Documents leaked by far-right militias show history of voter intimidation plans

A slew of leaked internal messages and documents from the American Patriots Three Percent militia – also known as AP3 – reveal how the group coordinated with election denial groups as part of a plan to to carry out paramilitary surveillance of the polls during the midterm elections in 2022.

This information was disclosed 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 his statement uploaded by DDoSecrets, infiltrated the militia and was so alarmed by what he saw that he felt compelled to make the information public before the next presidential election.

Election and federal officials have already expressed concerns about possible voter intimidation in November, in part because of the proliferation of politically violent rhetoric and voter denialism. Some right-wing groups have already pledged to monitor ballot boxes remotely using AI-driven cameras. And last month, a Homeland Security bulletin warned that domestic extremist groups could consider sabotaging election infrastructure, including ballot boxes.

Devin Burghart, president and executive director of the Institute for Human Rights Research and Education, says AP3’s disclosed plans for the 2022 midterm elections should serve as a warning about what could happen next month. “The baseless Holocaust denial conspiracies that fuel ballot monitoring by armed militias are a dangerous form of voter intimidation,” Burghart told WIRED. “The expansion of election denial, increased militia activity, and increasing coordination among them are a source of serious concern as November approaches. Now, with voter suppression groups like True the Vote and some Republican elected officials targeting drop boxes for vigilante activity, the situation should ring alarm bells.

Leaked messages from 2022 show how AP3 and other militias provided paramilitary clout 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 ties to the team behind the 2000 Mules film that falsely claimed widespread electoral fraud. In the leaked chats, People’s Movement leader Carolyn Smith identifies herself as an honorary member of AP3.

AP3 is run by Scot Seddon, a former Army reservist, Long Islander and male model, according to a ProPublica profile on him published in August. This profile, which relied on the same anonymous infiltrator who leaked AP3’s internal messages to DDoSecrets, explains that AP3 escaped scrutiny in the aftermath of January 6, in part because Seddon, after spending weeks preparing his ranks to go to Washington, finally decided to save his soldiers for another day. ProPublica reported that some members went anyway but were under strict instructions to forgo any AP3 insignia. According to the leaked messages, Seddon also ordered his leaders to participate in the “operation.”