MAGA’s ‘Election Wizard’ Conspiracy Theorist Is Actually an Oklahoma Cop

For over a decade, Travis Vernier had a distinguished career as a police officer in Oklahoma City. He was lauded for his bravery in rescuing a man from a burning car, and in 2021 he received his department’s highest award, the Medal of Honor.

But what no one knew until now is that for the last two-and-a-half-years, Vernier has led a double life as one of the biggest pushers of election conspiracy theories in America, while simultaneously advocating for police action against parents who bring their children to drag shows, dismissing and downplaying  reports of police brutality, and supporting Kyle Rittenhouse’s killing of two unarmed men at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020.

Operating under the moniker Election Wizard, Vernier ran accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, Truth Social, and Gettr, with a combined following of over 900,000.

His posts and content were shared by a veritable who’s who of the MAGA sphere, including disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and Pizzagate promoter Jack Posobiec, and former President Donald Trump himself. Meanwhile Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO who has funded a large part of the Big Lie network, has an entire section on his website dedicated to Election Wizard discounts.

Election Wizard grew so influential in the Stop the Steal world that he was invited to Mar-a-Lago for Trump’s announcement that he’s running for president again in 2024.

Vernier told VICE News that he sees no conflict between his role as police officer and his work pushing election conspiracies, though that’s not how he categorizes his content.

“I never started Election Wizard with the intent for it to be anything other than an outlet for myself,” Vernier said. “What was frustrating to me coming out of the 2020 election is you could not in many places on social media have a discussion about issues that were being brought up information that was being brought up. You simply couldn’t have that conversation. It was being suppressed. It was being censored.”

Vernier claimed the recent revelations from the so-called Twitter Files confirmed his point, but the reality is that the files showed almost the exact opposite.

Now, Vernier has left the police force and has launched his own law firm that specializes in labor law and civil rights defense, according to its website. He has also announced that he is scheduled to teach a course in constitutional law at his alma mater, Southern Nazarene University.

Vernier didn’t say if he planned to include in his course material the comments he made on his Election Wizard account in support for the “Constitutional Sheriff” movement—which is the idea that county sheriffs are essentially above the law and that their authority should supersede that of the federal government. 

“I look forward to the constitutionally faithful sheriffs setting up their counties as ‘Second Amendment Sanctuaries’ in the coming months,” Vernier wrote in June last year under his Election Wizard moniker.

Southern Nazarene University did not respond to a request for comment about Vernier’s position on the constitution. 

The Election Wizard account has operated anonymously since it launched in August 2020, just months before the presidential election. But researchers at Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan group that tracks extremism online, recently found evidence linking Vernier to the account.

When contacted about the report on Thursday, Vernier said that he was not worried about his real identity being linked to the account and that he had already planned to appear on a YouTube show in the coming weeks, which he says would have effectively outed him anyway.

Uncovering Vernier’s identity was not difficult, given that he used his personal email address, which he also listed on his LinkedIn account, to register the Election Wizard website.

After graduating from SNU in 2012 with a degree in politics and law, Vernier joined the Oklahoma City Police Department. He rose to the rank of detective in recent years and for the last four years worked in the department’s Crimes Against Children Unit. In 2021, Vernier received the Medal of Honor, the highest honor the department awards. He was also lauded during his career for rescuing a man from a burning car. 

Towards the end of his time as a police officer, Vernier told VICE News he decided to launch the Election Wizard persona because he felt that, as a government employee, he did not have the same freedom to speak his mind as a private citizen.

The account quickly gained traction, and in October Trump retweeted a video Vernier had created mocking the size of the crowds at then-candidate Joe Biden’s campaign rallies. The video has amassed over 14 million views.

By November 2020, the Twitter account alone had gained over 130,000 followers, leading the nonpartisan group Accountable.US to highlight “Election Wizard” in a November 2002 report on the most prominent conspiracy accounts being shared by right-wing figures.

“[Election Wizard] has stoked election disinformation in numerous viral tweets that were also shared by Trump campaign officials,” the report states, also highlighting that Election Wizard follows numerous accounts that promote the QAnon conspiracy.

Among those sharing the Election Wizard’s posts were former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Monica Crowley. The posts were also shared by more extreme figures within MAGA world, like professional troll and promoter of the Pizzagate conspiracy, Jack Posobiec, while the Election Wizard Twitter account is followed by Trump’s social media manager Dan Scavino, Trump’s son Eric, and founder of conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk.

In January 2022, Mike Flynn, who many see as the figurehead of the Big Lie movement, listed “Election Wizard” among his top 10 channels to follow on Telegram, citing it as an account that “offers solid and honest information and assessments.”

In right wing media circles, Election Wizard’s posts were also used to bolster conspiracy-filled articles about the election. Far-right conspiracy rag The Gateway Pundit has referenced Election Wizard in at least 66 articles while Breitbart referenced the account’s posts in at least 20.

And though Vernier framed his posts as just putting out information out there for people to consume, his followers took them as a digital call to arms.

On the day after the 2022 midterms, Vernier posted that change was needed to fix the problems blighting U.S. election systems. One commenter responded: “We need war, we need death, destruction, and brutality.”

The responses to Vernier’s posts, particularly on Telegram, are filled with calls to violence and advocating for civil war.

“It is completely illogical to let [the U.S.] go this far into disrepair,” one user wrote a week after the midterms, in response to another Election Wizard post. “Well there’s one option: civil war.”

Beyond boosting election conspiracies, Vernier was using his new profile to push a range of far-right positions, such as the demonization of drag shows for children. “Every parent who took their child to [a drag show in Dallas] should receive a visit from law enforcement and Texas Child Protective Services,” Vernier wrote on Telegram, Twitter, and Truth Social.

Vernier defended his demonization of drag shows for children when speaking to VICE News. Over the course of the last six months, these events have been increasingly targeted by far-right demonstrators. 

Vernier also downplayed police brutality. In the wake of the horrific shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, writing on Telegram that police were slow to respond to the shooting because of activism against police brutality.

“The inaction of the police in Texas doesn’t surprise me. It’s been happening for years since Furgeson [sic] but worsened after the 2020 riots, thanks to the Left,” Vernier wrote. “Many cops are afraid to act, worried they’ll get hung out to dry. So, they stand by and wait for orders from someone higher up.”

Vernier also claimed that the issue of police killings of Black people was being overblown. Responding to a tweet by right-wing agitator Andy Ngo, which included alleged footage of “BLM rioters,” Vernier wrote: “Police shootings are one of the smallest problems in the Black community. Ending police officer-involved shootings would make no difference in about 99% of Black lives.”

Vernier, who still posts regularly on his social media channels, has made money from spreading conspiracy theories, primarily from his affiliate deal with MyPillow. He’s considered going full time as an election conspiracist, he told VICE News, but for now, he is focusing on his new career as a lawyer. 

One of the first cases he argued after becoming a lawyer was an unfair dismissal case brought by two employees of Tyson Foods. The complaint says Tyson discriminated against the employees who requested religious exemptions from the company’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate policy.

However the complaint filed with the court contains false anti-vaccine claims, inaccurately describing the COVID-19 vaccine as “experimental and harmful.” The complaint also falsely states that vaccination “poses a higher risk of deadly spread of COVID-19 than asymptomatic spread.”

As Election Wizard, Vernier is focused on the 2024 election where he is poised to play a pivotal role in what has now become mainstream GOP’s strategy of undermining people’s faith in U.S. elections. 

“To me election day is like the Super Bowl,” Vernier said. “I love just watching the returns as they come in, getting reports on the ground from people. At some point, usually at one or two in the morning, I’ll wind it up but that’s usually after a full 12 hours. I think people really appreciate that. There’s not a lot of other accounts on the right side of politics that provide that kind of continuous feed during election day.”

Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.