BRYAN, Texas — As local groups are gearing up for election day tomorrow, one local organization discovered an unusual account that has them working to mitigate misinformation.
This morning Amy Alge, the chair for the Brazos County said she and several of her colleagues discovered an account with someone following Facebook pages, claiming to be running for mayor for the City of Bryan.
Though she soon realized the account was a fake.
“Immediately some of the people who were on those pages contacted me and said, Hey who is this person? Is there someone running for mayor that I didn’t know about?" said Alge.
The name listed is Jane Reid someone who claims to currently live in Bryan.
But Alge said after searching the voters in the area she came across more evidence to question the account’s credibility.
“There were some consistent misspellings and there were terms that they used that seemed like they tried to research progressive terms which were not actually terms that progressives used," said Alge.
She and others have reported the accounts to prevent further misinformation from spreading.
“It’s just all-around bizarre and the fact that something like this happens in Bryan Texas, really takes you for a loop," said Alge.
Brazos County Elections Administrator, Trudy Hancock, said that things like this have unpredictable impacts on future elections.
“Some of the Twitter comments that I heard were derogatory toward one party and so sometimes that can impact how a person votes," said Hancock.
Handcock said the best thing to do is to verify who is running.
“If it’s a city race, be sure to check their page to see what offices that they have up, same with a county race. You can see what offices are supposed to be on your ballot," said Hancock.
So as both get ready for future races they’re working to make sure to future races separate fact from fiction.
“It just serves as a reminder that we all have to be very careful about what information we’re taking in and what we’re sharing," said Alge.
Hancock said the mayoral race is not on the ballot for tomorrow but is actually set for November.
The Facebook page has since been taken down.
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