George Frey/AFP via Getty Images
As Election Day approaches and the rhetoric and bluster increase, it’s helpful to remember the wise and immortal words of Smokey the Bear: “Only you can prevent fires.” That’s because whoever is online and sharing information plays a role in determining whether falsehoods gain traction.
Now you may be asking, “But I’m just one person – what about Twitter? What about Facebook? What about politicians with huge followings who spread lies and fraudulent claims all the time?”
It is true that our society and many others around the world are facing what some scholars call “the decay of truth.” Bad actors can and do play social and traditional media in order to flood the area with conspiracy theories that sometimes promote violent and extremist agendas.
But in the last decade or so, the way people consume information has changed radically thanks to social media. And you, the user, have some influence over the algorithms that serve you the posts, videos and news in your feed.
With that in mind, here are some things to consider when sharing news of all kinds, but especially election news.
Consider the source
This is perhaps the most important. How does the person posting about this story know what’s going on? Is it an election official explaining the process? Is a reporter from a trusted news organization on the ground? Is it an account or a newspaper you’ve never heard of before? Here’s a quiz from the nonprofit Literacy News Project that you can take to help assess whether a news source is trustworthy.
Relying on local election officials and local journalists who understand the ins and outs of how people in your community vote will generally yield better quality information than, say, random Twitter accounts with large followings. Election officials are especially important in helping to explain the change in voting procedures and how ballots are collected and counted, as opposed to political candidates, who may try to spin or exaggerate what is happening.
If you see a news story circulating that seems surprising or not in some way, it’s worth checking to see if other media outlets are reporting the same thing. Are they confirming the news themselves or just attributing it to another source? Is the attributed source reliable?
The pace of election results is likely to reflect different rules
Elections in the United States are highly decentralized. It is both the strength and weakness of our democracy. Election rules and procedures vary from state to state and sometimes from county to county. Some states allow mail-in ballots received before Election Day to be processed, sometimes even counted, in advance. Others leave the processing and counting of postal votes until after the polls close. Local election officials have explained their counting process in advance and tried to gauge voter expectations about the pace at which results will come out.
Want your votes to be included in the first round of results at 8pm on election night? Be sure to cast your early vote at a Vote Center by Saturday! Find the most convenient drop box location at https://t.co/8YEmXbWyRL. pic.twitter.com/gq4JiGmlw3
โ Maricopa County Department of Elections (@MaricopaVote) November 3, 2022
Results can also change dramatically on election night depending on which ballots are counted first. With Republicans increasingly focused on in-person voting on Election Day, while many Democrats vote early or by mail, results can vary from party to party depending on which set of ballots is counted. It’s not a sign that the results are messed up, just an indication that the way people vote is polarized and with it the way the results come out.
Many voters watch election night TV coverage and get the impression that the TV networks have some role in determining the outcome when calling the race. This is not true. What the networks are actually doing is making predictions about the winner based on public vote counts released by local and state election officials. State election officials are the only ones who officially announce winners in a process that can take days or weeks after Election Day.
NPR relies on the Associated Press for vote count data and uses that organization’s race calls. The AP says it makes calls only when it is “absolutely convinced that a race has been won โ more simply defined as the moment when a successor candidate no longer has a path to victory.”
Be careful what the photos and videos are intended to show
You may see photos and videos that allege evil behavior or gross injustice. Look for a difference between what the post says you’re seeing and what the video or photo actually shows. Often, a photo or video is grainy, zoomed in, or completely blurry. Sometimes a reverse image search will reveal that the photo is old or from a different location! In many cases, there is no evidence in the post or claim to support the premise that someone is, for example, casting a vote illegally, misusing a ballot or being denied the right to vote.
In fact, a recent documentary-style film alleging widespread fraud during 2020 used still images of a man casting a ballot in a ballot box in Georgia to pretend the man was voting illegally. In fact, the man was voting legally and is suing the filmmakers for defamation.
Documented cases of electoral fraud are extremely rare
The 2020 election was the most controlled election in US history. There were dozens of federal and state lawsuits challenging various aspects of how the election was conducted and, in some cases, alleging organized election fraud. None of these claims were substantiated. None of the lawsuits led to changes in the election results.
Most cases of ballot and election fraud tend to involve an extremely small number of votes and are quickly identified. The most significant case of election fraud in the last 40 years occurred in Bladen County, NC, in 2018, when the state refused to certify the results of a House race after investigators discovered that a political operative working for the Republican candidate had misused a significant number of absentee votes he had collected. The results of that contest were called into question within weeks of Election Day.
Even the most extensive database of voter fraud cases compiled by the conservative Heritage Foundation shows about 750 cases of documented voter fraud involving roughly 1,100 people over 40 and billions of votes cast. Many election researchers object to the organization’s methodology, which they see as overly broad.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Election workers are your neighbors
The people at your polling place and the people who handle and count the ballots live in your city or county. Many of them are volunteers or are paid relatively little. Many work in understaffed offices. Many do the work because they believe it is important and work hard to be scrupulously nonpartisan. The distribution of material that names and accuses election workers of illegal behavior can lead to harassment of the person, even death threats.
“It turned my life upside down,” Georgia election worker Shaye Moss said during testimony before a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 uprising at the U.S. Capitol, referring to conspiracy theories targeting her and her mother, Ruby Freeman. . “I don’t want anyone to know my name.”
Election workers are human too and can make mistakes. But in today’s environment, a mistake of any kind can become fodder for a conspiracy narrative.
If a piece of news gives you an emotional response, stop
It’s okay to react emotionally to the news! There are many things going on in the world that many people find upsetting.
But in our highly polarized society, many actors try to capitalize on tribal political identities. They share lies and misrepresentations that will trigger an emotional response and cut short the instinct to examine whether something might be true, or even believable.
Don’t fall prey to their tactics.
When you come across a story like this, take a deep breath and ask yourself if it’s worth sharing and further contributing to the social media fires.