Since 2021, a security conference in Atlanta had played host to a simple tabletop exercise in which attendees talked about how they would respond to fictional disasters like plane crashes or water treatment issues.
Sitting around a big table, participants from federal agencies or local departments devoted to emergency preparedness shared how their crews would react. Round and round they went, role-playing, sometimes for hours, as the scenario got more complex.
This year’s meeting was scheduled on Nov. 5 — Election Day — with the fictional scenario expected to focus on transportation, or possibly the chemical industry.
For conspiracy theorists who have fixated on falsehoods about widespread election fraud, though, the timing alone was enough to transform the event into something far more sinister. They spread claims that the conference was a secret meeting of top federal security experts in a bid to hack or steal this year’s presidential election — though it was neither of those things.
As news about the conference spread online, conspiracy theorists painted the event as cover for a “cyberattack” on election infrastructure or a fallback plan to somehow flip Georgia to Democrats should former President Donald J. Trump lead in early voting.
The Republican National Committee and Senator Rand Paul joined in on the criticism, issuing letters asking for more details about potential involvement by federal security agencies and implying that the agencies might have been distracted by the conference during a crucial election period. A spokeswoman for Mr. Paul shared a conference agenda showing the Department of Homeland Security was expected to participate. Organizers and the D.H.S. said they had not confirmed.
The organizer, the Atlanta chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association International, or AFCEA, a nonpartisan, nonprofit and nongovernmental group, fielded angry phone calls for days. On Oct. 24, it canceled the conference, blaming “a rapid and unanticipated rise in rhetoric and threats stemming from disinformation.”
Election denialism and conspiracy theories have played a central role in American politics since Mr. Trump catapulted falsehoods about voting to the national stage in 2016 and 2020. His fabrications have remained part of his re-election bid, leaving Mr. Trump’s allies keen on uncovering evidence that the election results might be tainted with fraud.
The annual trade meeting, called the Homeland Security Critical Infrastructure Conference, became another in a long list of groups that, although their purpose is completely unrelated to politics, have been embroiled in conspiracy theories.
Despite its title, the conference has little to do with similar-sounding federal agencies. Though organizers hoped federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security would accept an invitation to attend this year’s event, the agency said in an email that it had no role in the event.
Organizers said any attendees expected from federal agencies had backed out once the event became politicized. The conference itself was an unlikely target for conspiracy theories after running without incident for the past three years. Last year’s event, which 360 people attended, focused on a hypothetical car crash outside a Watershed Management Authority. A facilitator would slip hidden information to different players, mimicking the chaotic nature of information-sharing in real-world events. Unless someone participated via Zoom, those involved didn’t usually use computers.
This year, the torrent of right-wing ire fell on Paul Wertz, a 61-year-old former paramedic and Navy reservist in Roswell, Ga., who has organized the conferences since 2020, as the president of AFCEA’s Atlanta chapter, which has about 350 members.
“Once we realized it was on Election Day, we decided to make sure that there was nothing even remotely involved with that,” he said in an interview. The conference date was selected by an outside group that handles conference logistics like bookings and food.
“We’re talking about transportation, or education, you know, different areas of critical infrastructure that are still important and still relevant,” Mr. Wertz said.
He shared with The New York Times some of the dozens of voice mail messages, emails and text messages he had received from angry Americans who believed the event was an effort to disrupt the election.
Some messages accused Mr. Wertz of “election interference” or of orchestrating a “threat to the nation to the point of being treasonous.” Others threatened organizers with lawsuits or criminal charges, claiming that they would have to one day “come to terms with our creator” for their supposed wrongdoing.
“Do you think we are stupid,” began another email that threatened to sue Mr. Wertz personally — for what, it was unclear. It was signed simply, “WE THE PEOPLE.”
Mr. Wertz said the angry emails and phone calls largely stemmed from posts on X, the social network helmed by Elon Musk that has become a hot spot for election misinformation.
Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer and Trump ally, posted on X about the conference to her more than one million followers on Oct. 19, falsely saying it was “ELECTION INTERFERENCE BY HOMELAND SECURITY ON ELECTION DAY.”
Ms. Loomer did not respond to a request for comment.
That spurred a wave of attention on X for the next few days, as right-wing conspiracists elevated the falsehoods, according to a review of the activity by the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington.
Mr. Wertz fielded calls from the across the country, including a precinct captain in Alaska who wanted to know whether the exercise would interfere with her state, more than 3,000 miles away.
“At some point in time, it’s got to be willful ignorance or just downright misinformation,” Mr. Wertz said.
The one person he never heard from was Mr. Paul or his employees. In his letter to the Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Mr. Paul raised concerns about security officials attending during a tense election period. He asked for the names and titles of any of their employees planning to attend, along with emails between AFCEA and the two security agencies.
“That was kind of a frustrating thing,” Mr. Wertz said. “I got a bunch of phone calls from people all over the United States about this. I didn’t get a call from Senator Paul’s office. I didn’t get a call from anybody over there saying, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’”
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