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Check out this underhanded shit that I got in my school email today:

Friend --

What you do today could determine the outcome of this election.

That's because early voting starts in Wisconsin today, and this election could come down to a few votes here. Your voice will keep moving this country forward.

Can I count on you to be the first to vote in Wisconsin today? Find out where to vote here.

This is the moment we've been working toward, Wisconsin. I know you're ready for this. I've seen how hard amazing volunteers and supporters like you have been working.

Now is the perfect time to vote. Voting early is easy and convenient, and it frees you up to do all that you can on November 6th to help get out the vote.

Be the first to cast your ballot in Wisconsin this election -- find out where to vote:

http://wi.barackobama.com/Wisconsin-Early-Vote

Let's do this,

Barack

P.S. -- Forward this email to your friends and neighbors to help spread the word about voting early.

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Links removed for the sanity and safety of all.

were the links to virus sites?

I don't know, I'm not stupid enough to blind click a link

It's obviously not genuinely from the president.

I don't understand the issue. Wisconsin allows early voting starting today.

Both campaigns are pushing hard to get people to vote early.

The benefit of people voting early is simple: Life happens, and the campaigns don't want any unforeseen events stopping their supporters from making it to the polls on Election Day.

"You wake up on Election Day, you might have a cold, babysitter gets sick, it's raining, the car broke down, I could go on -- toilet overflowing," said Michelle Obama in Wausau, Wis., on Friday. "There are so many ways to mess up a day when you don't have a lot of time."

(source)

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I clicked the link (you didn't sanitize enough to break it) and it asks for your street address and zip. I presume it finds the closest early polling place for you, since early voting is limited to a small number of polling places compared to election day.

For having removed the links, you missed the most obvious one.

As for the actual content of the email, this sort of "Vote for me early!" advertising has been going on in Ohio for a while already.

I would think that an email from the president would not come from info@barackobama.com It's an obvious fishing email.[DOUBLEPOST=1350928227][/DOUBLEPOST]The link removed made my antivirus go nuts, so yeah.

Bowielee said:

I would think that an email from the president would not come from info@barackobama.com It's an obvious fishing email.[DOUBLEPOST=1350928227][/DOUBLEPOST]The link removed made my antivirus go nuts, so yeah.

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Well, it would be interesting to examine the exact links, but the link you left asks for an address, and provides the polling location. I found a random address in wisconsin, entered it, and it popped out the early voting polling location for that address:

http://www.barackobama.com/lookup#!/?street=19327 Us Hwy 14&zip=53581

I think you might need to adjust your internal phishing/scam/virus/etc detector. This seems innocuous.

But it could be that there was one or two phishing links in there. Do they all go back to barackobama.com, or to other websites?

I guess I probably have posted in the tech forum, but this seemed more appropriate here.

Particularly as it may be suspect if it is a fishing email, who exactly is doing the fishing on wisconsin college students who may be voting for a particular candidate.

If it is a phishing email, it's certainly interesting.

Yeah, what Stienman said. The only link left goes to what is either the legitmate official site for Obama's reelection campaign or one of the most thorough and detailed fakes I've seen.

The links I removed were embedded links. I kept the obviously normal one.

Given the shenanigans you hear about regarding voting, can't blame a guy for being suspicious. I probably wouldn't have even bothered to read the e-mail.

drifter said:

Given the shenanigans you hear about regarding voting, can't blame a guy for being suspicious. I probably wouldn't have even bothered to read the e-mail.

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Yup, what drifter said right here. All political emails in my box get deleted, without opening them.

(Shrug) I already voted. And I get a bunch of stuff from the Dems and Bold Progressives, leftovers from the recall stuff.