Des Moines, IA- State officials are warning Iowans to be aware of scams that incorrectly claim that you can cast your vote online or by phone.
Radio Iowa reports that Iowa Department of Public Safety Commissioner Stephan Bayens said his agency started to investigate a case in Mahaska County in September.
“Phone calls were being made and attempting to gain either personal information or to leave a false impression that you could vote via the telephone,” Bayens says. “Obviously once that information gets passed up through the Mahaska County Sheriff’s office, it came into the Department of Public Safety and our FBI partners as well.”
Bayens stated that, as with most phone scams, tracking down the scammers has been difficult.
“Given current digital technology…they can bounce those numbers from across the United States or across the world and so we continue to kind of chase those breadcrumbs,” Bayens says. “In this particular instance, it does not appear that those calls were generated in the state Iowa, but were from outside of Iowa.”
Election officials remind residents that all votes in Iowa are cast by paper ballot, either via absentee voting or on election day.
