A trove of leaked internal messages and documents from the militia American Patriots Three Percent—also known as AP3—reveals how the group coordinated with election denial groups as part of a plan to conduct paramilitary surveillance of ballot boxes during the midterm elections in 2022.
This information was leaked to Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a nonprofit that says it publishes hacked and leaked documents in the public interest. The person behind these AP3 leaks is an individual who, according to their statement uploaded by DDoSecrets, infiltrated the militia and grew so alarmed by what they were seeing that they felt compelled to go public with the information ahead of the upcoming presidential election.
Election and federal officials have already voiced concern about possible voter intimidation this November, in part due to the proliferation of politically violent rhetoric and election denialism. Some right-wing groups have already committed to conducting surveillance of ballot boxes remotely using AI-driven cameras. And last month, a Homeland Security bulletin warned that domestic extremist groups could plan on sabotaging election infrastructure including ballot drop boxes.
Devin Burghart, president and executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, says that AP3’s leaked plans for the 2022 midterms should be a warning for what may transpire next month. “Baseless election denial conspiracies stoking armed militia surveillance of ballot drop boxes is a dangerous form of voter intimidation,” Burghart tells WIRED. “The expansion of the election denial, increased militia activity, and growing coordination between them, is cause for serious concern heading into November. Now with voter suppression groups like True the Vote and some GOP elected officials targeting drop boxes for vigilante activity, the situation should be raising alarms.”
The leaked messages from 2022 show how AP3 and other militias provided paramilitary heft to ballot box monitoring operations organized by “The People’s Movement,” the group that spearheaded the 2021 anti-vaccine convoy protest, and Clean Elections USA, a group with links to the team behind the 2000 Mules film that falsely claimed widespread voter fraud. In the leaked chats, People’s Movement leader Carolyn Smith identifies herself as an honorary AP3 member.
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. That 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 DC, ultimately decided to save his soldiers for another day. ProPublica reported that some members went anyway but were under strict instruction to forgo any AP3 insignia. According to the leaked messages, Seddon also directed his state leaders to participate in the “operation.”
“All of us have a vested interest in this nation,” Seddon said in a leaked video. “So all the state leaders should be getting their people out and manning and observing ballot boxes, to watch for ballot stuffing. This is priority. This goes against getting your double cheeseburger at mcdonalds … Our nation depends on this. Our future depends on this. This ain't no bullshit issue. We need to be tight on this, straight up.”
A flier using militaristic language shared across various state-specific Telegram channels lays out how this operation would work. With “Rules of Engagement” instructions, “Volunteers” are told not to interfere with anyone dropping off their ballots. If someone is suspected of dropping off “multiple ballots,” then observers are told to record the event, and make a note of the individual's appearance and their vehicle's license plate number. In the event of any sort of confrontation, they’re supposed to “report as soon as possible to your area Captain.”
“At the end of each shift, Patriots will prepare a brief report of activity and transmit it to [the ballot] box team Captain promptly,” the flier states.
The person who leaked these documents and messages says that these paramilitary observers masquerading as civilians will often have a QRF—quick reaction force—on standby who can “stage an armed response” should a threat or confrontation arise.
The goal of the “operation,” according to that flier, was to “Stop the Mules.”
“These are the individuals stuffing ballot boxes,” the flier says. “They are well trained and financed. There is a global network backing them up. They pick up fake ballots from phony non-profits and deliver them to ballot boxes, usually between 2400 hours and 0600 hours.” (This was the core conspiracy of 2,000 Mules; the conservative media company behind the film has since issued an apology for promoting election conspiracies and committed to halting its distribution).
Fears about widespread armed voter intimidation during the 2022 midterms—stemming from online chatter and warnings from federal agencies—never materialized in full. However, there were scattered instances of people showing up to observe ballot drops in Arizona. These individuals, according to the statement by the anonymous leaker in the DDoSecrets files, were not “lone wolves”—they were part of “highly organized groups who intended to influence the elections through intimidation.”
In one widely-publicized incident, two clearly armed people wearing balaclavas and tactical gear showed up in Mesa, Arizona, to conduct drop box surveillance. They were never identified, though a Telegram video on DDoSecrets shows AP3’s North Carolina chapter head Burley Ross admitting that one of them was part of his unit. Ross says that the individual was Elias Humiston, who had previously been conducting vigilante border surveillance. “I was well aware they were doing drop box observations,” said Ross. “I was not aware they were doing so in full kit.” Ross added that Humiston had since resigned from the group.
Seddon also addressed the “little incident in Arizona,” stressing the importance of maintaining clean optics to avoid scrutiny. “We had pushed for helping to maintain election integrity through monitoring the ballot boxes,” said Seddon, in a video message on Telegram. “We never told anyone to do it like that.”
The militia movement largely retreated from public view in the aftermath of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol in 2021. The high-profile implication of the Oath Keepers in the riot, which at the time was America’s biggest militia, thrust the broader militia movement into the spotlight. Amid intense scrutiny, stigma, and creeping paranoia about federal informants, some militias rebanded or even disbanded. But as WIRED reporting has shown, after a brief lull in activity, the militia movement has been quietly rebuilding, reorganizing, and recruiting. With AP3 at its helm, it’s also been engaging in armed training.
Election conspiracies have only continued to fester since 2022, and AP3 has been aggressively recruiting and organizing. Moreover, the rhetoric in the group has also intensified. “The next election won’t be decided at a Ballot Box,” wrote an AP3 leader earlier this year in a private chat, according to ProPublica. “It’ll be decided at the ammo box.”
“Every American has a right to go to the ballot box without fear and the authorities need to urgently learn the lessons of 2022—and the lessons contained in these documents—so they can prevent something even worse from happening in the coming weeks,” the infiltrator wrote in the DDoS statement.
