A left-wing website has been using a near-identical domain name as the Pennsylvania State Department to register new voters — with the catch that those voters’ contact information may be used for “political efforts and activities,” according to a report by Broad and Liberty’s Todd Shepherd.
Pennsylvanians can visit the official state website, vote.pa.gov, to register to vote. But some Pennsylvanians may be being duped by a very similar website that isn’t affiliated with the state: vote.pa.
The latter website, according to internet archives, directed individuals to “register to vote” at the top of its homepage. (“Sometime on Monday after Broad + Liberty had requested comment from the owners of Vote.pa, the website was changed so that the top option was ‘Check your Registration’” instead, Shepherd reported. The website’s dropdown menu still offers an option to register to vote.)
Voters who use the unofficial site are presumably registered with the State Department, but only after being forced to provide a phone number — which is optional when using the state’s official website, according to Shepherd. If you use vote.pa to register to vote, “don’t be surprised a few weeks later if the website is also sliding into your text messages urging you to vote for your local Democratic candidate,” Shepherd said. A box on the registration form gives registrants the option to “opt-in for SMS messages,” but the form doesn’t say what kinds of messages users are signing up for — and many voters might assume they’re simply signing
