Anonymous calls told people to stay home
Mysterious robocalls telling people to “stay safe and stay home” were made to 2.7m voters in critical swing states on election day, sparking concerns that they have impacted turnout.
An estimated 8.7m Americans in total may have received a call in which a female voice says: “Hello this is just a test call time to stay home, stay safe and stay home”, according to RoboKiller, an app that blocks automated calls.
Politicians across the country warned people to ignore the calls and get out to vote on Tuesday.
The FBI and the New York Attorney General Letitia James have opened separate investigations into their origins. Both are trying to work out if the campaign was a bold attempt at last minute voter suppression.
Guilia Porter, vice president at RoboKiller, which collected the call figures, said that she was not convinced they were the work of a sophisticated election meddler, but feared they may have had an impact on the vote regardless.
She said: “I think a lot of people were spooked by these calls as the timing is really eerie".
The service had previously estimated that 800,000 of the robocalls were made to voters in six swing states — Texas, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania — on Tuesday morning alone
The increase in calls, which first began appearing in the US back in December 2019, could be down to the robocallers noticing a spike in people engaging with the calls and news stories discussing them.
“It is possible that this was designed to prospect and see which phone numbers were active and interacting to create a list for the future,” Mrs Porter said.
did anyone else get that creepy robocall saying "time to stay home. be safe and stay home."????
— reb (@nenigirlb) November 3, 2020
Did anybody else get a creepy stay safe stay home robocall???? No just me? ok
— Alexis ♡ (@lexmonique) November 3, 2020
It is near impossible to track criminals who use a “spoofing” technique to send malicious spam calls. Elaborate campaigns can involve call centres, but often they can be conducted by individuals with a laptop.
Criminals often use anonymous phone calls to target vulnerable elderly people by convincing them to either share personal and financial information or convince them to buy fake financial products.
Officials in Michigan were investigating a separate robocall incident on Tuesday where residents in the largely black city of Flint were told to go and vote “tomorrow”.
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