"Ambiguous" calls tell Americans to postpone the vote

An increase in the number of automated phone calls trying to push voters away from the polls.

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Voters in several US states received vague "automated" calls urging them to stay home on election day, according to US party and government officials who spoke to Reuters.

Officials in "swing" states, such as Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida have reported a spike in the number of automated phone calls trying to push voters away from the polls.

One automated call asked residents of Flint, Michigan, to postpone voting to the next day due to "long lines" of voters.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said it was "self-evident that this argument is false and an attempt to sabotage the vote."

However, there were few indications of digital interference in this election, even with the large numbers that actually voted, which is estimated to be half the number permitted to vote in the United States so far.

Police in the state of Michigan also removed a masked man from a voting hall due to "disturbing the electoral process" in the hall, while voting machines were reported to have broken down in a number of places.

"We have no indications that a foreign party has succeeded in compromising or manipulating any votes in this election," Acting US Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said on Tuesday.

However, the official in the US Department of Homeland Security, Christopher Cripps, "is not out of the impasse yet," adding, "There may be events, activities, or other efforts to interfere or undermine confidence in the elections."

Fears that a foreign power might seek to interfere in the 2020 elections have grown since the previous election in 2016, when Russian hackers dumped tens of thousands of emails online to influence the vote toward Republican Donald Trump and away from his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

But these concerns have not materialized in this election yet, as more than 99 million Americans cast their ballots in an unprecedented wave of early voting.

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