Claims in 'Obligation To Warn' Letter to Harris Alleging Compromised Election Are Deceptive

Within the wake of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s victory within the 2024 election, a person named Stephen Spoonamore despatched a post-election “responsibility to warn” letter to the defeated candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, claiming he had uncovered proof of hacking and fraud within the Nov. 5 election. 

Spoonamore’s allegations mixed a number of parts to drive his level residence, together with mentions of swing-state vote manipulation, a $1 million day by day sweepstakes managed by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s tremendous political motion committee (America PAC) and Election Day bomb threats. Spoonamore’s primary declare was that it was a “close to certainty” Harris actually gained the election, not Trump.

Snopes acquired quite a few reader emails asking whether or not Spoonamore’s claims had been true. For instance, one reader wrote, “Does Steven Spoonamore letter have a foundation actually?” One other reader wished to know, “[Does the] ‘responsibility to warn’ letter to VP Harris have any legitimacy, who wrote it [and] is [it] doable what the letter suggests?”

‘Obligation To Warn’

On Nov. 8 — three days after the election — Spoonamore took to the Spoutible social media community to spell out a few of his claims of election hacking and fraud in a 14-post thread (archived). One of many posts featured an image of a “responsibility to warn” letter itemizing a few of his issues (archived). He addressed the letter to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Seven days later, on Nov. 15, Spoonamore posted the textual content of a second and extra substantial “responsibility to warn” letter on the Substack publishing platform  He addressed that letter to Harris (archived).

That letter advised that a number of unnamed unhealthy actors manipulated votes within the seven swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He asserted the unhealthy actors inserted false outcomes into these states’ voting techniques by the use of plenty of “bullet vote” ballots displaying solely a vote for Trump and leaving all different races clean. In one other a part of the letter, he stated Musk’s America PAC and its sweepstakes providing $1 million day by day prizes to potential voters who signed Musk’s petition captured voter data that unhealthy actors later secretly used to hold out their scheme. He additionally stated the Election Day bomb threats at election-related places might have served as distractions or diversions, or as a fail-safe within the case Trump misplaced (his marketing campaign may declare a disrupted “chain of custody” for ballots).

In our examination of Spoonamore’s claims, we discovered discrepancies within the purported vote tallies and a scarcity of proof for his different assertions. In different phrases, a lot of what he alleged quantities to a speculation grounded in mere hypothesis. Primarily, a few of the numbers Spoonamore cited as proof to show his claims weren’t wherever close to the newest publicly obtainable election outcomes. 

We contacted officers at state and federal ranges with questions on Spoonamore’s claims. We additionally reached out to Spoonamore through e-mail and X however didn’t obtain a response after greater than two days.

Who Is Stephen Spoonamore?

As of this writing, Spoonamore’s LinkedIn page says he resides in Pennsylvania and describes him as a “C-suite veteran” and “expertise coverage developer.” His job historical past lists roles in media, communications, water remedy expertise, data expertise, electronics and, most just lately, the constructing of software program primarily for medical imaging. He just lately noted (archived) on X he’s “NOT an information scientist” however moderately described himself as “a tech government and community engineer.” In response to Ballotpedia, he ran an unsuccessful marketing campaign as an unbiased for a seat within the Ohio Home of Representatives in 2016.

Within the “responsibility to warn” letter to Harris, Spoonamore referred to himself as a “lifelong Republican” and cited quite a few purported credentials, together with working with purchasers at federal departments, delivering lectures, finishing up a particular overview and authoring hacking threat analyses.

Spoonamore’s Plea to Harris

In Spoonamore’s letter to Harris, he declared, “You need to reverse your concession, name for each a full investigation of legal exercise and demand hand recounts in all seven swing states. In my skilled view there are a number of and intensely clear indications the presidential vote was willfully compromised.”

He continued: “For my part it’s a close to certainty the outcomes have been modified at a scale which reversed the U.S. presidential election. They suggest there’s a probability a hand recount will present you gained extra votes. I’m stating a hand recount will most probably present you probably did win.”

Spoonamore’s Speculation of Election Hacking

Spoonamore’s letter to Harris spelled out his perception that “a succesful and expert collection of exploits, digital instruments and hacks had been used to alter the presidential vote in all seven swing states” and that “these actions have reversed the outcomes in no less than Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin.”

He claimed that the “inform” pointing to the purported hacking was “a traditionally absurd variety of Trump-only bullet ballots or undervote ballots.” Undervote ballots are when voters make plenty of alternatives for some, however not all, races.

Nevertheless, primarily based on a full studying of his letter to Harris, in addition to a Nov. 18 video interview on the Thom Hartmann Program YouTube channel, Spoonamore’s main focus was “bullet vote” ballots — on this case which means ballots displaying a vote for Trump however no alternatives for every other poll objects. 

North Carolina

Spoonamore alleged that the purported hacking and fraud in North Carolina proved to be “probably the most excessive” and that “the general public outcomes point out over 350,000 voters solid a poll for Trump and no different race.” Nevertheless, that is false. 

In response to the North Carolina State Board of Elections’ web site, as of Nov. 21, 5,722,556 voters cast ballots. Of these, 5,699,152 ballots displayed votes within the race for president. The web site additionally reported that 5,592,243 ballots bore votes for the state’s governor’s race. A comparability of the numbers for whole votes and the gubernatorial race would reveal the utmost variety of doable “bullet vote” ballots for all presidential candidates. The distinction between the 2 numbers is 130,313 votes — a depend nowhere close to the 350,000 votes acknowledged by Spoonamore. Trump acquired 183,048 extra of North Carolinian’s votes than Harris.

Throughout a Reddit “Ask Me Something” dialogue that includes Spoonamore, some customers also noted the discrepancy between Spoonamore’s figures and the newest precise election outcomes for North Carolina. (Not less than one different consumer asked a few totally different discrepancy involving Spoonamore’s numbers for Maricopa County, Arizona — a matter lined within the subsequent part of this story.)

In an e-mail, North Carolina State Board of Elections spokesman Patrick Gannon informed Snopes, “With out entry to confidential information, there isn’t a approach that anybody may know what this particular person claims to learn about North Carolina’s presidential election. North Carolinians solid secret ballots, and solid vote data and poll photographs that would doubtlessly present this data are confidential in North Carolina. My first step in fact-checking this is able to be to ask the author to indicate his work.”

Arizona

Spoonamore’s letter to Harris stated Arizona and Nevada additionally had giant numbers of “bullet vote” ballots for Trump. He affirmed this assertion within the Hartmann interview.

For Arizona, he wrote in his letter, “AZ – 123K+ 7.2%+ of Trump’s whole vote. Sufficient to reverse the result.” Nevertheless, the latest election results for Arizona confirmed that — out of three,429,637 whole ballots solid — voters solid 3,389,319 whole votes within the presidential race and three,347,964 votes for U.S. Senate candidates. The distinction between the whole variety of ballots and people voting for Senate is 81,673 votes — a depend smaller than the greater than 123,000 votes asserted by Spoonamore. Trump acquired 187,382 extra votes in Arizona than Harris.

A spokesperson for the Arizona Secretary of State informed Snopes they deliberate to publish official (finalized) election outcomes on Nov. 25, “the place undervotes might be a class that may be reviewed and calculated.” They declined remark about Spoonamore’s letter to Harris.

Spoonamore’s letter additionally claimed that “Maricopa County AZ, appears to be the supply of the overwhelming majority, maybe practically all, of the AZ bullet poll voters for Trump.” The Maricopa County authorities website displayed a complete of 2,078,460 ballots solid, with 2,061,574 votes for presidential candidates and a pair of,034,256 for U.S. Senate candidates — making the utmost variety of “bullet votes” 44,204. Trump acquired 71,515 extra votes in Maricopa County than Harris. (The Maricopa County web site displayed an extra 7,629 write-in votes for president in a PDF that didn’t seem on its primary outcomes web page. That variety of write-ins is included with the tabulation on this paragraph.)

Nevada and Different States

As for Nevada, Spoonamore contended in his letter, “NV – 43K+ 5.5%+ of Trump’s whole vote. Sufficient to exceed recount threshold.” The Nevada authorities website (archived) reported that — out of 1,487,887 whole ballots solid — 1,484,840 ballots contained votes for presidential candidates and 1,464,728 contained votes for U.S. Senate candidates. The mximum variety of “bullet votes” is 23,159. Trump acquired 46,008 extra votes in Nevada than Harris.

Spoonamore’s letter additional stated that 5 different states confirmed comparable patterns of what he believed to be hacking and fraud. Our overview of the newest outcomes for Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin didn’t discover outcomes considerably totally different than these for North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.

A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Division stated, “Pennsylvania held a free, honest, protected and safe election.”

Spoonamore’s Declare that Musk Was Concerned

On Oct. 19, 2024, Elon Musk announced that America PAC would award a day by day sweepstakes prize of $1 million to folks prepared to signal his petition pledging help for the First and Second amendments. In October, the web page specified: “This program is solely open to registered voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina.”

CNN reported on Oct. 23 that the Justice Division warned America PAC its sweepstakes might violate federal legislation, which bars paying folks to register to vote. Musk’s petition was open solely to registered voters.

On Nov. 4, ABC Information reported the recipients of the $1 million-a-day sweepstakes had been preselected, regardless of Musk’s declare that the giveaway’s “winners” can be randomly chosen. The article additionally stated a Philadelphia decide dominated that day that the sweepstakes may proceed via Election Day.

Spoonamore’s letter to Harris claimed, “Musk’s crew used this technique to construct a listing of voters pledged to vote for Trump.” Spoonamore alleged that the road addresses requested for in Musk’s petition allowed unhealthy actors to infiltrate election techniques and solid pretend votes: “As soon as that they had the folks’s names and road [addresses], this is able to enable for constructing a pool of ghost voters who may logically be marked for pretend ballots, structured in a fashion which matched ePollBook and precinct information.”

Nevertheless, as of this writing on Nov. 21, the declare that unhealthy actors used information from Musk’s America PAC sweepstakes to interact in election tampering is unfounded, given the shortage of proof to help it.

Spoonamore additionally pointed a finger at Starlink, a satellite tv for pc community developed by SpaceX, of which Musk is the CEO. As we beforehand reported, claims that unhealthy actors used Starlink to “hack” or “rig” the 2024 presidential election had been additionally unfounded.

Election Day Bomb Threats

On Election Day, the FBI announced on its web site that it was “conscious of bomb threats to polling places in a number of states, a lot of which seem to originate from Russian e-mail domains. Not one of the threats have been decided to be credible so far.”

CBS Information journalist Scott MacFarlane reported, “Legislation enforcement officers estimate about 30 bomb risk hoaxes have focused election-related places nationwide, in response to two sources conversant in the matter. Round 17 pretend bomb threats have focused the state of Georgia alone, two folks conversant in the investigation informed CBS Information.”

Later, on Nov. 12, Atlanta NBC affiliate WXIA-TV revealed an article saying that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger reported “over 60 bomb threats” on Election Day in his state alone.

In Spoonamore’s preliminary Spoutible thread, he wrote, “Now, why the bomb threats? They had been NOT to permit for hacker entry. The programming was already in place, they had been to interrupt chain of custody and produce authorized grounds to not belief a recount. Each place that GOT a bomb risk is a spot the courts will now have to think about the factual argument of whether or not the ballots COULD have been tampered with whereas the evacuations had been occurring. They weren’t. However that’s the argument the GOP will make to forestall recounts.”

He elaborated in his subsequent letter to Harris: 

Lastly, this hack methodology might or might not have some correlation with the collection of bomb threats referred to as in by Russian-affiliated belongings. The usage of distraction or diversion of this sort is widespread. My first thought was, and my pondering stays, these bomb threats had been referred to as into tabulation facilities and precincts the place the hackers had already deliberate to conduct ghost bullet poll introductions. I consider they wished a disruption within the chain of custody, so legal professionals may declare after the hacking occasions that the chain of custody on the ballots was flawed. The creation of the false-argument of a damaged custody chain can be used as a pretext to forestall hand recounting, as hand recounting wouldn’t match the Trump favorable outcome. Nevertheless, by a reverse of that logic, any jurisdiction which was topic to a bomb risk was compelled to interrupt normal working process. This alone needs to be grounds so that you can ask for a hand recount.

As of Nov. 21, Spoonamore’s declare that the bomb threats had been a part of a hacking and fraud scheme, like his declare that Musk was concerned within the alleged fraud, stays unsupported by concrete proof.

In our unanswered e-mail to Spoonamore, we requested him about his assertions involving North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada, confronted him with the numbers we gathered from the newest election outcomes, and requested him whether or not he believed his preliminary evaluation lacked validity. We additionally requested if he may share any documentary proof that hacking happened. We are going to replace this story if any additional particulars come our approach.

Sources