Voting officials have an uphill battle to fight election lies
Voting officials face an uphill battle to fight election lies: The orphans of the elephant in the haystack, or the ugly kids in the woods
Every six months, they would come up with a new conspiracy theory. It would not be true. They’d have egg on their face. They go back in their hole for six months and then come back,” Adams said. “You only get so many bites at that apple.”
In the face of that landscape, election officials say they are controlling what they can control. They have spent a lot of time reaching out to people who are not sure if they agree with election results, and now hope that their work will change their minds.
“Think about the devastating effect it’d have if somebody uses an AI image of what looks like an election official somehow destroying ballots or, you know, breaking into a drop box,” he said. That kind of imagery could inspire violence in a close election because it undermines Americans’ confidence in the system.
How do social media and social media address the problem of electoral fraud? A response to Musk on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads on election “disinformation”
X is the most glaring example, but other platforms have also backed away from the more aggressive stance they took in 2020, cut back on the number of people working on trust and safety, and are generally more quiet about the work they are doing. Meta now lets Facebook and Instagram users opt out of some features of its fact-checking program, while its text-based social network, Threads, has deemphasized news and politics.
The very subject of election “disinformation” itself has been turned into a partisan fight. A coordinated Republican legal and political campaign to cast efforts to mitigate or track the spread of falsehoods online as “censorship” has undercut the work of government agencies, online platforms and researchers, and driven one institution out of the field.
Stephen Richer is the Republican recorder in Arizona and he said they try to not make unforced errors. I think that anyone who wants to make something look weird can do it.
Lopez, the former executive director of the Partnership for Large Election, said he hated seeing election officers spend their time on social media and make content that they’d rather not see. Election officials are trying to figure out what else they can do to get heard.
She said that if you see something suspicious and take a picture of it and post it on the internet, it can be decontextualized and not taken into account.
Danielle Lee Tomson, research manager at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, said such “evidence generation infrastructure” is more robust this year. Even when these efforts identify real issues with voting, they tend to ignore the checks in the system that catch problems, she said.
When election officials try to correct Musk’s false claims, he lashes out. The Secretary of State of Michigan told CBS News that her staff received threatening messages after she fact- checked Musk’s claim that Michigan has more registered voters than eligible citizens.
Musk has become a major culprit for baseless claims of a conspiracy to steal the election because Democrats brought in immigrants who were ineligible to vote.
Using Social Media to Identify and Respond to Election Misinformation: Neil Makhija, a Charleston County Voter’s App, and Mark Warner, Sen. Mark Warner
Neil Makhija brought his voting ice cream truck and helped people vote in Montgomery County, Pa. Cramer, in Charleston County, co-wrote a children’s book. An app created by a North Carolina man could deliver accurate election information to people there.
Increasingly election officials are thinking outside the box to reach voters, because trying to fight fire with fire on social media has felt like a losing battle for years now, says Carolina Lopez, a former election official from Miami-Dade County, Fla.
Warner told NPR that the stakes are not less than our democracy, so the government needs to get this information out quickly.
Warner wrote an open letter in the month of December, asking for some help to state and local governments identify and respond to election misinformation.
“It’s really important for us to get the message out there first and be as proactive as possible,” said Isaac Cramer, who runs elections in Charleston County, S.C.
And local election officials are making more of an effort than ever before to seek out media attention and educate the public on their processes. State election officials in several swing states have started holding multiple press conferences a week.
The signal through that noise is the state and local election official, and that’s what we want them to know.
The officials say that there is no sign that foreign adversaries have tampered with election or voting systems. Attacks aren’t required to undermine confidence, according to the election security expert.
The FBI and DHS have given Americans a heads up about the possible hacking of voter registration systems and other deceptive tactics that foreign actors might use in order to undermine the election.
In September, the Justice Department seized web domains it says Russian operatives used to spoof American news outlets and spread fake stories, indicted employees of Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT in a scheme to fund right-wing pro-Trump American influencers, and brought criminal charges against Iranian hackers accused of targeting the Trump campaign.
The federal government moved quickly to publicly attribute the fake Pennsylvania ballot video to Russia the day after the video first appeared on X — a notably rapid turnaround for intelligence and law enforcement officials. And they warned they expect more such fakes in the coming days and weeks.
“Our adversaries know that misinformation and disinformation is cheap and effective,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, in an interview with NPR.
Russia, Iran and China are expected to use election fraud claims as part of their larger goals to sow chaos and undermine democracy in America.
Intelligence and law enforcement officials are taking a more aggressive approach to calling out foreign interference. The Obama administration was reticent to make public information about the full extent of Russia’s efforts to help Trump until after the election.
“Going into the 2024 election cycle, we are arguably facing the most complex threat environment compared to a prior cycle,” said Cait Conley, who oversees election security efforts within the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber agency, in an interview with NPR.
If I lose, I will let you know what it is. That’s because they cheat. That’s the only way we’re gonna lose, because they cheat,” Trump said at a September rally in Michigan.
Donald Trump continues to deny he won the election despite courts and investigations finding no evidence of fraud. He has already set the stage to reject the results should he lose again this year.
Source: Voting officials face ‘an uphill battle’ to fight election lies
The 2024 Fortress: A Case Study of a Public Referendum against a Trump-Hoyle-Royal-Civil-Violating Fraud
The video was traced back to a Russian propaganda operation that has been spreading fake videos targeting Harris and her running mate.
They are fighting an uphill battle according to the co- director of the media forensics hub. I’m sure they feel like they’re trying to put a finger in the ground before something happens.
But the incident showed what has been clear for some time now: Online in 2024, the deck is stacked against voting officials, maybe even more so than in 2020. The phony video was viewed hundreds of thousands of times shortly after it was posted. A statement from Bucks County debunking it three hours later was shared on X fewer than 100 times.
Last week, a video began circulating on X, formerly Twitter, purporting to show a person in Pennsylvania ripping up ballots marked for former President Donald Trump and leaving alone those marked for Vice President Harris.
Officials have now added a second layer of security fencing to protect election offices as well as concrete k-rails, which means election workers will be bussed in from off-site locations due to reduced parking spaces. Election officials told NBC that on election day, the center would be protected by a ring of snipers on roofs and every door would be fitted with metal detectors.
The county, which is the fourth largest county in the nation, became ground zero for election denial conspiracists in recent years, after GOP lawmakers sanctioned a bogus recount in 2021, run by the Florida company Cyber Ninjas.
For years, Maricopa has put in place increased security measures. “We’re a fortress now,” Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County Recorder, told WIRED back in February, outlining how he had to navigate security fencing, metal detectors, and security checks in order to get into his office.
