A trove of leaked messages and internal documents from the American Patriots Three Percent militia, also known as AP3, reveals how the group coordinated with election denier groups as part of a plan to conduct paramilitary surveillance of polling stations during the election. 2022 midterm.
This information was leaked to Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a non-profit organization that claims to publish hacked and leaked documents in the public interest. The person behind these AP3 leaks is an individual who, according to their statement uploaded by DDoSecrets, infiltrated the military and became so alarmed by what they were seeing that they felt compelled to make the information public before the upcoming presidential election.
Election and federal officials have already expressed concern about potential voter intimidation this November, in part due to the proliferation of violent political rhetoric and election denialism. Some right-wing groups have already committed to remote polling place surveillance using AI-powered cameras. And last month, a Homeland Security bulletin warned that domestic extremist groups could plan to sabotage electoral infrastructure, including polling stations.
Devin Burghart, president and CEO of the Human Rights Research and Education Institute, says AP3’s leaked plans for the 2022 midterm elections should be a warning of what may happen next month. “Baseless conspiracies to deny elections that fuel surveillance of the polls by armed militias are a dangerous form of voter intimidation,” Burghart tells WIRED. “The expansion of election denial, the increase in militia activity and the growing coordination between them are cause for serious concern heading into November. With voter suppression groups like True the Vote and some GOP elected officials targeting mailboxes for surveillance, the situation should raise alarm bells.”
Leaked messages from 2022 show how AP3 and other militias provided paramilitary weight to poll-monitoring operations organized by “The People’s Movement,” the group that led the 2021 anti-vaccine convoy protest, and Clean Elections USA, a group. with links to the team behind the 2000 mules film that falsely claimed widespread voter fraud. In the leaked chats, Popular Movement leader Carolyn Smith identifies herself as an honorary member of AP3.
AP3 is directed by Scot Seddon, a former Army reservist, Long Island native and male model, according to a ProPublica profile about him published in August. That profile, which was based on the same anonymous insider who leaked AP3’s internal messages to DDoSecrets, explains that AP3 escaped scrutiny after January 6 in part because Seddon, after spending weeks preparing his ranks to go to DC, finally He decided to save his soldiers for another day. ProPublica reported that some members went anyway, but were under strict instructions to give up any AP3 badges. According to the leaked messages, Seddon also ordered his state leaders to participate in the “operation.”