The New York State Board of Elections believes it was a mistake by an outside group that gave some voters incorrect poll sites.

Text messages from a group misdirected voters in the Capital Region.

Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan told NewsChannel 13 the incident was “deeply disturbing” and shared a photo on her social media page of the messages some voters got. 

Some voters were told to vote near Rochester, Sheehan said. Others got photos of the incorrect location.

A spokesperson for the Board of Elections said it was not meant to interfere with voting. The group, called Vote FTW, says its mission is to provide accurate polling location data to empower voters to participate in the democratic process. The group apologized for the error and sent a follow-up text on Monday with a correction.

“That is always the fear, that someone’s got less than good intentions. When it comes to that, we certainly want any eligible voter to cast their ballot in the primary election, but this ended up being human error, and we’ve taken as many steps as we can to communicate the correct information out to voters in advance of today,” said Kathleen McGrath, Director of Public Information for the New York State Board of Elections.

The best place to get information is the New York State Board of Elections website, according to the BOE, which is joining in a national campaign called #trustedinfo2024 to make sure voters know where to get accurate information ahead of the November election.

Just more than 100,000 people took advantage of nine days of early voting in Tuesday’s primaries, McGrath said.