Well before former president Donald Trump lost to President Biden in 2020, he began planting seeds of mistrust with the electoral process, suggesting that mail-in ballots were inherently suspicious and warning of widespread voting fraud. After he officially lost, he ramped up his false claims, blaming Biden’s victory on vote dumping and on Dominion Voting Systems switching votes for him and giving them to Biden.
Those lies still hang over us nearly three years later, as we inch closer to the 2024 race where Trump hopes to reclaim the spot as commander in chief, even as he becomes the first current or former president ever charged with a crime. Although misinformation and disinformation regarding elections aren’t new phenomena, the “Big Lie” conspiracy created by Trump and endorsed by some lawmakers and millions of his followers has shifted how election officials, voters, and politicians are approaching the upcoming election cycle.
Derek Tisler serves as counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice Democracy Program, focusing on issues related to election administration, security, and disinformation. Tisler told Teen Vogue that people lose confidence in our safe electoral process as claims like Trump’s are amplified.
“Anytime you're talking about technology, there are a lot of people who don't necessarily understand what's happening. And this is why we tend to see, especially in the election space, conspiracy theories that focus on technology and whether technology is working as it's supposed to,” he said. “They start to lose confidence that it's working as it should. This is why transparency is really such an important safeguard of our election system.”
According to Tisler’s colleague Mekela Panditharatne, an attorney who focuses on election reform and security, among other issues, “Misinformation can really thrive because the demand for accurate information sometimes exceeds the supply of it.”
Trump’s baseless claims about the integrity of the 2020 election were proven false numerous times, and the election was called “the most secure in American history” by security officials. Even in the six battleground states that Trump fervently claimed were miscounted, AP reporters found less than 475 instances of possible voter fraud out of 25.5 million ballots cast in those states.
But that didn’t stop Trump’s supporters from literally fighting so that he could retain his position as president, as evidenced by the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, that has so far led to at least 1,000 arrests and nearly 400 criminal sentences. Many lawmakers have also done their share of perpetuating manufactured concerns about voter fraud by passing 34 voter restriction laws in 2021, and 11 in 2022. As of February, they’ve also introduced or pre-filed 150 bills this year that hinder the voting process and, according to election experts at the Brennan Center, lead to a higher risk for voter disenfranchisement.
All of this is happening despite the many safety measures in place to protect the integrity of US elections. Across the country, poll watchers monitor the election process to ensure legitimacy and safety. In the majority of states and Washington DC, pre-Election Day voting equipment testing is open to the public. For accuracy, many states hand count a sample of ballots to compare them to voting machines’ counts and also deploy other checks and balances for Election Day. The machines are designed to have a lifespan of only about 10 years, according to Tisler. But while there can be potential issues with paper ballots, like the shortage Georgia had during the 2020 primary election, they’re often a highly reliable solution in the case of a machine malfunction, which can lead to longer lines and delayed results.
Because of a decentralized electoral process where election funding differs from state to state and county to county, the issue fluctuates in severity. “For a long time elections have been underfunded,” Tisler said. “I think to some extent because, at the end of the day, we do get accurate results, there's a little bit of a feeling of, ‘Look, if there hasn't been a major issue then everything's fine. There's no need to put resources into it.’ But that's just not the case. The reason that we've avoided any major issues is because of the investments made into election infrastructure and the safeguards that we put into the process. We can't afford to back away from those just because nothing has gone wrong yet.”
In poorer communities and those with higher racial minority demographics, the issue of long lines and slower tabulation is exacerbated. Using smartphone data, a study published in 2022 and led by economist Keith Chen of the University of California, Los Angeles, found that voters in predominantly Black neighborhoods waited in line to vote 29% longer than white voters. And these issues are compounded by more recent efforts to purposely confuse constituents. “We are in this new landscape where there's this sort of deliberate sowing of disinformation online to try to disrupt American elections by foreign actors and false claims about the 2020 election,” Panditharatne said.
A 2020 report from Pew Research Center found that Americans who primarily depend on social media for news consumption, who are mostly people under 30, were more likely to know less about the 2020 election and more likely to be exposed to made-up news than those who used more traditional mediums.
Ava Mateo who works with young people as the executive director of 18by Vote said that her team’s focus is on encouraging the large number of young constituents who feel their votes don’t matter at all. “In regards to election security [concerns], it seems that young people [they’ve spoken to] aren’t so afraid of it,” the 24-year-old told Teen Vogue. “It doesn't mean that we're not going to address it, but, in general, I think young people feel pretty secure about that aspect of democracy. I think they don't feel that their representatives are accurately advocating for them and that's their bigger concern with democracy.”
Feeling that their vote won’t change political outcomes can create a sense of indifference among young people. Mateo was surprised to learn that most young voters identify as independent. She believes their frustration with both major political parties isn’t discussed enough and can contribute to their apathy. But under her direction, 18by Vote, a nonpartisan, youth-led organization, is emphasizing that political engagement must be continuous and there can be no off years. Besides increasing voter registration efforts, they are encouraging Gen Z'ers to hold elected officials accountable through protesting. And by having young people speak to voters their own age about the importance of voting and educational efforts like their Youth Breakdown series on Instagram that explains harder-to-digest concepts like what the federal budget is and how it impacts youth, they are explicitly reaching out to younger voters in ways campaigns and political parties often fail to do. “If you help young people see that they can really make an impact through making their voice heard in a multitude of ways, they're more likely to make their voices heard through their vote,” Mateo said.
Even still, it’s important that all voters — especially young people — develop media literacy skills as disinformation efforts online kick into high gear. Altered videos surfaced during the 2020 campaign, but AI-generated deepfake photos and videos along with AI text-generated content have the potential to be an especially disruptive force in the 2024 election as the technology has exploded in popularity in recent months. And Twitter, one of the most popular apps for reading trending news, is in a state of instability since Elon Musk purchased the company and laid off much of the staff. Since Musk changed the platform to a paid verification system (rather than requiring users to request it and meet certain criteria such as being a journalist, entertainer, or government figure), verified parody accounts of notable figures have caused a lot of confusion. A now-deleted account posing as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was one of the most recent examples. Ocasio addressed the issue, mentioning how Musk’s engagement with the account has given it more visibility. And Musk also allowed formerly banned accounts back on the platform, leading to a proliferation of hate speech.
Panditharatne encourages voters who are skeptical of social media and mainstream news networks to rely on local newspapers and election officials for trustworthy 2024 election information. Additionally, she encourages the use of independent fact-checking sources like PolitiFact. “Another great way to be involved and learn more is to serve as a poll worker,” Tisler said. “There's nothing like being the person who's actually carrying out the procedures at the end of the day to understand how everything works.”
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