The Federal Bureau of Investigation is dedicated to "ensuring that these are going to be safe elections," including investigating complaints of voter suppression or voter intimidation, an agency official said recently.
"The reason why we are getting out and talking about this more often, is because it is out in the open," said FBI Little Rock Supervisory Special Agent Ryan Kennedy.
"We want to address it and we want to reassure the public that the FBI is here ready to defend our democratic institutions. Part of that is making sure that our elections are secure and safe and the FBI has a role in that, just like Homeland Security does, just like Postal Inspection does, like the U.S. attorneys' offices do, and our various secretary of states' offices do, along with each county's election official. We all play a role in ensuring that these are going to be safe elections," Kennedy said.
"We've actually been doing a number of different things (to protect local voters) for a while. ... First and foremost, in the lead-up to any federal election, we always designate at least one person in our office as the election crimes coordinator. We also establish a working group inside of our office that consists of state and federal partners in order to begin addressing issues involving anything from election security to election crime to campaign finance ahead of time."
Kennedy said these groups and partnerships inside of the FBI are prepared to take in reports of any federal election crime. They are made up of the FBI, the U.S. Postal Service, the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Arkansas Department of State, and the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern and Western districts.
"The most direct way to report a federal election crime is to just call us and mention that you have potential information regarding an election crime that occurred. ... We will then sit down with that working group and determine who is going to be the best situated to actually address the allegations in the complaint," he said.
According to the FBI's website, an election crime is a federal crime if it involves ballots with one or more federal candidates; an election or polling place official abuses their office; the conduct involves false voter registration; the crime intentionally targets minority protected classes; or the activity violates federal campaign finance laws.
"There are two big ones and those are going to be voter intimidation or voter suppression," Kennedy said. "People trying to prevent individuals from voting, or people doing schemes to try and suppress a vote, like directing people to a location that is not actually a polling location."
The FBI is also trying to get the word out about "malign foreign influence," which refers to any other nation's attempt to interfere with U.S. elections.
"One of the things that this office is doing is really trying to get the message out that a lot of this malign foreign influence is occurring through social media websites, through the promulgation of false information, designed to drive people apart, to sow discord in the American public," Kennedy said.
"As people see things on social media websites, especially information that is not coming from a reputable news source, they need to do their research. They need to figure out whether or not the information is real before they then share it on their own pages and through their own accounts so that we can try and stop the spread of some of this information that it's designed really just to tear us down as a people. So the key is education."
To report an alleged federal election crime, call the FBI Little Rock at 501-221-9100.