Midterm Election Campaign & Voter Registration Scam

Overview

Ahead of the 2026 U.S. midterms, the FBI warns scammers are impersonating candidates and campaigns using AI-cloned voices, fake political action committees, and phony voter-registration pages to steal donations, money, and personal data.

How It Works

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) issued a PSA warning that scammers are impersonating political campaigns, using AI-generated voices, images, and messages to create convincing fake solicitations for donations, undelivered merchandise, or voter registration schemes designed to harvest personally identifiable information

Red Flags

• A text or email claims you are not registered to vote and links to an unfamiliar "voter registration" page asking for personal details
• A "campaign" or PAC guarantees your donation will grow in value or be paid back as a financial return
• Someone encourages you to recruit others to "invest" in a political fund to increase your payout share
• Unsolicited calls or messages using a candidate's cloned voice, image, or slogan to pressure urgent donations
• Pressure to act quickly, before you can verify the campaign or PAC through official channels

Real Examples

• The FBI's October 15, 2026 PSA (an update to a 2024 election-cycle alert) described schemes where victims are promised financial returns on "investments" in campaign pools, only to lose funds or have their data compromised
• A described voter-data scheme uses a text or email claiming the recipient isn't registered to vote and links to a fake state voter registration page to steal PII for identity theft
• The FBI noted scammers use candidate names, images, logos and slogans to solicit fake campaign contributions and sell merchandise that is never delivered

Where It Spreads

How to Protect Yourself

• Verify any Political Action Committee, Party Committee, or Candidate Committee's registration and financial filings directly on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) website before donating
• Remember that campaign donations are not investments \u2014 they will not increase in value or be returned
• Never click links in unsolicited texts or emails about voter registration; go directly to your state's official election website to check or update your registration
• Do not provide personally identifiable information to callers, texters, or emailers you don't know, even if they reference a candidate or election deadline
• Be skeptical of merchandise offers tied to campaigns that require upfront payment with vague delivery promises

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