The Peoria County Election Commission warns of text messages delivered to local voters containing misinformation about polling places. The text messages originate from an organization called Voting Futures, a smaller part of political outreach group Movement Labs. While Movement Labs took full responsibility for the texts in a statement on their website earlier today, the event could still cause confusion amongst voters.
Elizabeth Gannon, Executive Director for the Election Commission stated, “A Peoria County voter called to verify their Polling Place because of this text message. That voter did exactly the right thing, they reached out to the local election jurisdiction for confirmation. If you are unsure of your Polling Place for Election Day, feel free to call the office, we are happy to assist.”
Yoni Landeau of Movement Labs explained the mishap by saying, “In some of our texts, we sent addresses and images of drop-box locations when we intended only to include in-person early vote locations. We didn’t specify in our text that we were trying to encourage voters to vote early. Some voters familiar with their election day location thought we were telling them to vote on election day at an early vote location.” Landeau added, “…we fell short of our rigorous standards with these errors.”
Peoria County encourages voters to visit the Election Commission’s official government website – peoriaelections.gov -- or call their office at 309-324-2300 with any questions about the upcoming election.
Article 29 of the Illinois State Election Code makes using deception to knowingly prevent a person from voting a Class 4 felony.