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If you live in the United States, I’m sure you’ve received a hefty number of election messages, calls, and annoying postcards delivered to your mailing address. A decent amount of these messages and calls are straight-up scams.
The Rise of Election Scams
We’re living in the digital age, a golden era for criminals. They lurk in the shadows, carefully crafting their next exploit. There’s no shortage of exploits; new ones arise daily, coming from every corner of the world, looking for their next target. With every election cycle, the scams become more persistent. Criminals have four years to plot out the next round ofphishing, smishing, and vishing scams, sharpening and honing their approach during the cycle. Unfortunately, the scams only improve,
Election scams are far from a new invention; the oldest instance I found dates back to 63 BCE during the Roman Republic (known asThe Catilinarian Conspiracy). However, they have become craftier thanks to our digital devices and access to information. For example, with both presidential candidates discussing cryptocurrency, it’s no wonder we’ve seen a surge in crypto-related scams.
Ellipticfound one scam site emblazoned with a huge banner featuring Donald Trump and the tagline “TRUMP BIGGEST CRYPTO GIVEAWAY OF $100,000,000”. It’s obviously fake, using the classic “crypto doubling” giveaway scam (you pay one, you get two at the end) to trick victims. Oh, and a healthy smattering of Elon Musk to further entice would-be users.
Scammers also use deepfake videos to make it appear as if a presidential candidate is talking about a specific topic (often crypto!), or the likeness of other leading figures are manipulated to give support. Both Trump and Harris have been targeted with deepfake video and audio designed to trick voters, but this has also covered Elon Musk, world leaders, and other prominent figures.
So, while tried-and-tested scams like phishing emails are still very much in play, scammers have understandably evolved into using the latest and greatest tech to fleece voters from both sides of the aisle.
How to Recognize Scams Targeting Voters
While scammers target voters with sharpened tactics—exploiting emotions and devising ways to manipulate us—there are methods we can arm ourselves with to recognize and avoid these election scams altogether.
I say this with reluctance, but scammers are clever. They may pose as official political campaigns, asking for urgent donations or other personal identifying information. You may have received emails with links to websites appearing legitimate, asking for donations, or perhaps to join a mailing list. Unfortunately, it’s not difficult to set something up like this. A skilled and motivated criminal can configure aphishing campaignwithin a few hours.
Scam Messages and Phone Calls
If your inbox is slammed with text messages from random phone numbers like mine, you may have noticed the odd-looking links they contain.
They’ll lead you to a phishing site, where you will be prompted to make donations and asked for your personal information. It’s best to just ignore them altogether (don’t even text STOP) and not click the links. Likewise, if you get a call from a random number and decide to answer it, you may be greeted by a political party representative. If you happen to stay on the call for a while, you’ll eventually get the question: “Would you like to donate to the party?”
Well, there’s no way of knowing who is actually on the other end of that phone. It could beanyone.Perhaps it’s part of asocial engineering scamdesigned to target voters, where scammers pretend to be people they aren’t and direct you tolegitimate-looking websites.Open Secrets reportson scam PACs designed to do exactly this, claiming to be raising funds for a candidate but,in reality, pocketing the cash.
Now, it can be extremely difficult to spot a scammer on a phone call, so in this case, just keep this rule in mind: Never, ever give your debit or credit card number to someone who calls you over the phone. For websites, check the domain name and search online to see if you’re able to find any other information about the website. If it doesn’t appear in search engine results, it’s most likely a scam site. If someone pressures you to pay, just put the phone down.
If you were going to make the donation regardless, you may make it in half an hour or the next morning after you’ve ascertained and verified that it’s from the correct bank account.
How to Protect Yourself and Spot Scams During Election Season
No matter your party affiliation, you’ll receive a lot of communication before election day, ramping up during the final push. Most messages you receive will seem completely random, but that’s not entirely the case. Your political information is stored in a database (in fact, it’s public information), and political campaigns and third-party organizations access this information to maximize their outreach efforts.
However, scammers lurk within legitimate communications, attempting to exploit us. In most cases:
Another consideration is fake donation sites.Hyas reportson phishing websites designed to mimic the official Democrat and Republican donation sites. These sites look exactly the same, but register a slightly different website URL, in apractice known as typosquatting. If everything looks above board and you don’t scrutinize the URL, you’ll pay money without issue.
The image below shows a website mimicking the official Democrat donation site, but the URL is ever so slightly different (actblue vs. actsblue—note the extra “s” in the fake URL).Palo Alto Networks also notedan enormous surge in newly registered domains with election-related URLs, such as kamala6900[.]site and trump2024eth[.]VIP, all being used for “cryptocurrency scams, donation-themed phishing, and fake shopping sites.”
Another consideration is how the donation is made. While most political parties accept cash in any form, there are official accounts that money should be paid to. If the payment information provided seems random or doesn’t match what you’re expecting, don’t make the payment. As said, if you’re happy to donate, just take a minute and verify the payment information; the donation will still be good in a couple of hours, and you’ll know it’s gone to the correct recipient.
