By Judith Martin-Straw, Culver City Crossroads

If you get a text or an email from “Fix California” don’t answer. It’s a Republican ‘voter integrity’ scam to ‘secure our elections.’

While the scam tells you there’s a problem with your voter registration and sends you to an actual government site, getting you to re-register may allow them to tag you as a double ballot, creating a problem where there was none, and invalidating your vote.

“Fix California” is an organization founded by Ric Grenell, who was the Acting Director of National Intelligence in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet from February of 2020. While the website offers platitudes about advancing conservative ideas, when they text you to say there’s a problem with your voter registration, it’s a lie.

All of this is misinformation to feed the false idea that our elections are not fair, legal, and secure. Even here in blue-as-the-ocean California, Republicans are spending money to try and disenfranchise voters with scare tactics.

It’s not new; they were at this prior to the last election.

A news site called California Globe posted in September of 2021 “They (Fix California) have been cross-checking voter data with the California Secretary of State, Department of Motor Vehicles, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Postal Service’s National Change of Address database, California Attorney General, any California Superior Court, the County Health Systems, county and city district attorneys’ offices, and county and city election departments… And that’s Grenell’s concern: “Through our work on the data front, we are identifying key areas where there appears to be high concentrations of inaccurate or poorly maintained voter rolls.”

How Culver City landed on the list of “poorly maintained voter rolls” is an unanswered question, and what standard is being considered for “poorly maintained” is also not defined.

While the vigilante voter registration scam is part of a broad Republican push to create problems that don’t exist, the high level of citizen concern may lead people to inadvertently taint their own registration.

Best advice – delete and report as spam or junk.

The last day to register to vote in California is October 22, 2024.

This article originally appeared in Culver City Crossroads

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