Over the last couple of weeks, registered Democratic voters in Florida and Alaska (and Hawaii from what I’ve heard) have been receiving pressuring emails to “Vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you!” These threatening messages are currently to be believed as coming from Iran and Russia. Those who have received these messages turned them over to the FBI for investigation.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was created in 1908 when Attorney General Joseph Bonaparte issued an order to create an investigative agency in the Department of Justice. It was confirmed in 1909 by Attorney General George W. Wickersham who established the agency. The FBI was officially designated by Congress in 1935. When it comes to election-related threats, the agency is very serious to look into the issue. The emails were sent from the address, “info@officialproudboys.com” in a way to pin Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group that supports Trump. A member of the group said that it would not have been their group as they would not be so sloppy to get their agenda across. In Brevard County in Florida, Sheriff Wayne Ivey indicated that at least some of the emails are coming outside of the United States. University of Florida looked into the situation after 183 people associated with the university received similar emails. UF’s spokesperson Steve Orlando determined that the email to look like it came from Proud Boys was likely fake. Florida’s department of State is aware of the emails but there was no breach to Florida’s Voter Registration database. Roughly 3,000 calls have been made since last Tuesday from Florida and Alaska, and Kristen Clarke, the president and executive director of Proud Boys, said similar emails have gone out to states such as Pennsylvania and Arizona, but nowhere near as many as Florida.
What do you think about this? Could Trump or Proud Boys have anything to do with this? Or does Iran and Russia just want to blow up the media bubble? And most importantly: Will this have any effect on the election?
Links:
https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/10/21/feds-point-to-iran-russia-for-emails-urging-floridians-to-vote-trump-1328913
https://www.justice.gov/jmd/organization-mission-and-functions-manual-federal-bureau-investigation#:~:text=The%20mission%20of%20the%20FBI,agencies%20and%20partners%3B%20and%20to
It is not surprising to hear about interference in the election. To an extent, it was anticipated. A few days ago when I was viewing the news, one of the anchors warned about influences from foreign countries in the extended period of getting ballots counted. If Trump did have something to do with the pressuring emails, it would be quite ironic considering his insistence on bringing attention to other influences on the election. While I know there are surely steps being taken to prevent outside interference in the election, I feel like there should be further precautions to prevent instances like these. -Kirstyn
ReplyDeleteThere are always interference's, but I believe that we need to wonder if this had any actual impact on the election. I do also agree that we need to make better ways to prevent interference in elections. There is also not much that you can do in since we live in such a technoically advanced society and it is fairly easy to hack or send threatening emails in this case. Honestly, I believed that there would be more interference since there was rumor of so much last election. Hopefully, we can improve from here.
ReplyDelete-Brooke