Text glitch directs thousands of people to wrong polling stations
When you're trying to get out the vote for your party, it's best to make sure your voters know where to cast their ballots.
So, don't do what the Indiana Democratic Party did.
Several voters in Indiana received text messages on Monday that directed them to incorrect polling stations, apparently caused by a glitch in an Indiana Democratic Party attempt to get out the vote.
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“The Indiana Democratic Party experienced a data-match error in our get-out-the-vote text message program to Democratic voters," state party communications director Drew Anderson said in a statement to The Indianapolis Star.
The party texted potential democratic voters based on information found in voter registration documents, and told the newspaper that the mistake likely effected around than 2,000 potential voters.
"We are correcting the error now with a new message directing the voters impacted to www.indianavoters.com so that they are able to confirm their polling location," Anderson added.
Anderson hasn't responded to a request for comment, though a spokesperson at the office of Indiana's secretary of state confirmed the existence of the errant texts to Mashable.
These texts may have been an honest mistake, but a few Twitter users are trying something more malicious.
Trump supporters have spread fake online ads directed at Clinton voters that encourage them to text in their vote, which is not a thing. You cannot text your vote, no matter who you support. Don't do this.
Some of the fake ads, a few of which look as though they come straight from the Clinton campaign, ask voters to text "Hillary" to 59925.
As soon as you do, you get a message that makes it clear voters cannot text their ballots for Clinton.
Several of the offending tweets appear to have been removed last week after Twitter user @mcnees notified the company about the deception, but others have continued to pop up.
On Sunday, the company sent a tweet to help users find their polling stations that seemed to include a nod to the spread of misinformation in their platform: "you cannot vote via text or Tweet."
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Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.
