Election deniers use Telegram to rally poll watchers in swing states

Jeff Stone | (TNS) Bloomberg News

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.

Organizers in Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin and elsewhere have created communities on the messaging app Telegram to coordinate observation of voting locations and ballot boxes, according to a trove of documents released by the pro-transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets.

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, according to the documents and social media conversations seen by Bloomberg News. Participants are asked to volunteer to watch polls during specific hours, take note of what they deem as suspicious activity and share video footage with local law enforcement agencies.

Demands for poll watchers in closely contested states trace their roots to the 2020 U.S. election, when Trump and his allies falsely asserted that widespread fraud robbed him of victory and delivered the presidency to Joe Biden. Trump has sustained those bogus claims since then, fueling efforts by his followers to organize poll-observation this year in his contest against Vice President Kamala Harris.

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.

Telegram’s press office didn’t respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency declined to comment. The Trump campaign referred queries to the Republican National Committee, which said that the RNC’s own election poll-watcher programs work independently. Trump’s team has recruited more than 230,000 poll watchers, poll workers and legal experts for this election, the RNC said.

In a statement, the Harris campaign said it’s planning to send its own observers to voting locations, and tens of thousands of volunteers have offered to help. The campaign also has a team of lawyers on hand to answer questions and offer legal advice when necessary, a spokesperson said.

Election monitoring has long been conducted around the world by independent groups including the United Nations to ensure that voting proceeds fairly and transparently, with disenfranchised groups able to exercise their right to vote. Yet poll watching by activists risks crossing the line into voter suppression, according to Carah Ong Whaley, director of election protection at Issue One, a nonpartisan think tank focused on electoral policy.

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.

“This constant flood of false information has people whipped up into a frenzy,” she said. “It’s absolutely intimidation for election workers who are there to help and serve their communities.”

Ballot dropboxes, which are legal in 27 states and Washington, DC, have long been the focus of unsubstantiated claims that mysterious visitors stuff them at night with falsified votes. Hundreds of ballots have been destroyed in recent days after unknown attackers set fire to dropboxes in Washington state and Oregon.

Conspiracy theorists asserted that Democrats relied on ballot stuffing to win swing states in 2020. A film called 2,000 Mules propagated the narrative, finding a large audience, despite being debunked by Arizona law enforcement officials and state investigators in Georgia. The conservative media company behind 2,000 Mules ultimately apologized and ceased distribution of the film.

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.

Americans who experience harassment should document information about poll watchers and report it to local police and voting-rights groups, which often solicit complaints on their websites, said Caren Short, director of legal and research at the League of Women Voters. Her organization is preparing to file lawsuits to ensure that people can vote in the face of potential intimidation.

The organizing on Telegram comes as the Russia-founded social-media platform faces growing global scrutiny. White supremacist groups and suspected foreign operatives in August used Telegram to spread disinformation about the murder of three schoolgirls in the U.K., helping stoke violent anti-immigrant riots.

Telegram has long been accused of enabling terrorists, extremists, hackers and foreign governments to spread propaganda and recruiting materials, as well as coordinate physical attacks. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Pavel Durov is facing prosecution in France for allegedly failing to respond to law enforcement requests for user data.

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.

Plans discussed in the Telegram chats include sitting outside dropboxes in Maricopa and Yuma counties in Arizona. In one conversation in a channel called “Tailgate Parties,” members call for allies to stand watch at locations in Michigan. “We will stand together as the amazing patriots we are to keep our great country from being stolen again,” one member wrote.

Instructional materials circulating within some groups direct followers only to use their phones to record footage or call police. They also tell volunteers to send regular status reports to local organizers. Additional guidance urges participants not to station themselves too closely to sensitive areas, to avoid violating rules intended to protect voters.

Some of the messages are from the American Patriots Three Percent militia, or APIII, which researchers describe as a violent anti-government group. In one video, an APIII representative announces that the group accepted the resignation of one member who appeared at a North Carolina voting location wearing his militia costume, violating an order to remain discreet.

Other groups also are posting on X for followers willing to appear at voting locations and livestream their observations in real-time to a website dedicated specifically for that purpose.

“This is a national trend we’re seeing based on this false idea about voter fraud,” said Short, of the League of Women Voters. “But the law protects voters from any type of intimidation or harassment. And if a voter feels intimidated, that’s intimidation. It’s all it takes.”

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