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The Philadelphia Eagles are trying to remove fake ads stating that Vice President Kamala Harris is the team’s “official candidate” after several popped up across the city.
The team said in a statement on Monday that they’re “aware counterfeit political ads are being circulated and are working with our advertising partner to have them removed.”
Photos shared on social media show that at least one of the ads, an animated version of Harris in an Eagles helmet holding a football, was put up at a Philadelphia bus stop. Underneath, it states, “Kamala – official candidate of the Philadelphia Eagles.”
A link at the bottom of the ad goes to the Eagles’ actual voter registration site: philadelphiaeagles.com/vote. The site doesn’t state any support for a party or a candidate and doesn’t appear to have been updated since the primary elections.
The site shares resources on polling stations, how to request ballots and how to register to vote.
The bus stop in one of the images is located in West Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania, USA Today noted. The posters appeared at 16th and Spring Garden Streets, 18th Street and JFK Boulevard, and Walnut Street in Philadelphia, according to CBS News.
The National Football League and its Players Association started the NFL Votes effort in 2020, which is a non-partisan initiative supporting and encouraging “civic engagement among NFL players, and legends, club and league personnel, and fans.”
The Eagles hoped to have all the ads removed by Tuesday. Some fans toook it upon themselves to cover the ads with the team’s statement. Video by journalists showed one fan taping up copies of the statement over the ad.
Intersection, the company that owns the bus shelters on which the ads appeared, said in a statement that they had “nothing to do with the creation or posting of this unauthorized copy and Intersection staff will be removing the ads as soon as possible.”
“We are aware that several of our bus shelters located in Philadelphia have been vandalized and that the paid advertising copy in each of those shelters has been replaced with unauthorized copy,” the company added. “While our bus shelters have locks that typically prevent the installation of unauthorized copy by non-Intersection staff, occasionally people find a way to unlock the ad box and insert unauthorized copy.”
A city spokesperson said the posters had been placed at the stops “illegally.”
“These were not digital ads placed by the Harris campaign, the Philadelphia EAGLES, SEPTA, The City of Philadelphia or the media agency, Intersection, that handles the transit ad space,” the spokesperson said.
“This was not a digital breach; [whoever] is responsible for the illegally placed posters, broke into the securely covered shelter ad space and somehow put the posters in the space,” they added. “Intersection has advised the City’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (OTIS) that they plan to conduct a full inventory tomorrow of all bus shelters, and remove any [illegal] posters. The City has a process to review all bus shelter ads but this, again, was not a digital ad.”
Philadelphia is the largest city in one of the most important swing states in the country. President Joe Biden won the state in 2020 by just 80,555 votes. Former President Donald Trump won the state in 2016 by an even smaller margin, 44,292 votes.
