After an election season dominated by conspiracy theories and false claims about voting, top election officials across the country say they already are bracing for what comes next.
They are grappling with ways they can counter waves of misinformation in the 2022 midterms and beyond related to voting procedures and the accuracy of election results.
A major topic in virtual gatherings this week of the National Association of Secretaries of State and National Association of State Election Directors is how to deal with voters who have lost faith in elections because of the misinformation surrounding the 2020 presidential election.
“There are some folks who are never going to believe anything I say, and I’m not trying to convince those people otherwise,” Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said. “It’s unfortunate that is the case that we have now.”
Jared Dearing, executive director for the State Board of Elections in Kentucky, said people still contact his office believing the presidential election was rigged. Voter fraud is exceedingly rare and virtually impossible to be used to sway a federal election, given that elections are overseen by the states and run by counties or other local jurisdictions.
State and local election officials have said repeatedly the 2020 election was fair and secure despite claims by former President Donald Trump and his allies that the election was stolen. Courts have soundly rejected allegations made in numerous lawsuits, while election officials of both parties conducted audits verifying the vote. Trump’s own attorney general at the time said there was no evidence of widespread fraud that would have changed the results.
The sheer number of false claims in 2020 and how they spread quickly across social media created major headaches for election officials, who had to counter the falsehoods at the same time they were trying to ensure a smooth presidential election during a deadly pandemic.
“They got all combined into one narrative … into one large lie to try to undermine confidence in the election,” Matt Masterson, a former top official at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told election officials on Thursday.
Masterson encouraged election officials to continue efforts to counter the disinformation campaigns and not be discouraged by what happened last year.
One question is how much this will fall on state and local election officials and what role the federal government will play in identifying and correcting election misinformation.
The U.S. Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency, which is charged with helping protect election systems, launched a “Rumor Control” website last year to address the falsehoods in real time. One rumor it dispelled was a claim in Arizona that poll workers gave Sharpies to certain voters so their ballots would be rejected.
Whether that effort will continue for future elections is not clear. Agency officials said countering lies and misinformation is most effective at the state and local level, and they urged election officials to find trusted sources to help them spread their message.
