DES MOINES, Iowa — Holly Shkolnick recently started participating in phone banking for the Kamala Harris presidential campaign.

After going to a couple of phone banking events that were listed on a website for specific areas Shkolnich and her mother and sister decided to go to another one being held just outside of Indianola.

“Nothing looked off about it. I mean, when you sign up for an event on Mobilize, like you put in your details, you get an email, you get a text and it says like ‘hey, you’re signed up for this’,” said Shkolnick. “I got an email with information that said ‘bring your laptop, bring your cellphone’ and often times you don’t really meet the organizers of the event until you are at the event. So nothing seemed off about it.”

When Shkolnick arrived with her mother at a church parking lot, the lights were off in the building and one other individual was there from Indianola. After sitting there for a couple of minutes and reaching out to the organizer, the group decided to leave.

When Shkolnick looked back at the Mobilize event posting, she realized that there were several more phone bank events posted after Election Day.

“One of the things I realized when I went back to report the event is that they had two phone banks scheduled after Election Day and that was the reason why I ultimately ended up reporting it, because you could tell it was just like someone probably went on Mobilize and just created a recurring event,” said Shkolnick.

Shkolnick reported the event organizers to the website, which responded to her complaint saying that the organizer had been blocked and the events were removed.

Shkolnick wanted those participating in phone banks with only a couple of days out from the election to be wary and if you are going to a new location to always bring someone you know.

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