They might not be Americans but they are working to help elect Senator Bernie Sanders to be the next President of the United States. Calling them a “volunteer army of Bernie supporters” the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reports for the past four months dozens of Australians have been sending “thousands of texts” every day to Americans hoping to convince them to vote for the independent Senator from Vermont.
“This group is part of the Bernie 2020 campaign but mostly run by volunteers,” ABC notes, explaining volunteers watch a 20 minute YouTube video then receive training via a Slack chat.
“There are people from all over the world,” Rob, a 23-year-old in Sydney, said.
There is an Australians Supporting Bernie Sanders Facebook group that promotes the text program. It lists the Sanders campaign website on its About page.
It also lists information on how to phonebank for the Sanders campaign, and notes: “If you ever need to input a US phone number and zip code when registering you can use a fake US number like 202 555 0191 and any US zip code like 90210.”
Is it legal?
Molly McKew, a writer and expert in information warfare specializing in U.S.-Russia relations who served as an advisor to the now-former President of Georgia says it’s “foreign election interference.”