Midterm elections start November 6th and people across the state of Idaho will have some choices to make, including a new Governor, two congressional seat and two propositions. While voters are busy studying candidates and positions, officials say they also need to be vigilant when registering to vote. Idaho Secretary of State Lawerence Denney is warning Idahoans to beware of a voter registration phone scam.
Scammers are using this election as an opportunity to target people’s personal information by calling and pretending to register voters while promising to send them absentee ballots. Idaho’s Secretary of State, Lawrence Denny says the public needs to know that nowhere in the country does state register voters over the phone. In fact, he was made aware of this scam, "we got an alert from our national association of secretaries of state saying that there were a couple of states that had experienced this” and even the Secretary of State isn’t safe from attempted scams,”I get those calls myself and most of the time when you get one of those you know it’s a scam, the best thing to do is hang up”.
These calls are currently being investigated by both the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. Anyone who has received one of these calls is encouraged to contact the Secretary of State’s Elections Division at (208) 334-2852 or their local county clerk’s office.
