State Board of Elections warn of texts helping voters register but steal personal information

BALTIMORE -- The Maryland State Board of Elections is telling voters to be on alert for reported cases of texting scams.

Fortunately, no one's fallen victim yet, and the SBE wants to keep it that way. There have been a handful of reports in Baltimore County, according to the SBE.  

How the scam works

The scam claims to help you register to vote but instead, it tries to steal your personal information. SBE said this is something they've noticed nationally.

The Maryland State Board of Elections said this is what's been texted to several voters: "URGENT: To vote in the upcoming election, you MUST be registered, but public records show you're not registered at [voter address]. Click the link to register before the deadline: md-voter.link/4VczM"

Learning from prior scams

Lisa Hartmann said she was a victim in the past when she thought she was talking to someone from BGE.

"That was like a year ago. I called and I got ahold of someone, they said, 'Oh, send your payment to this link,'" Hartmann said. "It was a scam, but I didn't know it."

Hartmann became hypervigilant about scams, so to learn about this texting scam, she said, "I just wouldn't touch it."

"Just the tip of the iceberg"

Jared DeMarinis, SBE State Administrator of Elections, said that even though there's only a handful of Marylanders that's been texted so far, more is inevitable.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg with these things here," DeMarinis said.

SBE text messages

DeMarinis said SBE would never ask for personal info via text. Official SBE text messages are sent from 833-572-1128 and links in those messages would be for ".gov" websites.

With less than 60 days to Election Day, DeMarinis said the amount of scams -- text, email, phone calls -- are going to skyrocket.

Report the scams

DeMarinis said whoever is on the receiving end of the texting scams need to report it.

"Some of these things are innocuous to voter suppression tactics here," DeMarinis said. "We'll make sure we'll investigate and review those things and send it to the proper law enforcement if necessary."

Katrina Washington, like Hartmann, said it's all about being alert and in the know about recent scams.

SBE has an online form to report scams and election disinformation, you can find that here.

You can also check your voter registration and other important dates on that website.