STERLING, Va. — The Loudoun County Office of Elections is encouraging voters to report concerns after some residents complained about text messages that could be perceived as a form of voter intimidation.
The Virginia Department of Elections notified the office of at least four complaints on primary day, but there could be more.
Sterling resident Murray Gillham didn’t reach out to election officials nor voted on primary day. He received a text around 1 p.m. on Tuesday from a random phone number.
The text read: “Murray, Who you vote for is private, but whether you vote is public. Sterling is having a friendly neighborhood voting experiment. We’ll be sharing the voting records of random neighbors which each other to encourage to get out and vote. Hopefully this will help everyone remember to get out there and vote – but at the very least it should prompt neighbors to talk to each other!”
While Gillham strongly supports encouraging registered voters to hit the polls, the message was still a cause for alarm.
“I was upset,” Gillham told WUSA9. “It's my business. Why should I have my name out there saying whether or not I voted?”
“I feel like it’s an invasion of my privacy,” he added.
Gillham replied to the text by saying, “Whether I vote or not should be private too.”
It’s unclear if the cases rise to an investigation by the state elections department. WUSA9 reached out for a response but haven’t heard back.
Loudoun County Office of Elections Communications Specialist Samantha Shepherd stressed how the department would never send voters this type of message.
Virginia allows certain groups to purchase a list of names of those who voted in previous elections. They include election candidates, political party committees and members of the public seeking to promote voter participation and registration.
“That’s probably what happened,” Shepherd said. “Someone purchased this list from the state and now they’ve gone and texted voters. It doesn’t say who you voted for. It just says you voted and that can be in general, primary or special.”
“We want our voters to feel confident, secure and feel empowered when they go vote and sometimes these text message do cause the opposite effect,” Shepherd said.
There’s been a rise political text messages through the years. Data from Robokiller found Americans received 15 billion political texts in 2022, a 158% increase from the year before.
The office encourages people to verify sources of information through loudoun.gov/vote.