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On Wednesday, Texas voters received a mysterious text message from a campaign volunteer for Beto O'Rourke, the Democrat running against Ted Cruz for the Senate this fall.
"We are looking for volunteers to help transport undocumented migrants to polling stations so they can vote," reads Patsy's message, a volunteer from O. Rourke. "Would you be able to support this basic effort?"
Screenshots of text messages distributed on Twitter Wednesday. Mr. O'Rourke's campaign confirmed that the messages were authentic, but a spokesman said they came from an "impostor".
"This message was not endorsed by the campaign," said Chris Evans, O'Rourke's spokesperson. Mr. Evans added that the campaign was looking at how the unauthorized message was sent. The person who sent the text was "not a Beto volunteer," Mr. Evans said.
It was unclear on Wednesday night how many people had received the message from O'Rourke's campaign or who was the impostor.
If Mr O'Rourke's campaign actually helped undocumented migrants to vote, it would be a flagrant violation of the electoral law.
Cruz and other Republicans have criticized O'Rourke, who keeps a distance from Mr. Cruz in recent polls throughout the state, to be weak in immigration.
Among the mass-masseurs, Mr. O'Rourke was particularly aggressive. The campaign used Relay, an app developed by alumni of Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, to reach millions of Texas voters with messages encouraging them to donate, attend local events support them on polling day. Progressive groups have rallied to his "editorial team" with guides and an instructional video to teach volunteers how to use Relay and Slack, a team messaging app used by the campaign. And the campaign is set to aim to send SMS to all 3.5 million cell phones contained in a database of voter registries at the scale of the country. 39; State.
If a person infiltrated Mr. O'Rourke's team and sent messages to his supporters to encourage illegal voting, this would be one of the first significant acts of political sabotage involving SMS. A call to the number that sent the suspicious messages returned an automated message from Relay, the email application used by the O'Rourke campaign.
The campaign of Mr. Cruz indicated that she was not aware of the message and denied any involvement.
But Mr. O'Rourke conducted a robust texting operation, large enough for Mr. Cruz and his father, Rafael, to have had more than one. Several members of Mr. Cruz's staff and some of their family members also received texts from the O'Rourke campaign.
The texts have even annoyed some of the supporters of Mr. Cruz during recent campaign events.
"I know, I know," said Mr. Cruz. "I have received three myself. My father had five. Thinking of the third, I might have to vote for him. "
Mitchell Ferman contributed to the report from McAllen, Texas.
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