Rip-off textual content hit voters smartphones. What to look out for forward of Nov. 4

This week voters throughout California obtained a suspicious textual content message saying they’d failed to show of their ballots for the Nov. 4 statewide particular election on redistricting.

The message could seem official. It consists of the voter’s title and tackle and hyperlinks to an official web site offering data on early voting and vote-by-mall poll drop-off areas.

But it surely’s not from the state, and officers urge warning.

The workplace of the California secretary of state obtained quite a few stories from voters of “inaccurate textual content messages from Poll Now,” in line with a information launch.

“This has brought about voters to imagine their returned ballots haven’t been obtained or processed by county elections officers,” Shirley Weber, secretary of state, acknowledged within the launch. “Let me be clear: Poll Now is just not in any approach affiliated with the California Workplace of the Secretary of State.”

Weber’s workplace instructed The Occasions it doesn’t know the intent behind the Poll Now textual content messages, and “we try to unravel it.”

Poll Now didn’t reply to The Occasions’ request for remark.

The place voters can get reliable solutions to their elections questions

Voters can discover correct data on elections and voting on the state secretary’s web site or at their county election workplace. The secretary’s web site consists of the entire listing of county election workplaces.

Questions that the secretary of state’s web site can help with embody:

How do I test my voter standing? By coming into some private data, you’ll be able to see in case you are registered to vote, the place you’re registered, and test that your political occasion and language choice are right on the web site’s voter standing web page.

How do I monitor my poll? You possibly can signal as much as monitor your poll via the state’s on-line web site Ballottrax.

• By signing up on Ballottrax, voters obtain automated updates when their county elections workplace: mails their poll to them, receives their poll, counts their poll, or when the workplace has any points with the poll.
• Updates can be found in 10 languages — together with Spanish, Japanese and Tagalog — and you’ll select to be texted, emailed or known as with voice alert updates.

The place can I return my poll? Los Angeles County residents can search for official vote-by-mail poll drop-box areas or voter facilities on the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk web site.

Learn how to report one thing fishy

When you imagine you’re the sufferer of election fraud or have witnessed a violation of the California Elections Code, you’ll be able to submit a grievance kind or name the secretary of state’s workplace.

Fill out an on-line kind, obtain a PDF model of the shape and mail it, or name the workplace — English audio system can name (916) 657-2166 or (800) 345-8683; Spanish audio system can name (800) 232-8682.

The bodily kind will be mailed to the California Secretary of State Elections Division at 1500 eleventh St., fifth Ground, Sacramento, CA 95814 or faxed to (916) 653-3214.

Los Angeles County residents are inspired to name the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s name heart with any questions or considerations they’ve, stated Mike Sanchez, spokesperson for the workplace.

The registrar of voters will be reached at (800) 815-2666, and the quantity for voter heart data is (800) 815-2666; select possibility No. 1.