On Tuesday, as voters in New Hampshire cast their ballots in the state’s primary, WIRED followed the activity of one online group of election-deniers who spent the day spreading wild conspiracies and outrage.
In the New Hampshire Voter Integrity Facebook group, members were convinced of election fraud within minutes of the polls opening on Tuesday morning.
“Corruption already starting,” one member wrote under a post about someone hearing that voting machines in Newton were not working. ”Always cheating,” another added.
Throughout the day, in dozens of posts and hundreds of comments, the group’s members posted messages of support for each other’s efforts, reaffirming each other’s beliefs in the conspiracies despite no actual evidence of fraud.
There are over 6,500 members in the group, and according to a database compiled by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, at least 37 of them are current or former state lawmakers. Members were encouraged by the group’s founder to complete seven tasks throughout the day to ensure election security, including demanding information from poll workers, logging any discrepancies they come across, and monitoring whether everyone was being asked to provide ID when checking in to polling sites.
With the 2024 election on the horizon and former president Donald Trump once again on the ballot, the group is preparing for battle—and Tuesday was just a glimpse into what to expect in groups like these across the country come November, when the election takes place.
Founded in February 2021 by Marylyn Todd, the New Hampshire Voter Integrity group quickly gained traction as Trump and many within the Republican party were pushing false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Over the past few years, Todd and the administrators of the group have continued to push baseless conspiracies and wild allegations about voter fraud during the 2020 election—despite multiple government agencies confirming it was the safest and most secure election in US history. Todd has shared her views on numerous right-wing shows, including Mike Lindell’s Frank TV.
Though the group claims to be an election integrity group and not candidate specific, the vast majority of those posting and commenting during the primary were celebrating Trump’s victory over former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, and had, in the hours before the results were announced, flagged concerns about what they saw as potential efforts to undermine Trump’s campaign.
The first major controversy to crop up on Tuesday was the realization that not all the ballots across the state were the same and that Trump’s name was not listed in the same place on every one.
There was a lot of confusion about why this happened, but the reason, as the New Hampshire secretary of state’s office lays out on its website, is that each municipality picks a number out of a hat to decide which candidate is listed first, and the rest of the candidates follow in alphabetical order after that.
Despite several group members explaining this to people in the comments, many others quickly jumped to the conclusion that this was some form of “corruption”—again without any evidence.
As voting continued during the day, members of the group posted pictures and screenshots that they believed showed some form of cheating in the election process—including one member who posted a screenshot of the Wi-Fi networks at her polling place, without comment, to possibly suggest that the voting machines were connected to the internet, a long-held conspiracy among election deniers.
Wild conspiracies that gained traction in 2020 about votes mysteriously being “dumped” in the system overnight or election machines being unable to read Sharpie-marked ballots have also endured in this group despite widespread debunking.
“I would hide the magic markers just in case most of the voter fraud happened in the middle of the night while we were all sleeping,” one group member wrote on Tuesday.
Todd added to the conspiracies around how votes are marked, writing: “Use blue ink. Pencils can be erased. Your vote is your ‘contract’ with your government or representative. You would never sign a contract in pencil.” Todd told the other group members that using blue ink to vote was more secure: “Blue just makes it easier to make sure no prefilled printed ballot was included is all.”
Todd also noted that in one ballot, Trump’s name was just below the fold, implying in a post that this could result in the ballot being improperly read by the scanners.
“Watching the local and national news I saw people casually sliding multiple ballots into the ballot machine,” one member claimed. “No one seemed concerned.” Once again, no evidence was provided to back this up, but commenters on the post appeared to believe it anyway.
In another post, a group admin said that election workers in Bedford were not going to post the poll tapes, which they are required to do by the secretary of state—the election workers did post the tapes, but comments in the group exploded anyway.
“Has anyone called the attorney general?” someone responded. Another wrote: “Here we go again. When will we learn? Our elections are not safe anymore.”
The tapes, which show how many votes each candidate received in that location, look like cash register receipts and are typically printed out from the machines right after polls close and posted publicly for anyone to take a picture of. In response to another comment, the admin admitted that the poll workers did in fact post the tapes. But the same admin also commented on his own post, suggesting the conspiracy goes deeper: “I was there all day and saw many things that raised concern … but I am getting them all out together and getting the affidavits in place so that I can forward them to [secretary of state].” He provided no evidence in the group to back up his claims.
When the polls closed, the conspiracies didn’t end. Even though Trump won 54.5 percent of the vote to Haley’s 43.2 percent, the group still found a lot to gripe about.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, one member posted the results of the count in the town of Hudson, showing a decisive Trump victory. But despite this, another member claimed some form of underhanded action by Haley or the Democrats. “I would love to know how many of those Hayley voters are, actually Democrat voters in disguise as undeclared,” the group member wrote, echoing a similar complaint made following Trump’s huge win in Iowa.
When someone pointed out that Haley won in the town of Bedford, the members of the group simply would not accept the results. “That is such a scam,” one wrote. “Those towns should have investigations to look into those results. There is also too much indoctrination going on.”
The anger the members of the New Hampshire group felt about Haley on Tuesday was echoed by Trump himself. In a speech on Tuesday night, Trump lashed out at Haley, who had vowed to continue to fight on: “Who the hell was the imposter who went up on the stage before, and like, claimed a victory?” Trump asked his supporters, adding: “I don't get too angry. I get even.”
The group also turned their attention to the fact that President Joe Biden won the Democratic primary even though his name was not on the ballot, following a major write-in campaign.
“If they're claiming Biden won with a write in then they're liars if this is an accurate total,” one member wrote of the results.
Just before 5 am on Wednesday morning in New Hampshire, one group member commented on Biden’s victory and brought it all back to the 2020 election that kicked off the wave of election denial.
“Maybe I’m wrong but this seems fishy—2020 fishy,” the user wrote. “Very happy about Trump’s win in our state of NH, but I’m not going to ignore what might be going on with the Democrat race.”
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED about whether the activity of the New Hampshire Voter Integrity Group breached its policies.
With less than 300 days to go until the November presidential election, it is clear that the election conspiracy movement that emerged in the wake of Trump’s loss in 2020 has not gone away. And similar local groups around the country are already gearing up to claim fraud in states like Colorado, North Carolina, and Utah. National groups with major funding, like the True the Vote and the Election Integrity Project are also involved in similar efforts. “2024 will be the ultimate showdown in US elections,” True the Vote said in a statement issued last month, before revealing their plans this month to get supporters to investigate voter roll irregularities across the country.
If the activity of the New Hampshire Voter Integrity Group on primary day—when Trump won decisively—is any indicator, the election in November is going to be much worse.
Correction 2/2/2024 5:30 pm EST: This story was updated to identify Hudson and Bedford as towns, not counties, in New Hampshire. It was also updated to reflect that New Hampshire tallies votes by municipality, not by county.
