Officials are bracing for a flurry of misinformation and legal claims when Election Day finally arrives

As Election Day finally arrives, election officials, legal experts and researchers are bracing for a flurry of misinformation and legal claims as the vote count begins.

The final week of the campaign featured three dynamics that could lead to a protracted legal battle if the results are close, legal experts said. Dozens of lawsuits have already been filed in battleground states, domestic and foreign actors are spreading false accounts of voter fraud, and former President Donald Trump continues to claim the election will be rigged against him.

“They’ve already started cheating,” Trump said Sunday at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Election experts say if a clear winner emerges quickly and voting goes ahead without major disruptions, large numbers of Americans could trust the results. But they warned that delays in the count or a close race in which only one state decides the presidency could lead to a divisive legal battle.

The longer the race remains unresolved, experts predicted, the more time domestic and foreign actors will have to spread misinformation that will sow doubt and division over the results.

Danielle Tomson, director of research at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, predicted an increase in rumors on Election Day “as more people go to the polls and experience both real and perceived problems at the polls.”

“The problem is when political actors or influencers take a real problem,” Tomson said, “and misleadingly exaggerate its impact or scope to indicate a larger coordinated fraud or mass conspiracy.”

“We expect to see a big focus on swing states, voting machines and voter eligibility,” she said.

Arizona election worker Jennifer Liewer said she and her colleagues are prepared for voting and any disruptions.

“The reality is we have security personnel monitoring, to make sure there are threats … the appropriate people are aware of them,” said Liewer, Maricopa County’s deputy director of elections.

But she admitted that she and her colleagues have no idea how the final chapter of the 2024 election will play out.

“We don’t know what will happen once the results start coming out and how people will react,” she said. “Hopefully they will trust the system.”

A wave of misinformation and legal claims

In Seattle, 25 researchers from the Center for an Informed Public will work in shifts to document rumors as they emerge on Election Day and beyond. It is one of the few large-scale academic projects still studying electoral disinformation — several prominent others have closed or been weakened in response to a conservative attack on such research.

In primaries publishedresearchers said they expect a steady stream of rumors throughout the day — potentially hundreds of videos, photos and statements purporting to capture suspected irregularities, conspiracy theories or concerns that Trump and his allies may present as evidence of voter fraud .

Already, this election season has been shaped by sustained online content defective voting machineunjust ordering the vote and non-citizens voting illegallyas well as false conspiracy claims involving the news media and other viral videos that had to be debunked by election officials, secretaries of state and federal agencies.

Conservative groups that support election conspiracy theories have also signaled their intent to paint any irregularities or routine processes as fraud, such as longer count times in states that don’t allow workers to preprocess mail-in ballots or absent.

A misleading ad from the Election Integrity Network says “The Glitch Is In” alongside a carousel of news coverage of such Election Day procedural issues. Founder of The Election Integrity Network, Cleta Mitchell, promotes her group of a thousand people as a kind of “national neighborhood watch”.

The researchers also point to a new kind of infrastructure around the documenting and sharing of such rumors on election day. While in years past, they were more likely to appear organically on social media platforms, this year official channels have been created to shepherd so-called evidence into channels where it can be used.

Videos are already flooding X, particularly on a channel that X owner Elon Musk, a major Trump supporter, promoted through America PAC. The community, described as “dedicated to sharing potential cases of voter fraud and irregularities facing Americans in the 2024 election,” has more than 60,000 members and is already a hub for baseless rumors.

Top posts in this community on Tuesday included videos from political activists known for misleading content: including one from the Heritage Foundation claiming voters were registering with illegal addresses in Maricopa County, Ariz., and James O’Keefe suggesting that non- citizens voted in Philadelphia.

That public repository joins other existing clearinghouses that election officials say prove widespread fraud. Election conspiracy theorists, including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and activists at True the Vote, offer apps to collect evidence of alleged fraud.

Beyond fearmongering, experts expect such content from voters, poll watchers, influencers and agents to become the subject of lawsuits challenging the results.

“Election deniers are willing to grab the thinnest of sticks and try to make this a federal case, both figuratively and literally,” said Ben Berwick, head of election law and litigation at Protect Democracy. a nonprofit group focused on protecting the integrity of American elections.

Part of the effort to challenge the results of the 2020 election and the midterms two years later, Berwick said, has relied on affidavits and statements from eyewitnesses who say they believe they saw something illegal.

“In each case, it turned out that the person who signed the affidavit misunderstood what they saw, or in some cases it was just made up,” Berwick said. “The 2020 lawsuits were dismissed in part because there was absolutely no evidence for the allegations that there was any wrongdoing. I’m sure this time, there will be an effort to come to court with more quotes, unquoted evidence, right?

“Anything they can get their hands on that they can twist to look like some kind of conspiracy or fraud or even error,” he added, “anything they can get their hands on, they’ll use.”

Foreign interference and enhanced security

Meanwhile, foreign actors are spreading their own disinformation and amplifying American false claims. Late Monday, the FBI and officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the US intelligence community identified two more fake videos produced by Russia designed to undermine American confidence in the election results.

“Russian influencers recently posted and amplified an article falsely claiming that US officials in swing states are planning to orchestrate election fraud using a range of tactics such as ballot stuffing and cyber attacks,” it said. statement. “Russian influence actors also produced and amplified a recent video falsely depicting an interview with an individual alleging voter fraud in Arizona.”

The agencies said the video, which Arizona’s secretary of state had earlier denied, falsely described a scheme that involved creating fake ballots from overseas and changing voter rolls to favor Democrat Kamala Harris.

The Secret Service also announced Monday that it would install additional fencing around the White House, the Naval Observatory — Harris’ official residence as vice president — and the Palm Beach County Convention Center in Florida, where Trump plans to speak in election night.

Twenty states also placed about 250 National Guard soldiers on active duty so they could be available for election support. Troops are mostly activated when they are needed for cyber support, law enforcement or general support.

In Arizona, on the eve of the election, Liewer, Maricopa County’s deputy director of elections, said he was still hoping for better.

“Tomorrow is what we work so hard for. It is that voters can come and vote in these elections. Everything we do is for that,” she said. “That’s what motivates us, to make sure this is done fairly and transparently. That guides us.”