Chasing voter fraud becomes a game on social media

On the messaging app Telegram, 300 people gathered in a channel devoted to Arizona politics this week to play an online game.

The rules were simple: find examples of voter fraud and win virtual points. If members of the group had names of undocumented immigrants who planned to vote illegally in Tuesday’s midterm elections and posted details, they were awarded two points. If they identified people who would organize buses to transport those immigrants to polling stations, they got 50 points.

“I have a name for you,” one participant wrote in the Telegram channel on Monday. He submitted a common Latino name, saying the person was undocumented and intended to vote. Although he provided no evidence to back up his claim, he was awarded two points.

The group erupted in congratulations. “One down, one million to go,” another participant responded, according to reports from The New York Times. “I have to find them all.”

That many of the posts, photos and videos used to score points have been widely debunked, because misinformation didn’t slow the group down. Nor has it hindered the game’s spread to other social platforms, where dozens of private messaging channels are also on the hunt for voter fraud.

The Times reviewed 26 such games played in the past two months on the messaging apps and social platforms Telegram, WhatsApp, Gab and Truth Social. In each, players were given a loose system of points or honorary titles if they shared alleged evidence of voting irregularities. Many of the participants were encouraged to post as much as possible, spurred on by raucous carnival-like conversations and posts.

The games originated in online groups that claimed to be about voter integrity and securing elections. It was unclear how long the games had been around, as many of the channels have changed names or have their digital histories erased. None of them turned out to provide evidence of voter fraud, which is exceptionally rare.

But facts are often not the point of these games. Instead, they’re part of a broader trend of “participatory disinformation,” where people become more actively involved in sharing falsehoods and conspiracy theories. That leads people to integrate with a wider community and earn praise, making them more likely to believe and invest in the misinformation, researchers said.

“There’s a sense that you can participate in the construction of a story and have an impact,” said Kate Starbird, a professor of human-computer interaction at the University of Washington who studies disinformation. “It gives a lot of power.”

The gamification of voter fraud on social media has implications for how the legitimacy of the vote will be perceived in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Confidence in the electoral process has been eroded in recent years, with former President Donald J. Trump questioning the outcome of the 2020 presidential election by falsely claiming he was the victim of ambiguous voting practices.

In recent months, candidates such as Kari Lake, a Republican running for governor of Arizona, have reinforced the misinformation about voting during the campaign, such as questioning the accuracy of voting machines. Voting falsehoods have been widely circulated on Twitter, TikTok, Truth Social, Rumble and Gab.

Some people are now so suspicious of the voting process that they have set up watch parties to keep an eye on the ballot boxes and prevent tampering on Election Day. States such as Georgia have passed laws requiring people to present new IDs to vote. On Wednesday, President Biden condemned Trump and other Republicans for endangering American democracy with lies about voting and the 2020 election.

The voter fraud games add to the fraught atmosphere, Ms Starbird said. They are “another way people are being pushed to spread and even create examples of voter fraud to fuel their false narratives and sow mistrust in the meantime,” she said.

Participatory disinformation has a history of fueling online conspiracy theory movements, researchers say. QAnon, a movement centered around the lie that the world was run by a cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats, was fueled by people searching online for clues about the identities of those leading the group and seeing hidden meanings in alleged symbols and encrypted messages.

After the 2020 election, the “Stop the Steal” movement, which falsely claimed that Mr. Trump had won, was also fueled by online participation. On Facebook, dozens of groups encouraged their followers to find examples showing the election was stolen from Mr Trump.

Since then, claims of voter fraud have grown with unsubstantiated theories that voting machines had been tampered with, dead people and pets had voted, and corrupt election officials didn’t count certain types of ballots.

In the voter cheating games on Telegram, WhatsApp and other platforms, the groups viewed by The Times ranged in size from a few dozen people to several hundred. Many players were found to be using pseudonyms and sharing little personal information. While some games awarded points, others gave titles like “master” and “grand master” to those who posted multiple examples of alleged voter fraud.

The points and titles don’t seem to add up to real prizes. Instead, they gave participants online influence and bragging rights about fellow players.

At a Pennsylvania-based Telegram group, 200 people ran this week to find examples of “unverified ballots,” or ballots sent without verifying voters’ identities, after Mr. Trump falsely claimed on Tuesday that 250,000 of these ballots to voters in the state.

“There are hundreds of thousands, making them easy to find,” wrote one person in the group. “I say one point per person.”

In a WhatsApp group that was an offshoot of a larger Telegram group in Ohio, nine participants recently kept a scoreboard as they played their game. At the top of the board was a member whose group said he had discovered cases of dead people who had voted. The player had not provided proof of his allegations.

Not all games have a formal structure or take place in dedicated channels. On Truth Social, the platform started by Mr. Trump, the game-like approach of awarding points or acclaim to users who participate in misinformation has made its way into the comment sections.

When Mr Trump claimed to his 4.4 million followers on Truth Social on Monday that voter fraud was rife in Pennsylvania, comments and links to his post included promises that those who discovered alleged wrongdoing would be rewarded.

A person who shared Mr Trump’s post said he would give “special status” to anyone who captured images of the unverified ballots. Others said they would go door-to-door to verify voters themselves and “get a point” if they found the ballots.

On Telegram, some groups that have urged people to watch Arizona polls to prevent voter fraud have also treated it like a game. “Ten points if you spend an hour” checking a ballot box, wrote one person in a Telegram channel with almost 100 people. “1,000 if you catch them,” the person added, using expletives to describe undocumented immigrants.

Similar Telegram channels have popped up in other states. In New Hampshire and Wisconsin, groups tracking next week’s election have also awarded players points for finding local cases of voter fraud.

In a Wisconsin Telegram group where 100 people were scoring points by finding voter fraud, a participant whose username included a racist comment last week posted a video of someone claiming to be burning ballots.

The player got 10 virtual points for the video. But the images had already been widely circulated on the internet after the 2020 elections and were exposed as fake. The person in the video burned sample votes, not the ones voters had used.