The GOP used fake text messages and emails to send Dem voters out to vote today (i.e., Wednesday, Nov. 5).
This happened not only in Florida and Mexico, and at George Mason University in Washington, DC, as the Salon article below points out. It also happened in New York, via Texas. What happened is that such an email, sent from Texas, ended up getting forwarded to the cell phone of Jamie Kilstein here in NYC. Jamie looked into it, and learned that the message had been sent out by a Marine named Lupe, and that the Obama campaign was looking into it. (Thanks to Jamie for telling me about it.) Even though Obama won last night, we can't let this stuff go. It is a criminal attack on our democracy--and so it must all be exposed, and duly prosecuted. MCM 2008.11.05 * 08:05 EST Fake text messages give false voting information http://machinist.salon.com/?last_updated=/tech/machinist/blog/2008/11/05/farewell This election has been full of superlatives and firsts. I've never been prouder to be an American abroad than right now. The historic rise of this unlikely candidate, in the unlikely story that is America, fueled by this unlikely swelling of the online masses donating in unprecedented numbers, is nothing short of historic and astonishing. But there were also a few troubling episodes on the technological front, with text messages and e-mails being used as a way to perpetuate false information. Wired reported late last night that voters in Florida and New Mexico received a fake text message from 505-507-6041 that says things like: "Due to long lines if you are voting for Barack Obama you can vote tomorrow," or "Due to the long lines today, all Obama voters are asked to vote on Wednesday." The AP adds that there have been reports of similar "robo-calls" and fake texts in Missouri and that the Missouri secretary of state and U.S. Attorney's Office have been notified. I'm glad that this wasn't widespread enough to have made a difference, but it's still a troubling development. But that's not all. Thousands of students at George Mason University received an e-mail spoofed to look like it was from Provost Peter N. Stearns saying that "election day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you." Apparently the FBI is on the case. And finally, while the outcome of the election was by a pretty overwhelming margin, there were still problems with electronic voting in numerous states, although not enough to have any sort of real impact. Still, we as a country really need to have a single standard for federal elections, get rid of these awful e-voting machines, and streamline this whole process so we don't have to deal with this kind of crap anymore. On a more personal and professional note, I share with you the news that this is my last post in Machinist, which is going on hiatus beginning tomorrow. I thank all of you for reading and for your thoughtful and critical comments. If you'd like to follow me and/or any of my other work on public radio or elsewhere, you can do so on my blog: cyrusfarivar.com (where I'll be announcing the result of our little trial voter-verified election), and/or you can email me at cfarivar [at] cfarivar [dot] org. Cheers! --Cyrus Farivar --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" newsgroup. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR go to http://groups.google.com/group/newsfromunderground and click on the "Unsubscribe or change membership" link in the yellow bar at the top of the page, then click the "Unsubscribe" button on the next page. For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
