Election administrators are actively combating misinformation in real-time as the early voting period commences.
Conservative voices have been spreading unverified tales of voting machines altering votes, widespread fraud in mail-in ballots, and claims that election officials are manipulating the process if it takes more than a day to count ballots. These claims are spreading rapidly on social media as people cast their votes. These same accusations were echoed by former President Donald Trump and his allies during the 2020 election in an attempt to counter his loss to current President Joe Biden.
State and local election authorities, however, are preparing for a wave of false and misleading claims and are actively addressing these issues ahead of time.
"We kindly request that before people blindly believe what they see on their social media feeds, they at least fact-check it against a reliable source," Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat and president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, advised reporters recently.
Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Alliance for Securing Democracy focused on election-related disinformation, pointed out that some of the push for fact-checking is necessary because social media companies have retracted their efforts to challenge false claims.
"It's encouraging to see how much election officials have improved in terms of communication before the election," Schafer said. "There wasn't as much interaction four years ago when it came to communicating any changes in voting procedures and short-circuiting some of the false election narratives that we already know will arise."
Here are some examples from this month as early voting continues:
Machines switching votes?
"We have received reports of two individuals voting on a machine having the machine change their vote from Trump to Harris," the Washoe County Republican Party in Nevada claimed in an email blast that was flagged on social media by local political reporter Jon Ralston.
This resembled many debunked voting machine claims from 2020. While these conspiracy theories continue to circulate online, a spokesperson for Washoe County told CNN there have been no specific complaints about machines switching votes since early voting began.
Claims of voter fraud also surfaced in Texas this week as early voting began in the state. In one instance, some right-wing personalities on social media shared a video of a man claiming that his vote had been switched on the machine from one candidate to another, urging people to "check your paper ballots." Trump allies who shared the video claimed that Tarrant County used a voting system with vulnerabilities and led to the alleged switch.
The county's Elections Administration Department issued a statement Tuesday refuting these claims, stating that in one reported instance, a voter reviewed their printed ballot and "found that it did not correctly reflect their choice for President." Another ballot was provided, and the issue was resolved, according to the department, which added that they had "no reason to believe votes are being switched by the voting system."
Counting votes in Georgia
In Georgia, several right-wing accounts seized upon a CBS interview with Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over the weekend, during which he said the state should be able to report 70% to 75% of the vote total by 8 p.m. on Election Day. He noted that the state would still need to tally overseas and military ballots, which can be received until the Friday after Election Day and may influence the outcome of a close race.
However, Raffensperger's critics misconstrued his comments to imply that 25% of the remaining votes would come from overseas or military ballots and that it would be impossible to report results for three days – claims that Raffensperger did not in fact make.
"I know you're up to something and it's all going to come to light," Kylie Jane Kremer, a Trump supporter who helped to organize the January 6, 2021, rally on the Ellipse that preceded the attack on the US Capitol, said on X. "You don't just belong in jail, you belong under jail, for subverting Georgians' right to secure, free, and fair elections."
Kremer told CNN, "Raffensperger is disseminating misinformation to the masses about voting," but she believes that all overseas and military ballots should be counted.
Raffensperger responded to some of the criticism on X, reiterating that most of the early vote would be tallied by 8 p.m. and Election Day votes would be reported later that evening.
However, the inaccurate extrapolations had already gained traction, and to the disappointment of Georgia officials, Utah Sen. Mike Lee was among those criticizing Raffensperger.
Lee, a Republican, posted "Just...no" on X, as he shared a post inaccurately claiming that Raffensperger had said the results wouldn't be ready for three days.
Raffensperger's appearance on CBS came as he was also debunking a claim that machines were flipping votes.
"We'll respond quickly to these sorts of things in 2024 because it's not backed by facts," Raffensperger said. "The equipment is working."
In Arizona, there's anticipation among specialists that over 300,000 voters might mail in their ballots on Election Day. This action takes time to sort and count, and other states don't encounter such a large influx of Election Day mail ballots.
Another incident that gave officials a headache occurred in Minneapolis over the weekend. A photograph spreading on social media showed untended ballot boxes in a parking lot.
Republican local leaders and pro-Trump accounts raised concerns on Friday about this situation, sharing the image and casting doubt on the credibility of postal voting. Experts who stay neutral on party lines assert that mail-in voting is a reliable process that isn't susceptible to widespread cheating.
Within a short span, Hennepin County officials released a statement acknowledging the "unsuitable" security breach and uploaded a 18-minute surveillance footage on YouTube, proving that no one tampered with the unsupervised ballots.
"false information and misinformation are the biggest hurdles for elections officers at the moment, and our only method of overcoming these rumors is to address them instantly," Hennepin County elections director Ginny Gelms told CNN.
CNN's Zachary Cohen, Tierney Sneed and Bob Ortega contributed to this report.
The first sentence: "Given the context of social media companies retracting their efforts to challenge false claims, Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, emphasizes the importance of fact-checking before blindly believing information."
The second sentence: "In the midst of early voting, debunked claims about voting machines switching votes continue to circulate, such as the case in Nevada where the Washoe County Republican Party alleged that a machine changed a vote from Trump to Harris, but authorities have not received any specific complaints about machine manipulation."
