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Officials across the country warned Tuesday that suspicious robocalls and text messages were targeting voters with Election Day misinformation, according to reports.
Nebraska Secretary of State Robert Evnen said his office had “received reports of anonymous phone calls to voters telling voters to ‘stay home and stay safe,'” and told residents of the Cornhusker State to ignore them.
“Our polling places across the state are open. Our voters and our poll workers will be kept safe,” he tweeted.
“Elections matter and your vote counts.”
The Iowa Secretary of State’s Office contacted the FBI about similar calls urging Iowans to “stay home, stay safe and don’t vote,” according to the Des Moines Register.
The bureau would neither confirm nor deny it was investigating, the Register said.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said her office had issued subpoenas to investigate the source of the robocalls.
“Attempts to hinder voters from exercising their right to cast their ballots are disheartening, disturbing, and wrong,” James said in a statement.
“What’s more is that it is illegal, and it will not be tolerated.”
The calls appeared to be among what the Washington Post said were an estimated 10 million placed by an unidentified robocaller during the past several weeks.
The calls began over the summer before intensifying last month and are believed to have reached nearly every zip code in the US, the Post said.
During the message, a computerized female voice says it’s delivering a “test call” before repeatedly instructing people not to go out, the Post said.
Meanwhile, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel tweeted a warning to voters in Dearborn that said, “DISREGARD TEXT MESSAGES FALSELY ADVISING YOU OF BALLOT SENSOR ERRORS.”
“IT’S A TRICK! DO NOT FALL FOR IT,” she added.
Michigan Attorney General Dana NesselDavid Eggert/APThe text messages claim that because of a “typographical error,” people who are “intending on voting for Joe Biden” should instead cast ballots for President Trump, and vice versa, the Post said.
Similar reports emerged Monday about Florida, according to CNN, which said the subject came up during a background call between reporters and officials at the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency.
A senior CISA official said that “those sorts of things happen every year,” CNN reported.
Additional reporting by Priscilla DeGregory



