Election tampering is nothing new, and the use of social media to spread misinformation to influence voters is just a new tactic that is suited for the times. Despite the fact that data of millions of people was harvested and misused by unsavory organizations who wanted a certain candidate to win, nobody got hurt in the process. The same can’t be said for an attempt to sway an election in 1984 in order to give an organization with foreign ties control over a county in Oregon.
Ingenious Takeover Bid
It all started when a religious group (some say a cult) bought a large ranch in rural Oregon in order to establish a presence in the United States after being kicked out of India. The group was called the Rajneeshees, and their numbers and free-wheeling ways quickly unsettled residents who tried to prevent them from building a massive community outside of their town.
The Rajneeshees fought back by buying up available property in the town of Antelope and ultimately securing a majority on the town council. They renamed the town, established a creepy police force and essentially changed the identity of the small community. They also set their sights on getting control over the county government in an attempt to remove opposition to building their city, and this is when things took a turn for the surreal.
The Rajneeshees brought in homeless people by the thousands from around the country in an attempt to inflate the voting population and sway the election in their favor. However, county officials wouldn’t allow many of these people to register. The Rajneeshees regrouped and came up with a ingenious, yet terrifying plan to win the election by poisoning voters. They set up a lab on their ranch and produced salmonella that was subsequently poured over salad bars at restaurants, put in drinks of government officials and smeared on doorknobs of government offices. More than 750 people became ill as a result, and this remains the largest bioterror attack on US soil to date.
Colossal Failure
Fortunately, the attack didn’t keep people from voting, and it actually cemented the resolve of residents to cast their ballots in order to drive back the organization. Ultimately the Rajneeshees lost, and they eventually left the area after numerous criminal investigations were launched following the incident. The leader of the organization was deported and a couple of subordinates were imprisoned before leaving the country as well. The Rajneeshees were no more, life in the area slowly returned to normal, and this era was relegated to the pages of history.
While it’s easy to think that this was a local problem, it illustrates how easily the system can be manipulated and how vulnerable we are to the impact of election tampering. It also stresses the importance of participating in the process in order to actively protect our way of life. If a handful of people can poison an entire community in order to win an election, think of what a coordinated, well-funded attack by a foreign government can accomplish if they had the inclination to do something similar on a larger scale.
In a way, that’s what happened in 2016 as foreign entities weaponized social media as a way to sway voters, and it seems that it worked to a certain degree. While the American people are directing their anger and frustration to social media companies for not doing enough to prevent meddling from occurring, the reality is that a lot of blame falls on the shoulders of the public at large who bought into the scheme hook, line and sinker.
As we move forward into a bold new world that is driven by technology, we will continue to have vulnerabilities that can be exploited. The Rajneeshees and the Russians have demonstrated how people will stop at nothing to pursue their goals of gaining control of our government. Unfortunately, they also demonstrated that we don’t have the capacity to prevent these things from happening beforehand.
It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that our way of life, our institutions, our laws and our freedom can be jeopardized in the not-too-distant future by the machinations of a handful of people who are equipped to exploit the system to their advantage. The question is how do we prepare for such a scenario and what can we do to respond when it happens, and this is something that we should be taking very seriously.
