False information about elections has proliferated since President Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Even today, more than 1 in 4 Americans believe that the election was “rigged” despite national security officials declaring it the “most secure [election] in history.”
The ongoing spread of misinformation not only undermines public faith in elections, but it also endangers election officials and fuels voter suppression legislation. These rumors also risk interfering with voters’ ability to understand the political process. Artificial intelligence may amplify these dynamics. A recent Brennan Center study showed how easy it is to get the most popular AI chatbots to generate content depicting election fraud, which in turn could be used in disinformation campaigns — as has already happened in this election cycle.
With the midterm elections approaching, political leaders will almost certainly use false information to try to influence voter behavior. The good news is that those seeking to undermine elections with false conspiracy theories tend to return to the same set of tropes. Voters can prepare now by familiarizing themselves with recurring themes in false election information and learning the facts.
Five Core Election Rumors
During the previous midterm elections, the Brennan Center found that false information about elections revolved around core themes. Repetition helps spread false information more quickly. According to some researchers, the best predictor of whether someone believes a rumor is the number of times they have heard it before (also termed the “illusory truth effect”). “Sticky” rumors often combine tropes that feel familiar, and thus more plausible, with new events, so that they also feel novel and interesting.
Here are five rumors that are likely to persist this fall.
Citizenship and Voting
States have multiple checks in place to ensure that only eligible Americans vote.
Federal law states that only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections. To register to vote, you must swear you’re a citizen under penalty of criminal prosecution. Ineligible voters who cast a ballot face severe penalties, including jail time or deportation.
Election processes include numerous checks to identify ineligible registered voters. Under federal law, states are required to conduct regular list maintenance to remove ineligible voters from the rolls.
President Trump has recently repeated false claims that large numbers of non-U.S. citizens are illegally registered to vote or have voted. However, the administration has offered no evidence to back that up. In fact, state-led investigations have found almost no instances of noncitizen voting. Similarly, investigations by news organizations, law enforcement agencies, and universities have found that noncitizen voting is extraordinarily rare. In the rare instances where noncitizens have been found on the voter rolls, it is typically the result of clerical errors that have no connection to the false conspiracy theories that President Trump and his allies have perpetuated.
Mail Voting Accuracy
Mail voting has been used in the United States for more than 150 years, originally to allow soldiers to vote during the Civil War. Today, 36 states allow all voters to vote by mail, and the remaining states offer that option to certain voters, such as those who have disabilities or will be outside their county on Election Day. Every state has multiple systems in place to ensure the security of mail voting, including secure processes to request a mail ballot, signature verification, and unique serial codes on envelopes and ballots.
The Trump administration and other political leaders have used false claims to attack and undermine mail voting. The administration’s attempt to limit mail voting by executive order has been blocked in federal court, though litigation is ongoing.
Just this month, President Trump voted by mail for at least the third time since 2020.
Voting Machine Accuracy
Elections are complex, technical processes, and election officials know there is no such thing as an invulnerable piece of technology. That’s why officials follow strict security guidelines to ensure voting machines work properly. State protocol varies, but common safeguards include certifying voting machines to federal and state security standards, testing machines before use, and conducting audits after an election to confirm the results. And 99 percent of voters live in jurisdictions where they can cast a ballot with a paper record of their vote, which can be used to confirm machine totals.
In his July speech on election security, President Trump claimed that voting machines are vulnerable to attack, particularly by foreign governments. False accusations targeting voting machine companies have been widely debunked and, in one highly publicized case, even resulted in a successful libel lawsuit.
Poll Workers
More than 130,000 polling locations in the United States are staffed by 10,000 career election officials and nearly 800,000 poll workers. These personnel are members of your community — at least 44 states require by law that poll workers live in the precinct or county where the polling place is located.
Poll workers receive training on election rules, and in most states, they must swear to uphold the Constitution and adhere to all federal and state laws. Other checks exist to protect elections against interference. Forty-two states require polling places to have teams of workers from opposing parties. And voting is open to observation by poll watchers, who are often partisan appointees, in all 50 states.
In recent years, photos and videos have circulated that allegedly depict wrongdoing by election officials or poll workers. Memorably, Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss won a defamation lawsuit after footage of them conducting routine ballot counting was used to falsely allege they were perpetrating election fraud.
Election Results
Results reported by election officials on Election Day are never final. In some states, not all valid votes have been received by election night, because mail ballots need only be postmarked by Election Day to count. These include ballots from members of the military deployed abroad. Some states have laws preventing election workers from tallying mail ballots that arrived early until Election Day, which slows down the counting process. Finally, some ballots may also require additional verification before processing, such as those missing a signature or cast by a voter whose eligibility is in question.
Additionally, the time it takes to count ballots cast by different voting methods and in different locations can vary. Because a candidate’s vote share may depend on the type of ballot and where it was cast, releasing one batch of votes that heavily favors that candidate may give the mistaken impression that results have suddenly shifted. For instance, in states that count mail ballots ahead of time and report those totals as soon as polls close, initial results may lean Democratic because Democrats are more likely to vote by mail. In previous elections, President Trump used these so-called “vote dumps” to claim election fraud.
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As the midterm elections approach, false information about elections will only continue to spread. Fortunately, voters can expect the same tired rumors to proliferate, all of which have been widely debunked. Voters seeking clarification on election processes in their jurisdiction should contact their local election officials.
