Election officials here and elsewhere are battling floods of conspiracy theories

ATLANTA (AP) — Voting machines reversal of votes. More voters have registered than eligible persons. Large number of non-citizens who vote.

Less than two weeks before Election daya revival in conspiracy theories and misinformation about voting forces state and local election officials to spend their time debunking rumours and explaining how elections are conducted at the same time, they are overseeing early voting and preparing for November 5.

“Truth is boring, facts are boring, and outrage is really interesting,” says Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who oversees elections in her state. “It’s like playing mole with the truth. But what we’re trying to do is get as much information as possible.”

This year’s election is the first presidential contest since former President Donald Trump began spreading lies about the widespread voter fraud that cost him re-election in 2020 false statementswhich he keeps repeating itselfhave undermined public confidence in elections and the people who oversee them among a a wide range of Republican voters . Research has been found no widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines four years ago, and each of battlefield states where Trump disputed his loss has he stated Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.

In the last week, the representative of the USA. Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed that a voting machine changed a voter’s ballot in her Georgia district during early voting and Elon Muskthe billionaire owner of social media platform X, has promoted various conspiracy theories about voting machines and voter fraud both online and at a rally for Trump in Pennsylvania.

The floodgates are “very much” open, said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department attorney who now heads the Center for Election Research and Innovation, a nonpartisan group that works with state and local election officials.

“This makes life much more difficult for election officials,” he said.

Eric Olsen, who oversees elections in Prince William County, Va., said fighting disinformation has become an important and challenging part of the job.

“It’s very difficult from our position, a lot of times, because social media feels like a huge wave coming at you and we’re in a small canoe with one oar,” he said. “But we have to do that work.”

On the campaign trail, Trump did it repeatedly he tried to sow the doubt about the upcoming election — something he did before his two previous runs for the White House. Even after winning in 2016, he claimed he lost the popular vote due to a wave of illegal votes and formed a presidential advisory commission to investigate. The commission was abolished without finding any widespread fraud.

This year, Trump claims Democrats will cheat again and is using “Too Big to Rig” as a rallying cry to encourage his supporters to vote. Election experts see that he would be laying the groundwork to contest the election again if he loses.

Spreading false allegations about the election has other consequences. It already is led to a wave of harassment, threats and turnover of election workers as well as a onslaught on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The conspiracy theories that have emerged in recent weeks are not new. There have long been claims of “vote flipping,” the most recent occurring in Georgia and Tennessee.

A claim in Georgia’s Whitfield County was highlighted by Greene on Alex Jones’ “InfoWars.” Jones has a history of spreading lies and was ordered to do so pay $1.5 billion for his false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a hoax.

County election officials issued a statement, noting that the case involved one voter out of 6,000 ballots that had been cast since early voting began. The ballot was spoiled and the voter gave a substitute which was counted. Officials said there was no problem with the voting machine.

Gabriel Sterling, director of operations for the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, said every report they’ve seen so far of someone saying their paper ballot didn’t reflect their selections on the touch-screen voting machine was the result of a voter error.

“There is no evidence that a machine overturns an individual’s vote,” he said. “Are there elderly people whose hands are shaking and maybe they slightly pressed the wrong button and didn’t properly review their ballot before printing it? This is the main situation I have seen. There is literally zero — and I say this to congressmen in this state — zero evidence that machines are flipping votes. That claim was a lie in 2020 and it’s a lie now.”

In Shelby County, Tenn., county election officials said human error was to blame for changes in vote reports. Voters used their fingers instead of a stylus to mark their selections on the voting machines, officials said.

In Washington state, Republican Jerrod Sessler, who is running for the 4th Congressional District seat, shared a video on social media this week that he claimed showed how easily fraudulent ballots can be created. But the video did not make clear that voter information on each ballot is verified against the state’s voter roll.

“A ballot returned using false voter registration information will not be counted and is illegal in Washington State,” Charlie Boisner, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office, said in an email.

Musk recently invoked Dominion Voting Systems as part of his remarks at a rally in Pennsylvania, seeming to suggest that his equipment was unreliable. Dominion was at the center of conspiracy theories related to the 2020 elections and established them suit for defamation against Fox News last year for $787 million over false claims repeatedly aired on the network. The judge on the case said it was “CRYSTAL CLIMATE” that none of the allegations made by Trump’s network allies were true.

In a statement, Dominion said it was “closely monitoring the claims surrounding the November 2024 election” and was “fully prepared to defend our company and customers against lies and those who spread them.”

A request for comment from Musk was not immediately returned.

Musk, who endorsed Trump, did has repeatedly pushed disinformation about the voter fraud of his 200 million followers on the X platform, where false information is spread largely uncontrolled.

He often fought online with the Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Recently, the two got into trouble Musk’s statement that there were more registered voters in Michigan, a presidential battleground state, than people eligible to vote. Benson said Musk is including inactive voters who are slated for removal in his count. A federal judge on Tuesday unleashed a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee alleging problems with the state’s electoral roll.

During an interview last month, Benson said she was dismayed to see someone in Musk’s position repeating false information.

“If he is genuinely committed, as he says, to making sure that people have access to information, then I would hope that he would amplify truthful information — factual, accurate information — about the security of our elections instead of just amplifying conspiracy theories and -a way that turns the ire of many of his followers on us as individual election administrators,” Benson said. “It’s something we didn’t have to deal with in 2020, which creates a new battlefront and a challenge for us.”

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