’s seemed odd to me is that 95% of the political scam messages are pro-Democrat, formerly Biden and now Harris. Maybe it’s a good gamble for them because I live in deep blue. Anyway, as far as I can see, there is nothing you can do about these things except to block them and NEVER answer.
I don’t think this is a scam. This looks very much like the postcards that we are mailing off to registered Democratic voters to remind them to vote. It looks like they were just sloppy.
The primaries for where I live (CA) and for where my area code is (WA) were both in March.
Washington State office voting is tomorrow. New governor, new attorney general, etc.
Our Presidential primary in CT was on April 2; however, our primaries for state offices are next week with early voting starting today so you might have more than one primary where you live.
Since this is FQ, I’m not sure there is a FQ answer, although I have several IMHO or Pit answers. Since you have titled it as a Scam (and I think it very possible as your are the only voter in your household) you probably have your own suspicions.
But here are my IMHO thoughts.
Not a Scam:
Generic Democratic mass contact effort, they do have confirmation of the vote from your House Hold (you) but not matching your name for reasons.
Generic Democratic mass contact effort, they know your HH voted (D) in the past, and don’t do any matching with already registered votes.
Is a Scam
Mass scam mailer to see if they have a live line.
Targeted Scam - they have your name and phone #, if you contact them, they’ll ask for additional information to “verify” your residence, DOB, and anything else they can get. Then they own you.
Personally, as others say, I’d report and junk, you’ve voted, no need to take any risks.
If you confirm it is a scam, please mention it in the Pit Omnibus Scam thread so we can add it to our records!
Thanks! That’s the closest thing to a plausible legit explanation so far. I last voted in Washington State back in 2010; maybe I am still on the rolls as well as somebody currently living in my old house. That doesn’t explain why they stated tomorrow is my last chance to vote three Mondays in a row. I’d also expect the phone numbers used would be from Washington State; not DC.
We get our lists of addresses to send postcards from some main clearinghouse somewhere, and then we send them out to various states. I sent to people in Ohio a couple weeks ago while the person next to me had names from Pennsylvania. It’s incredibly labor-intensive to write individual postcards. Probably the automated text messages are a lot more expeditious, but have a lot of glitches still.
