Technology

Scammers target retirees with election tricks and fake polling updates ahead of Nov 4 vote

Published

5 months ago

October 22, 2025

Scammers target retirees with election tricks and fake polling updates ahead of Nov 4 vote

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Election season should be about casting your vote and making your voice heard. But for scammers, it’s an opportunity to trick retirees into handing over personal details, money or even their vote itself.

What many don’t realize is that public voter registration data is one of the biggest tools fraudsters use. With elections coming up on Nov. 4, scammers are already scraping these records and using them to create targeted scams. If you’re a retiree or helping a parent or loved one prepare to vote, here’s how to stay safe.

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Why voter records are public and risky

HOW SCAMMERS TARGET YOU EVEN WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA

Every state in the U.S. keeps voter registration lists. These include personal details like:

Full name
Home address
Phone number (in some states)
Political party affiliation
Voting history (whether you voted, not who you voted for).

Scammers are targeting retirees with fake election messages and calls. (Getty Images)

While these lists are meant for transparency, they’re often made available online or sold in bulk. Data brokers scoop them up, combine them with other records and suddenly scammers have a detailed profile of you: your age, address and voting habits. For retirees, this exposure is especially dangerous. Why? Because seniors are less likely to know that this information is floating around, making scams seem more convincing.

You can easily check where your personal information is exposed with a free data exposure scanner.

Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com

Scams targeting retirees before Nov. 4

Here are the most common election-season cons fraudsters are already running:

1) Fake “polling place” updates

You might get a call, text or email saying your polling location has changed. Scammers may then direct you to a fake site that asks for your Social Security number or ID details “to confirm eligibility.”

2) “Voter ID update” messages

Since some states require voter ID, scammers will pose as election officials, claiming your ID is “out of date” or that you must upload personal documents. These go straight into the wrong hands.

RETIREES LOSE MILLIONS TO FAKE HOLIDAY CHARITIES AS SCAMMERS EXPLOIT SEASONAL GENEROSITY

3) Donation scams

Criminals set up fake political donation sites with names resembling real campaigns. Retirees who are politically active or generous with causes are prime targets here.

4) Absentee ballot phishing

Scammers know many seniors vote by mail. They’ll send emails offering to “help” with requests or track your ballot while stealing your personal data in the process.

Red flags to watch out for

Public voter data can make it easy for fraudsters to create convincing scams. (CyberGuy.com)

Scammers use clever tricks to make their messages seem urgent and official. Here are the warning signs that should make you pause before responding.

Urgency: “Act now or lose your right to vote.” Scammers use deadlines to scare you.
Unusual payment requests: No legitimate election office will ever ask for payment to vote or register.
Strange links: If you’re asked to click on a link from a text or email, stop. Always go directly to your state’s official election website instead.
Requests for sensitive info: Election officials don’t need your Social Security number or bank account details.

How retirees can stay safe this election season

Protecting yourself doesn’t mean opting out of civic life. It means taking a few smart steps:

1) Reduce your data footprint

This one matters most. The less personal data available about you, the fewer opportunities scammers have to trick you during election season. When they can view your age, address and even your voting history, they can craft messages that sound alarmingly real. The good news is you can take control and limit what’s out there.

Reaching every voter data broker or people-search site on your own is nearly impossible, and most make the process intentionally difficult. That’s why data removal services can help. They automatically send removal requests to hundreds of data-broker sites and keep monitoring to ensure your information doesn’t return. The result is fewer scam calls, fewer phishing emails and far less risk this election season.

While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.

REMOVE YOUR DATA TO PROTECT YOUR RETIREMENT FROM SCAMMERS

Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com

Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com

2) Confirm only through official sources

If you get a message about your polling place, ignore any links and call your local election office directly. Each state also has an official website you can trust.

3) Sign up for ballot tracking

Many states offer secure ballot tracking online. Use only the official election site, not third-party services.

4) Freeze your credit

Since scammers use voter data to impersonate you, a credit freeze stops them from opening new accounts in your name. Retirees who don’t need frequent new credit are especially good candidates for this protection.

Taking steps to remove your personal info online helps keep your vote and data safe. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

5) Be wary of political donation sites

If you want to donate, type the campaign’s official website into your browser instead of clicking a link in an email or social media ad.

Kurt’s key takeaway

Voting is one of the most important rights we have. But this year, scammers will use public voter data to exploit retirees like never before. Don’t let them steal your peace of mind. By spotting the red flags, sticking to official election sources and removing your personal data from the web, you can protect yourself and your vote.

Have you or someone you know received a suspicious message about voting or donations? How did you realize or suspect that it was a scam? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com

Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Related Topics:cybercrime Elections Featured Privacy voting

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Technology

Bluetti’s Sora 500 solar panel is incredibly powerful for its size

Published

12 hours ago

March 28, 2026

Press Room

Bluetti’s Sora 500 solar panel is incredibly powerful for its size

We don’t review many solar panels at The Verge, but the tech inside Bluetti’s incredibly portable Sora 500 panel makes it worth a deeper look. The new N-Type panels made by Bluetti and others give you more bang for the buck, pound, and square inch. That’s a big deal for vanlifers like me who depend upon these beefy portable solar panels to extend off-grid stays.

In real-world testing, I saw Bluetti’s 500W panel deliver 509W to my van’s power station, allowing me to generate over 800W when combined with the three sad 140W monocrystalline solar panels I have installed on top of my van. That kind of stationary output is fantastic. I typically consume about 1.6kWh a day, so this array lets me add a full day’s worth of charge in only two hours. I just wish that Bluetti had made the Sora 500 bifacial like Jackery and newcomer Zoupw did with their even lighter, high-wattage, portable, N-Type panels designed to maximize output in less than ideal conditions.

The Sora 500 is priced at €849 in Europe — it isn’t being sold in the US yet. Bluetti spokesperson Ellen Lee tells me that the company wants to bring it to the US market but it’s “currently navigating some shifting regional policies and trade dynamics.” Things that Zoupw and Jackery managed to sort out already.

$984

The Good

Incredibly compact when folded
Good performance in partial shade
Exceeded rated output
Efficient N-Type TOPCon cells

The Bad

Heavy compared to competitors
Single-sided (not bifacial)
Tedious to unfold/pack
Not yet available in the US

Bluetti’s single-sided Sora 500 panel uses TOPCon (Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact) cells, an N-Type technology which is replacing older PERC (Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell) tech. Compared to PERC, TOPCon panels do better in low-light, deal with high temperatures better, and degrade more slowly. TOPCon panels can achieve higher efficiencies (often ~23–25 percent) compared to typical PERC panels (~20–23 percent), depending on implementation.

The Sora 500 does well in shading tests, but partially shading the center four panels creates the most chaos, dropping from over 500W of output to just 50W.

The output from the Sora 500, plugged into the LV (low voltage) solar input of a EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 solar generator, dropped to just 50W when shading the four center panels. You can see my roof-top panels producing 302W on the HV input.

The Sora 500 did much better when I shaded other panel combinations, including the four just right of center.

Blocking the four panels right of center dropped output from over 500W to 276W.

All these advantages mean that you’ll get more for your money, as soon as you unfurl all 12 panels of the Sora 500 and over their extended lifetime. The panel also features an IP67 resistance to dust and water and an ETFE coating that makes it easier to wipe away dirt that interferes with solar intake.

Lightweight portables are no match for gusts of wind, this one was about 10 – 12 knots.

In my mid-March testing in the south of France at an altitude of about 600 meters, I was regularly seeing the Sora 500 delivering above its rated output, measuring as much as 509W on a cool and cloudless day. It also does a good job of handling the sun being partially shaded.

For example, on a very sunny day when the 12 individual panels that comprise the Sora 500 were producing over 500W, the output dropped to 412W when partially shading one corner panel, and 390W when partially shading the right-most two. Partially shading the four panels just to the right of center dropped the output to 276W.

The output from the Sora 500 dropped dramatically when I blocked the center four panels, falling to just 50W. That’s likely because I choked off the entire array by severing the connection between all four parallel zones. Bluetti uses a half-cut cell design and a 3-series, 4-parallel (3S4P) circuit architecture for the Sora 500. This results in multiple independent power zones by dividing the cells into smaller halves and distributing them across four parallel power paths. It helps to prevent a single shaded area from becoming a bottleneck for the entire panel, like you see with cheaper panels.

Unfortunately, Bluetti chose to cover the back of its panels with fabric and a complex system of kickstands and straps. By comparison, the Zoupw 480W and Jackery SolarSage 500 X N-Type panels are bifacial, meaning they can also collect ambient light from the back of the panels when placed on reflective surfaces like snow, sand, concrete, and, to a lesser extent, grass.

I haven’t tested these panels myself, but I’ve seen unconfirmed user reports claiming to have pushed the Zoupw beyond 525W of output. Importantly, both panels also weigh just 22lb (10kg), making them even lighter than the 28.4lb (12.9kg) Bluetti Sora 500.

Solar Panel	Base Power	Weight	Unfolded Area (sq in)	Watts per lb	Watts per sq in
Bluetti SORA 500	500W	28.40 lbs	~4,510 sq in (100.0” x 45.1”)	17.61 W/lb	0.110 W/sq in
Jackery SolarSaga 500 X	500W	22.05 lbs	~3,848 sq in (98.1” x 39.2”)	22.68 W/lb	0.130 W/sq in
Zoupw 480W	480W	22.49 lbs	~4,512 sq in (138.6” x 32.6”)	21.34 W/lb	0.106 W/sq in

On paper, the Jackery panel is the output king in terms of Watts per pound and unfolded Watts per square inch.

And while weight is an important enabler of portability, I should note that these things tend to fly away when the wind picks up. Fortunately, the Bluetti panel I’ve been testing has tie-down points for gusty days. All three panels are much lighter than the reliable 400W PERC monster from EcoFlow that I’ve been hauling around for the last four years. It weighs 35.3lbs (16kg) and is still available to buy for $599.

For vanlifers, the Bluetti Sora 500 absolutely dominates when it comes time to pack the panel away into an RV, van, or closet. The Zoupw and Jackery use standard 4-section or 6-section “slab” folds, while Bluetti uses a 12-section grid fold, allowing it to collapse into a much smaller, briefcase-like package. Even then, the 3.3-inch thick folded Bluetti is thinner than both the 3.35-inch thick Zoupw panel and 3.82-inch Jackery.

Solar Panel	Base Power	Folded Dimensions (L × W)	Folded Area (sq in)	Watts per Folded sq in
Bluetti SORA 500	500W	22.4” × 17.5”	392 sq in	1.28 W/sq in
Jackery SolarSaga 500 X	500W	39.2” × 20.7”	812 sq in	0.62 W/sq in
Zoupw 480W	480W	34.7” × 32.6”	1,131 sq in	0.42 W/sq in

The Sora 500 delivers a ton of output for a panel that folds down so small, working out to 1.28 Watts per square inch.

Conversely, the Sora 500 can be a pain in the ass to set up due to all the hinges and straps needed to support so many segments. It’s a puzzle I managed to mostly master after the third installation, but repositioning the panel to follow the sun throughout the day is a lesson in patience.

1/8

The Sora 500 folds down incredibly small.

Without official US pricing for the Sora 500 panel, it’s hard to do a direct price-per-watt comparison with the $649.99 Zoupw 480W and $999 (often on sale for $799) Jackery SolarSage 500 X. However, if we strip the European VAT from its €849 price tag and convert it, the Sora 500 works out to about $820. While that’s competitive, it still leaves the Zoupw 480W with the best price-per-watt performance in this class.

Bluetti’s Sora 500 can’t compete with the Zoupw 480W and Jackery SolarSage 500 X in terms of weight, but it wins handily in terms of Watts per square inch when folded down. It’s the only 500W panel that effectively disappears into a small closet or under a van bench. As such, it justifies its price premium for anyone like me who has limited space to store an extra solar panel they only need to deploy occasionally.

Unfolded: 100 × 45.1 × 0.1 in / 2541 × 1146.6 × 3 mm
Folded: 22.4 × 17.5 × 3.3 in / 570 × 445 × 85 mm
Weight: 28.4 lbs / 12.9 kg
Panels: 12x TOPCon
Conversion Efficiency: up to 25 percent
Voltage at Pmax (Vmp):40.92V
Current at Pmax (Imp): 12.22A
Open Circuit Voltage (Voc): 49.1V
Short Circuit Current (Isc): 13.31A
Operating Temperature: -13°F to 149°F / -25°C to 65°C
Best Working Temperature: 77°F / 25°C
1.5m MC4 to XT60 cable included in box

Photography by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

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Thomas Ricker

Technology

Too loud? Ticket’s in the mail

Published

12 hours ago

March 28, 2026

Press Room

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

You already know about speed cameras. Red light cameras. Toll cameras that photograph your plate and bill you later.

Now meet their cousin. Noise cameras are the newest automated enforcement technology spreading through American cities. A pole-mounted device contains sensitive microphones paired with a license plate camera.

IF SOMEONE GETS INTO YOUR EMAIL, THEY OWN EVERY ACCOUNT YOU HAVE. THESE 3 MOVES LOCK THEM OUT FOR GOOD

Your car drives past. If your exhaust tips over the legal decibel limit, a ticket arrives in your mailbox days later. No warning. No officer pulling you over. No flashing lights in your rearview mirror. Just a microphone that never blinks, never takes a break and never misses a shift.

Silence of the Lambos

New York City has been running these since 2021. The cameras have issued more than 1,600 violations and collected nearly $2 million in fines. Get caught once, and you’re looking at $800. Get caught repeatedly, and the fine climbs to $2,500.

New York City implemented noise cameras and has been using the technology since 2021. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

Newport, Rhode Island, put two cameras on scenic Ocean Avenue. Within days, a Mustang GT got nailed at 85 decibels. Two decibels over the limit. $250 fine. Providence approved $180,000 to add cameras in 2026. Connecticut passed statewide legislation.

California has six cities running a five-year pilot program with fines up to $1,105. Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, Sacramento and Washington, D.C., are all deploying or testing. Colorado, New Jersey and Hawaii have introduced similar legislation. This is not a local story anymore. It’s a national one moving fast, and most drivers have absolutely no idea it’s coming for them.

5 SIMPLE TECH TIPS TO TAKE BACK CONTROL OF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA

Here’s how the technology actually works.

The microphone detects sound above the legal threshold, typically between 75 and 95 decibels depending on the city. To put that in plain English, a normal conversation runs about 60 decibels. A lawnmower hits around 90. Most cities are drawing the line somewhere in between. The camera cross-references the sound spike with the exact moment a vehicle passes, photographs the plate, and generates the ticket automatically. No officer involved. No human review in most cases. Just math, a microphone and a camera pointed at your plate.

Too loud and furious

When I’m in my Porsche and flip into manual mode, rowing through the gears with that beautiful exhaust note singing, I’m not doing the math on that out loud. Let’s just say I’m watching the camera location maps very carefully. You probably should too.

If your car reaches a certain decibal above the “legal threshold,” the microphone in the camera can detect the sound and cross references with the moment a vehicle passes. (Utah Department of Transportation)

Here’s what should concern drivers with completely stock vehicles. That Mustang GT wasn’t a tuned track car. It’s a car you buy at a dealership. Two decibels over the limit. $250 gone. Motorcycles are even more exposed. A stock Harley-Davidson idles around 75 decibels and can hit 90 under acceleration. Well inside the danger zone in several cities already running cameras. You don’t need a modified exhaust to get a ticket. You just need bad timing.

AI is being used to pinpoint which specific vehicle in a group triggered the alert. Not just the loudest car in the frame. Your car. The tech is getting smarter every single month.

DRONE FOOD DELIVERY LAUNCHES IN NEW JERSEY

Roar and peace

There are two valid sides here.

If someone with a straight-pipe exhaust does a flyby past your bedroom at midnight, you’re probably delighted they got caught. Noise pollution is a real health issue linked to sleep disorders, elevated blood pressure and anxiety. Cities have tried everything and nothing worked at scale until now.

An undated file photo of rush hour traffic in Manhattan, New York City, New York. (iStock)

But this is also another layer of always-on surveillance that never forgets and never gives you the benefit of the doubt. Critics have raised legitimate questions about whether cameras get placed disproportionately in lower-income neighborhoods, turning a public health tool into a revenue machine aimed at the wrong zip codes. Fair questions worth asking out loud.

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These cameras are spreading faster than most drivers realize. Search your city name plus “noise camera ordinance” to find the exact decibel limits where you live. Know the number before the camera does.

Send this to someone who is a car enthusiast, a motorcycle rider or anyone with a loud vehicle. Forward this before they find out the hard way. Consider it your good deed for the week.

Technology

The White House has an app now, and Trump wants you to report people to ICE on it

Published

24 hours ago

March 27, 2026

Press Room

The White House has an app now, and Trump wants you to report people to ICE on it

A new official White House app on Android and iOS takes the content from the White House website and copies it into app format. A tweet announcing the app on Friday morning appeared alongside a video joking about missile launches that also appears to feature an iPhone, rather than the elusive Trump Phone. There’s no word about exclusive features or tie-ins with the phone or Trump Mobile services.

A handful of tabs in the app mostly replicate pages that exist on the Trump Administration’s version of the White House website, including news, livestreams, social feeds, and a gallery. A prominent “Get in Touch” button on the social feeds tab includes an option for users to submit a tip to ICE, which takes them to a tip form on the ICE website. It also includes options for texting the president, contacting the White House, or signing up for a newsletter — we could suggest some better ones.