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Tag: elections

  • On the Bus With the RFK Jr. Bros

    On the Bus With the RFK Jr. Bros

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    Kemper was at the front of the bus multitasking, skillfully maneuvering his gigantic vehicle through throngs of people and narrow alleyways. In his spare moments, he hurled Kennedy reading material to people along the sidewalks, part of their “guerrilla marketing” strategy.

    While Kemper and Nichols became fast friends, it wasn’t until a few months ago that Nichols hopped on the bus. It was Kennedy’s livestreamed response to the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump that secured his support. “That’s when I saw a path forward—a long shot, but a path forward.”

    “You respond to the hate with some good vibes … we maintain the good vibes … and lead with it,” Nichols says. “The plan is to increase awareness.”

    As the bus pulled up to a park just two blocks from the United Center, where thousands gathered to protest Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza, Nichols shared his approach. “You always start by finding common ground,” he explained simply. The moment the bus stopped, a swarm of about two dozen reporters and protesters rushed toward them, cameras at the ready.

    Kemper quickly changed the song on the speaker to Jackie DeShannon’s “What The World Needs Now Is Love.” “What are you doing?” a protester asked antagonistically. “We’re having interactions,” Nichols replied calmly. This is the strategy: Counter negativity with smiles and good vibes.

    Remarkably, it seems to be working. What was initially perceived by the protesters as something potentially antagonistic began to draw more curiosity the longer the bus lingered. People started asking for shirts and hats, with the bus now becoming a source of amusement and interest rather than anger.

    “The number one thing for me is that we learn how to talk and respect each other,” Nichols said as the bus pulled away. “I love you, even if you’re inclined to think I’m an imbecile with brain worms.”

    The good vibes were never enough to support Kennedy’s campaign. The following day, Kennedy stepped out of the race, endorsing former president Donald Trump. To most, this was the end of Kennedy’s presidential ambitions. To the bus boys, it was just the start.

    “Kyle and I are pretty fired up actually,” Nichols texted Dhruv after the announcement. “By staying on the ballot in all but battleground states Bobby maintains the option for a majority of otherwise politically homeless Americans to vote against the uniparty disaster without worrying about spoiling their ‘lesser evil’ preference while leaving room for an 11th-hour groundswell. I can work with that.”

    Dhruv Mehrotra cowrote this report.

    The Chatroom

    I’m Vittoria Elliott, a reporter covering tech platforms and power on the politics desk. This week, I published a story about how astrologers online are talking—and making predictions—about the 2024 presidential election. Over the past few years, astrology has become increasingly popular, partly thanks to young people looking for a spiritual home outside of traditional organized religion. But one thing that definitely stuck out to me in reporting this piece was the role social media platforms have played.

    Astrology content tends to fall under the umbrella of spirituality or wellness, two categories that drive a lot of eyeballs. (Fitness influencers! Crystals! Smoothies! Energy work!) These topics aren’t overtly political—and many platforms don’t see them as such, which is largely to their benefit. Earlier this year, Meta announced that Threads and Instagram would not recommend political content.

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  • Crypto’s Shiny New Political Machine

    Crypto’s Shiny New Political Machine

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    Amongst the sea of American flags and ubiquitous blue signs at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week prowled Jonathan Padilla, the “crypto guy.”

    Wearing a baseball cap and conspicuous pineapple-print shirt, Padilla tramped the halls of the convention, talking crypto policy with anyone who would listen. In a selfie posted on Facebook, he posed with his arm around Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. “Senator Coons now knows about crypto,” reads the caption.

    Padilla is delighted with his new “crypto guy” moniker, assigned by fellow DNC delegates, which he sees as implicit recognition that cryptocurrency has arrived on the political agenda. “Four years ago, crypto was a nonissue and nobody talked about it,” says Padilla. “But now, you have President Trump talking about it at major conferences. And it’s being discussed by some of the highest-ranking Democrats.”

    Padilla is the founder of crypto marketing company Snickerdoodle Labs and was previously resident blockchain whisperer at PayPal. He is also one of the organizers of Crypto4Harris, a coalition of Democrat-supporting members of the crypto industry, whose aim is to encourage Kamala Harris to support crypto-specific legislation and demonstrate that the sector “is not monolithically Republican,” says Padilla.

    On August 14, Crypto4Harris hosted a virtual town hall attended by prominent Democrats, among them Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, who said he “believed in the future of crypto.” The group has also “made headway,” Padilla claims, with “finance and policy folks” inside the Harris camp.

    The group’s access to the Harris team reflects a sea change in the attitude toward crypto among US politicians, who seem to have accepted that there exists a bloc of voters who will cast their ballot based exclusively on which candidate will send their investments to the moon. (You know, forget immigration, health care, and the rest.) Not to mention the hefty donations crypto businesses are throwing around.

    Flush after an upswing in crypto prices in 2024, crypto firms have invested an “unprecedented” amount in influencing the outcome of the US election this year, an analysis by consumer advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen suggests. Despite their comparatively diminutive size from a revenue perspective—and the continued paucity of use cases outside of financial speculation—crypto businesses account for 48 percent of all corporate contributions this election cycle.

    The crypto industry put some money behind the 2020 race. But there is fresh urgency and forcefulness in its attempted intervention in the 2024 campaign. “The industry believes this election is existential,” says Veronica McGregor, chief legal officer at crypto wallet company Exodus, speaking in a personal capacity as an industry veteran. “No matter who gets into office, changes need to happen for our industry to thrive like it should.”

    The majority of political donations from the crypto industry are being fed through a trio of affiliated super political action committees (PACs): Fairshake, Protect Progress, and Defend American Jobs. These organizations cannot donate directly to political candidates, but they can spend freely to promote those that make the right sort of cooing sounds about crypto.

    Under the Biden administration, crypto companies have been roughed up and dragged into court by US financial regulators, which they view as deeply unfair. But through the super PACs, crypto firms are hoping to bring into power politicians who will support bespoke crypto legislation that ends the debate over how crypto should be classified and which regulator’s rules should apply.

    The largest of these super PACs, Fairshake, has raised more than $200 million—a greater sum than any other super PAC, crypto-specific or otherwise. Its major donors include crypto businesses Coinbase and Ripple, pro-crypto venture capital firm a16z, and an investment firm started by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of crypto exchange Gemini.

    The largest of the Fairshake donors, Coinbase, which has contributed $45 million to the pot, is the subject of a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission. Lodged jointly by Public Citizen and software developer Molly White, creator of Follow the Crypto, a project that traces crypto industry donations, the complaint alleges that Coinbase violated campaign finance laws by contributing to Fairshake while negotiating a deal to become a federal contractor.

    Coinbase declined an interview request, pointing instead to public comments made by Paul Grewal, its chief legal officer, disputing the characterization of the company as a federal contractor on the grounds that the service it provides is not technically funded by tax revenue. “To us, it looks like Coinbase is trying to find a loophole that doesn’t really exist,” says White.

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  • This Political Startup Wants to Help Progressives Win … With AI-Generated Ads

    This Political Startup Wants to Help Progressives Win … With AI-Generated Ads

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    I confess to Hutchinson that if I were a politician, I would be scared to use BattlegroundAI. Generative AI tools are known to “hallucinate,” a polite way of saying that they sometimes make things up out of whole cloth. (They bullshit, to use academic parlance.) I ask how she’s ensuring that the political content BattlegroundAI generates is accurate.

    “Nothing is automated,” she replies. Hutchinson notes that BattlegroundAI’s copy is a starting-off point, and that humans from campaigns are meant to review and approve it before it goes out. “You might not have a lot of time, or a huge team, but you’re definitely reviewing it.”

    Of course, there’s a rising movement opposing how AI companies train their products on art, writing, and other creative work without asking for permission. I ask Hutchinson what she’d say to people who might oppose how tools like ChatGPT are trained. “Those are incredibly valid concerns,” she says. “We need to talk to Congress. We need to talk to our elected officials.”

    I ask whether BattlegroundAI is looking at offering language models that train on only public domain or licensed data. “Always open to that,” she says. “We also need to give folks, especially those who are under time constraints, in resource-constrained environments, the best tools that are available to them, too. We want to have consistent results for users and high-quality information—so the more models that are available, I think the better for everybody.”

    And how would Hutchinson respond to people in the progressive movement—who generally align themselves with the labor movement—objecting to automating ad copywriting? “Obviously valid concerns,” she says. “Fears that come with the advent of any new technology—we’re afraid of the computer, of the light bulb.”

    Hutchinson lays out her stance: She doesn’t see this as a replacement for human labor so much as a way to reduce grunt work. “I worked in advertising for a very long time, and there’s so many elements of it that are repetitive, that are honestly draining of creativity,” she says. “AI takes away the boring elements.” She sees BattlegroundAI as a helpmeet for overstretched and underfunded teams.

    Taylor Coots, a Kentucky-based political strategist who recently began using the service, describes it as “very sophisticated,” and says it helps identify groups of target voters and ways to tailor messaging to reach them in a way that would otherwise be difficult for small campaigns. In battleground races in gerrymandered districts, where progressive candidates are major underdogs, budgets are tight. “We don’t have millions of dollars,” he says. “Any opportunities we have for efficiencies, we’re looking for those.”

    Will voters care if the writing in digital political ads they see is generated with the help of AI? “I’m not sure there is anything more unethical about having AI generate content than there is having unnamed staff or interns generate content,” says Peter Loge, an associate professor and program director at George Washington University who founded a project on ethics in political communication.

    “If one could mandate that all political writing done with the help of AI be disclosed, then logically you would have to mandate that all political writing”—such as emails, ads, and op-eds—“not done by the candidate be disclosed,” he adds.

    Still, Loge has concerns about what AI does to public trust on a macro level, and how it might impact the way people respond to political messaging going forward. “One risk of AI is less what the technology does, and more how people feel about what it does,” he says. “People have been faking images and making stuff up for as long as we’ve had politics. The recent attention on generative AI has increased peoples’ already incredibly high levels of cynicism and distrust. If everything can be fake, then maybe nothing is true.”

    Hutchinson, meanwhile, is focused on her company’s shorter-term impact. “We really want to help people now,” she says. “We’re trying to move as fast as we can.”

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  • The DNC Is Officially the Influencer Convention

    The DNC Is Officially the Influencer Convention

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    Yacht parties, free snacks, and multiple lounges: This is what the Democratic National Convention in Chicago looks like so far for the influencers and creators invited. For the first time ever, 200 creators have been credentialed to cover the convention as part of the Democrats’ attempt to reach young voters. But while they’re receiving the VIP treatment, credentialed journalists are struggling to find an outlet to plug in their laptops.

    As the DNC kicked off on Monday, security lines snaked for hours around the city blocks. Influencers, delegates, members of Congress, and journalists like CNN anchors Dana Bash and Wolf Blitzer were held up. Exiting and entering the convention was a chore, with creators and journalists waiting in hourlong lines to be screened by security. “Maybe this is a mistake,” Bash was heard saying about her choice to leave the event and return later.

    Inside the United Center, however, everything was different. The credentialed influencers have at least four different locations for filming. There’s a three-tiered platform on the convention floor where influencers and creators can sit that has a direct vantage point to the stage. They’re also allowed up in the galleries alongside the traditional writing press. On Monday, many influencers spent most of their time in one of the two creator-only lounges; inside the lounges, convention staff restocked buffet tables full of wine and free food like prime rib sandwiches.

    Before heading to the convention center, creators were invited to an exclusive yacht party. The bar onboard served “Midwest Margaritas” and the “I’m Speaking Spritz,” while the creators mingled with members of the Harris campaign and Governor Tim Walz’s wife, Gwen Walz.

    The creator amenities and floor access stand in stark contrast to what the DNC has made available to credentialed press outlets, despite journalists and creators having similar accreditation. There were 15,000 members of the media who were credentialed for the event, and while some larger outlets have trailers outside of the convention center, journalists have complained that they’ve received far less floor access and work space than other previous party conventions. Some had a difficult time finding anywhere to sit. In one of the press sections, there weren’t enough power strips for the journalists present.

    “We are concerned that the decision to reduce dedicated and accessible workspace by hundreds compared to prior conventions will hinder journalists’ ability to cover the historic nature of this convention,” the Standing Committee of Correspondents, an organization that represents journalists covering the party conventions, said in a statement to WIRED on Tuesday. “The Standing Committee of Correspondents urged the DNC to allocate significantly more workspace for print journalists attending this year’s convention in Chicago than they decided to provide.

    Influencers have become an integral part of campaign digital strategy on both sides of the aisle this cycle. On Monday, the New York Times reported that five creators are expected to speak at the convention this week. Some of these speakers are predominantly lifestyle influencers, while others create content advocating for specific issues like reproductive rights.

    “Bringing creators to our convention will multiply our reach and ensure that everyone can witness democracy in action,” said Cayana Mackey-Nance, director of digital strategy for the DNCC, in a statement earlier this month. “We’re confident that when the world turns to Chicago in August on their phones, tablets, or TVs, they’ll see exactly who Democrats are and the future that we’re fighting for.”



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  • The Right is Still Pushing Election Denial — and Pillows

    The Right is Still Pushing Election Denial — and Pillows

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    Leah Feiger: This is so good.

    David Gilbert: Then it took a bit of a darker turn, this conspiracy, unfortunately.

    Leah Feiger: Oh, no.

    David Gilbert: I hadn’t ever seen Gwen Walz before, but she does bear a bit of a resemblance to Hilary Clinton.

    Leah Feiger: Because she’s short and blond?

    Donie O’Sullivan: It’s the perm.

    David Gilbert: I guess.

    Leah Feiger: Guys.

    David Gilbert: In conspiracy world, that means that this is actually not Gwen Walz, that this is actually Hilary Clinton. And that she has killed the real Gwen Walz. This is her secret way of getting back into the White House. And that, ultimately, she’s going to kill everyone and take over as president.

    Leah Feiger: I love this theory. I love this theory. How can you not love this theory? This has everything.

    David Gilbert: It made me laugh.

    Leah Feiger: This has body-snatchers. Oh, this is a good one.

    David Gilbert: Yeah.

    Leah Feiger: That was really good, David.

    Donie O’Sullivan: I’m worried for David.

    Leah Feiger: This is what he sees on the internet, every single day. Sometimes he logs on and he’s like, “Did you see this?” I’m like, “Why? Why would I have seen this? In what universe?”

    Donie O’Sullivan: Well, I’m not going to talk about JD Vance and the couch.

    Leah Feiger: Yeah. Hit us with yours, Donie.

    Donie O’Sullivan: It’s not often you get to have an experience where you’re with the subject of conspiracy theories. But, I work with Anderson Cooper at CNN. He a Vanderbilt. There’s a whole Qanon world about him, et cetera. A lot of it is scary, and some of it’s just absurd and funny. But yeah, sometimes when I meet people who are very down the rabbit hole, they’ll ask me, “Oh, you’re CNN? Okay, yeah. Do you work with Anderson Cooper?” Yeah, I see him sometimes. I do stories on his show. “You’ve seen him in-person?” Yeah. “Up close?” Yeah, I’ve been on a TV set with him. I’ve had at least one, maybe two people just ask me really seriously, “Can you see the mask? Can you see?”

    Leah Feiger: No.

    Donie O’Sullivan: Yeah, yeah. “Can you see the mask?”

    Leah Feiger: No.

    Donie O’Sullivan: “Because I can see it.” Yeah. I get that quite a bit. Obviously, I’m like, “Yeah, it’s crazy. The mask …” No.

    Leah Feiger: Wait. So what’s the theory? Who is this?

    Donie O’Sullivan: David would probably know better than me, in terms of what. There’s this whole thing about people taking on other identities, and masks, and everything else. Some people believe … We did a doc last year on how some people believe that Trump is JFK Jr in disguise, and all this sort of thing.

    Leah Feiger: Right, right.

    Donie O’Sullivan: It leads to a pretty dark place. But in that moment, of course, when somebody asks me in all sincerity, “Have you seen the mask?” Yeah. It’s just an out-of-body experience almost, for me, in that I’m like, “Oh, wow. This really is just all the worlds colliding.”

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  • How Project 2025 Would Put US Elections at Risk

    How Project 2025 Would Put US Elections at Risk

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    If anything, the military has impinged on CISA’s territory—not the other way around—out of exasperation with the civilian agency’s constrained resources, says Montgomery, a retired Navy rear admiral.

    “The Department of Defense would say, ‘We’re having to do things that we think CISA should be doing,’” Montgomery says, which has meant “slowly creeping outside the base fence to make sure that electrical power grids, water systems, [and] telecom systems [near bases] are properly protected in case of a crisis.”

    Department of Dubious Moves

    Of all the CISA proposals in Project 2025’s plan, the most ambitious one is highly unlikely to succeed: moving the agency into the Department of Transportation as part of a broader initiative to dismantle DHS.

    The recommendation reflects conservatives’ desire to shrink the overall size of government, but it may also suggest a belief that moving CISA would curtail its scope and make it “a little more manageable,” says Brandon Pugh, director of the cybersecurity and emerging threats team at the center-right think tank R Street Institute. Pugh says some Republicans believe the agency “went beyond its original mandate and [has] become too bloated.”

    But this idea is a virtual nonstarter because the congressional committees with oversight of CISA won’t give up their power in a rapidly growing domain. “There’s no way that would ever work,” Costello says.

    Apart from being infeasible, the proposal would undermine CISA’s effectiveness.

    Cybersecurity fits squarely into DHS’s homeland-security portfolio, so moving CISA into a department with a different mission “doesn’t make a lot of sense” and “would undermine some of the organizational logic,” Kelly says. “I don’t actually understand the rationale of that.”

    DHS is also better-suited to facilitate the kind of cross-government collaboration that CISA relies on for its twin missions of protecting federal computer systems and helping companies and local governments defend themselves.

    “Giving CISA to Department of Transportation would reduce the cybersecurity of our national critical infrastructure for some period of time,” Montgomery says, adding that Transportation is “one of the last places” he’d put CISA and calling the proposal “nonsensical.”

    Still, observers say it might be worth reviewing the structure of DHS, which has steadily accumulated functions since its post-9/11 creation and is now considered something of a Frankenstein department. But that review has to be “well thought out,” Todt says. “Reorganization of government should never be taken lightly.”

    Squandering a Moment

    Even as Project 2025 appears to misunderstand some aspects of CISA’s mission and focus disproportionately on others, the document also misses opportunities to recommend meaningful reforms.

    Congress has spent years waiting for CISA to complete a “force structure assessment” that would better define its mission and the resources and organization needed to accomplish it. But even beyond CISA, there are serious concerns that the government as a whole isn’t coordinating well on cyber issues.

    Pugh says it’s worth examining whether the system is working well. “Do we need to take a harder look at who’s responsible for different leadership aspects of cyber?”

    For now, though, experts agree that Project 2025 misses the mark. The document, Montgomery says, is “full of little tantrums” and “shows a lack of understanding of how federal government works.”

    Costello says it’s “embarrassing” to see Project 2025 “call for essentially the hollowing out of CISA,” and he worries that its implementation could create a perilous feedback loop for the agency.

    “If you were to reduce the mission scope and importance of CISA,” he says, “morale is going to drop, people are going to want to leave, and Congress is going to be less willing to fund [it].”

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  • Sensitive Illinois Voter Data Exposed by Contractor’s Unsecured Databases

    Sensitive Illinois Voter Data Exposed by Contractor’s Unsecured Databases

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    Databases containing sensitive voter information from multiple counties in Illinois were openly accessible on the internet, revealing 4.6 million records that included driver’s license numbers as well as full and partial Social Security Numbers and documents like death certificates. Longtime security researcher Jeremiah Fowler stumbled upon one of the databases that appeared to contain information from DeKalb County, Illinois and subsequently discovered another 12 exposed databases. None were password protected nor required any type of authentication to access.

    As criminal and state-backed hacking becomes ever more sophisticated and aggressive, threats to critical infrastructure loom. But often, the biggest vulnerabilities come not from esoteric software issues, but from gaping errors that leave the safe door open and the crown jewels exposed. After years of efforts to shore up election security across the United States, state and local awareness about cybersecurity issues has improved significantly. But as this year’s US election quickly approaches, the findings reflect the reality that there are always more oversights to catch.

    “I’ve found voter databases in the past, so I kind of know if it’s a low-level marketing outreach database that someone has purchased,” Fowler tells WIRED. “ But here I saw voter applications— there were actually scans of documents, and then screenshots of online applications. I saw voter rolls for active voters, absentee voters with email addresses, some of them military email addresses. And when I saw Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers and death certificates I was like, ‘OK, those shouldn’t be there.’”

    Through public records, Fowler determined that all of the counties appear to contract with an Illinois-based election management service called Platinum Technology Resource, which provides voter registration software and other digital tools along with services like ballot printing. Many counties in Illinois use Platinum Technology Resource as an election services provider, including DeKalb, which confirmed its relationship with Platinum to WIRED.

    Fowler reported the unprotected databases to Platinum on July 18, but he says he didn’t receive a response and the databases remained exposed. As Fowler dug deeper into public records, he realized that Platinum works with the Illinois-based managed services provider Magenium, so he sent a disclosure to this company as well on July 19. Again, he says he did not receive a response, but shortly after the databases were secured, pulling them from public view. Platinum and Magenium did not return WIRED’s multiple requests for comment.

    Platinum began distributing a notification, viewed by WIRED, to impacted counties on Friday. “We have evidence of a claim the file storage containing voter registration documents may have been scanned,” Platinum wrote, adding that the exposed databases do not indicate a deeper compromise of its systems. “There was a thorough investigation executed. The findings support our ongoing belief there is no evidence of voter registration forms being leaked or stolen. … We used this opportunity to deploy new and additional safeguards around voter registration documents.”

    Illinois’s data breach notification law requires notification to the state within 45 days of an incident. A standard version of a Champaign County contract for technology services posted publicly through a Freedom of Information Act request requires a contractor to notify the impacted county within 15 minutes of identifying a data breach.

    Fowler points out that while the exposed information would potentially make impacted individuals more susceptible to identity theft and other scams, it could also be abused to submit multiple absentee ballot requests or to conduct other suspicious activity that could call a voter’s legitimate vote into question and take time to reconcile. But he adds that the death certificates and other documentation contained in the trove reflects the work election officials do all over the country to manage voter registrations and ensure that everyone’s vote is accurately counted.

    “There’s definitely progress on basic data security, and I don’t see stuff like this very often anymore,” Fowler says. “But I used the open and public internet and no specialized tools to find this. And at the end of the day, this is critical infrastructure that was exposed.”

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  • Kamala Harris and the Paradox of Progress

    Kamala Harris and the Paradox of Progress

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    “Kamala finally has an online presence,” says Marlon Twyman, a professor of quantitative social science at USC Annenberg who specializes in social network analysis. “For years, her political activity and contributions have not been broadly shared through online platforms. Now we are paying attention, but how much time are people spending researching her impact?”

    It is the legitimacy of Harris’ impact that is at stake—especially among Black Dems, a bloc she cannot win without. “Are we critically examining what we’re seeing online,” Twyman continued, “or do we just passively accept these narratives about her candidacy?”

    In the united States, binaries are a convenient framing in political warfare. Good versus bad. The elite versus the underclass. Black versus white. Operating the old way as opposed to demanding new frameworks.

    In reality, it’s never that simple. In the case of Harris, despite a wave of early momentum, there are noticeable fissures among Black progressives playing out online. In one camp, there are those who believe they don’t have the benefit of “virtue voting,” as actor Nicholas Ashe said in one Zoom fundraiser meeting, and that Black voters must support Harris no matter what. In the other, voters have been more critical of Harris and slower to pledge support, calling for a more imaginative political future.

    “I hate hearing the lesser of two evils because we are threatened with fascism on the other side,” Ashe said on that video call, hosted by Black Gay and Queer Men for Harris. He was careful not to fully excuse the vice president’s record or overlook the difficulty in untangling major issues like reproductive justice, Palestine, immigration, and the economy that are on the ballot. “It is a tall order, but it is one Kamala will have to accept if she wants our nomination,” he said.

    Others have been less enthusiastic about Harris. In the warped panorama of American politics, many believe a two-party system is antithetical to actual progress and tangible change. “If you lack political imagination, then just say that. If you can’t envision a different way of living, if you can’t imagine another way of organizing society, then just say that,” visual artist Ja’Tovia Gary said in an Instagram post, noting how she was exhausted by the “cyclical nature of the browbeating and vote shaming” that takes place every presidential cycle.

    When Harris released a statement following a DC protest, on July 24, over objections to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Congress and what protestors believe is a genocidal war being enacted on Palestinians, she drew ire from every side. “[Y’all] didn’t do enough on them Zooms,” @ashtoncrawley posted on X, alluding to the performative allyship that has been called out by critics of the presumptive nominee. Others have said understanding the matter requires more nuance.

    The online reactions surrounding the vice president are not surprising, says James Pratt Jr., a professor of criminal justice at Fisk University. Coalition-building among identity and affinity groups is to be expected, he says, all the more so given past failures to show up for Hillary Clinton or, more generally, speak up in support of Black women. Particularly in US politics, there is often a desire to contribute to the weaving of our shared history. It is natural to want to be part of something bigger than yourself. It is also “profitable, at least on the left, to be the ‘first’ and to be seen as supportive of ‘the first,’ as history uses those cases as the basis for our collective memory,” Pratt says. “Folks want to be remembered. Being critical can cause distance from that history.”



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  • Election Deniers Are Ramping Up Efforts to Disenfranchise US Voters

    Election Deniers Are Ramping Up Efforts to Disenfranchise US Voters

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    EIN advises its network of state-level groups to conduct voter roll challenges using EagleAI, a tool designed to automatically create lists of ineligible voters. Activists in EIN’s network across the country take these lists and manually review them, and, at times, conduct door-to-door canvasses to back up their challenges—a practice that has been condemned for intimidating voters. Experts have also already pointed out flaws with EagleAI’s system: Tiny errors in name spellings, such as missing commas, can lead to names being removed from voter rolls incorrectly. The software is also reportedly facing numerous technical issues. Despite this, one county in Georgia has already signed a contract with the company to use the tool as part of its voter roll maintenance.

    Leaked documents published this month by Documented and ProPublica show that one of the funders of EagleAI is Ziklag, a ultra-secretive group of wealthy individuals dedicated to pushing an overtly Christian nationalist agenda. According to an internal video obtained by ProPublica, Ziklag plans to invest $800,000 in “EagleAI’s clean the rolls project,” and one of the group’s goals is to “remove up to one million ineligible registrations and around 280,000 ineligible voters” in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Wisconsin.

    Mitchell and EIN are also working with a number of other groups that are supporting mass voter roll challenges. One of those is VoteRef, which has obtained and published voter rolls for over 161 million voters in 31 states. The group is run by Gina Swoboda, a former Trump campaign official and current chair of the Republican Party in Arizona. State election officials have said that VoteRef’s claims of discrepancies in voter rolls are “fundamentally incorrect,” and highlighted significant privacy concerns about the data that VoteRef is making publicly available.

    EIN is also working with Check My Vote, a website that hosts publicly available voter rolls and highlights what it calls irregularities, urging those using the system to create walk lists that activists can use to conduct door-to-door canvassing before filing voter challenges with a template available to download from the site.

    Mitchell and EIN did not respond to a request for comment.

    “These groups and the broader election denial movement have been building these structures, building these projects, over the course of many, many months and years, in preparation for this moment,” says ​Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director at Documented. “And the pieces are finally falling into place, where they can begin to file these mass challenges for voter eligibility.”

    Voter rolls are notoriously difficult to maintain, given federal laws that prevent citizens from being removed years after they may have left the jurisdiction. But there is no evidence to back up the claims that this issue causes voter fraud. And election administrators tell WIRED that the processes in place to ensure voter rolls are as accurate as possible already work.

    “[We are] aware of an increase in voter registration challenges over the past year, often submitted by a single individual or entity, on the basis that a voter may no longer be residing at the address of registration,” says Matt Heckel, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of State. “These challenges are an attempt to circumvent the list maintenance processes that are carefully prescribed by state and federal law.”

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  • Meet the Swifties Campaigning for Kamala Harris

    Meet the Swifties Campaigning for Kamala Harris

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    In less than a week, Swifties have turned their community into an online election headquarters for US vice president Kamala Harris—and the campaign wants in on the effort.

    After President Joe Biden announced that he would not seek reelection last week, Emerald Medrano, 22, flipped on the news. As he watched pundits yap about the Democratic ticket, he felt that he had to do something. He had never been politically involved, but he had a popular Swift stan account. Not sure of what to do, he tweeted, “I feel like us U.S. swifties should mass organize and help campaign for Kamala Harris and spread how horrendous project 2025 would be to help get people’s butts down the polls.”

    The response was immediate and overwhelming. Medrano received hundreds of replies and direct messages from other Swifties offering their support, largely motivated by civil rights, trans rights, and reproductive healthcare. Some had a background in politics. Others operated massive Swift stan accounts or worked in social media professionally. The fandom served as a social lubricant for the politically-curious Swiftie to get involved and leverage the skills they learned in the community for electoral means.

    “The shared interest and knowledge of the fandom is definitely a really great way to bridge that connection over to civic engagement and political activism,” Madeline Miner, 22, a Swifties for Kamala social media coordinator, tells WIRED.

    Since Medrano’s tweet, Swifties for Kamala has grown to more than 300 members, with thousands more applying to join their Discord server. The group has grown so quickly that it’s already undergone three “restructurings.” Now, it has more than 80,000 followers on TikTok, 48,000 on X, 16,000 on Instagram, and a Substack titled “Paint the Town Blue,” in reference to a Swift song. (Other pro-Harris Swiftie accounts have cropped up over the last week, but Swifties for Kamala is the largest.)

    The group has four teams: communications, finance, outreach, and social. For social, the teams are assigned to platforms, each with its own lead. Rohan Reagan, 21, who already ran a successful Swiftie account on Instagram, leads the group’s efforts there. For years, Reagan was posting edits he made of Swift; now he’s making them of Harris.

    “The reels, the posts, all of those are either created by me or I outsource it from someone else,” Reagan said. “We have a post online on the page right now that someone just did on their own and created all the research infographics on their own. So they brought it to me. I fixed it up a bit, and then posted.”

    Before Reagan or any other social lead could create the edits, Leigh Bauer, 23, a social media coordinator, started building out the brand and voice of the account. Bauer drew inspiration from the fandom—specifically the official Swift fan account, @taylornation13, on x.

    “They have this very distinct voice that shares news and updates and tells us when merch is happening and when albums are coming out and whatnot. But they also are really, really great about engaging with fans online,” Bauer said. “And so wanting to go off of that to continue to be another familiar voice that fans will understand… but also being a respectable voice.”



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