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Voting Integrity Messages Fight Misinformation In The Lab But What

Bonisiwe Shabane
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voting integrity messages fight misinformation in the lab but what

Voting Integrity Messages Fight Misinformation in the Lab. But What about the Real World? Telling people exactly how voting security works helps defeat election misinformation, experiments suggest. But outside experts question how well that works in the real world People cast their ballots on November 5, 2024, in New York City. Wang Fan/China News Service/VCG/Getty Images

Safeguards keep fake ballots from being counted. Election officials regularly update voter lists. Voting machine software undergoes rigorous testing. Voting Integrity: Can Factual Messaging Combat Election Misinformation? A new study published in Science Advances suggests that providing voters with clear, factual information about election security measures can effectively counter misinformation and bolster trust in democratic processes. Researchers conducted a series of experiments in the United States and Brazil, both countries grappling with the corrosive effects of election misinformation.

The findings indicate that “prebunking” – presenting accurate information about voting procedures and security protocols before individuals are exposed to false claims – can significantly reduce belief in misinformation, especially amongst those most susceptible... The experiments focused on providing participants with concrete details about voting safeguards, such as ballot verification processes, voter list maintenance, and the rigorous testing of voting machine software. Researchers discovered that this “novel factual information” proved more impactful than general assurances about election integrity. The study’s authors argue that understanding the specific mechanisms that prevent fraud can increase confidence in the system’s reliability. This approach was particularly effective in the U.S. experiment, drawing information from the now-deleted “Rumor vs.

Reality” section of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency website. While the study’s results offer a promising avenue for combating misinformation, experts caution against oversimplifying the challenge. The real-world information environment is often saturated with false narratives propagated through various channels, including social media, partisan news outlets, and even political leaders. Critics argue that a single prebunking message might struggle to compete with the constant barrage of misinformation that voters encounter. They liken it to trying to counteract an unhealthy diet with a single protein shake – the sheer volume of misinformation can overwhelm fact-based messaging. Furthermore, the political context surrounding elections can significantly impact the effectiveness of prebunking efforts.

The study’s authors acknowledge that the U.S. political landscape has become increasingly polarized, with some political figures actively promoting false election claims. This erosion of trust in institutions responsible for electoral integrity presents a significant obstacle to combating misinformation. Experts warn that when government officials themselves become sources of disinformation, even the most meticulously crafted prebunking messages might lose their potency. “We’re seeing higher levels of distrust in our elections, how they’re run and the validity of their outcomes,” USC Price’s Mindy Romero says. (Photo/iStock)

With misinformation on the rise and American voters increasingly losing faith in elections, USC experts explore strategies to restore confidence in democracy. Public trust in our free and fair elections — a fundamental pillar of American democracy — is eroding. We don’t need polls to tell us Americans are losing faith in democracy, though the numbers back it up: Recent survey data shows that almost 60% of Americans are dissatisfied with the current state... The flow of misinformation and coordinated disinformation campaigns are generating alarming levels of doubt among voters, USC experts say. From narratives around contentious issues like abortion and immigration to unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, the damaging effects of misinformation on democracy are increasingly evident. Even misinformation surrounding federal responses to crises such as Hurricane Helene show how public perception can be swayed and the consequences that can follow.

The 2024 election season has come upon us with a wide variety of claims, counterclaims, and misinformation that leave ordinary voters struggling to tell truth from fiction. Especially worrying are assertions that the voting system is rigged through fraudulent votes and election workers tampering with the system. These false claims lead citizens to believe that the final count we all see on the news is not truly reflective of Americans' votes. Allegations like these have been proven false over and over again, but they still persist and cause voter anxiety and social turmoil. R. Michael Alvarez, the Flintridge Foundation Professor of Political and Computational Social Science, long a student of voting behavior and election technologies, has been leading a research project on election integrity.

The work involves auditing voting technologies to ensure they are sound, and tracking and rebutting dubious election claims. With this two-pronged approach, Alvarez aims to address the chasm between the well-documented integrity of U.S. elections and voters' persistent fears that parties behind the scenes are manipulating elections to suit their own agendas. As the election approaches, Alvarez has been disseminating a steady stream of blog posts and video interviews with election officials and creators of vote-counting technologies under the heading "Office Hours." On October 4, he... Concerns around voter fraud are nothing new in American politics. "We have surveys going back to 2006, and the consensus is that there are consistently 25 to 35 percent of registered voters, whether Republican, Democratic, or Independent, who think that voter fraud is actually...

"These concerns have increased a little bit over time in the last couple of federal election cycles. But, in general, they've been quite stable. Our current data is remarkably consistent with what we saw in 2020." Alvarez brings to the election integrity project not only his expertise in voting and elections, but an increasingly pointed focus on conspiracy theories of all kinds: who peddles them, who buys into them, what... In fall 2023, Alvarez and his colleagues at the Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Science, Society, and Policy (LCSSP) brought a group of researchers from various disciplines to Caltech for a research conference... "Interest in this area started to come to a head when conspiracy theories and denialism were becoming very visible during the pandemic," Alvarez says.

Scholars increasingly direct attention to the phenomenon of conspiratorial thinking in general, irrespective of what any particular conspiracy theory is about. This type of thinking has many psychological and sociological correlates that hold across individuals, time, and the nature of any particular conspiracy. 2020 provided Americans with an extraordinary lesson on the importance of election officials to our democracy. Amid a pandemic and a flood of disinformation about the election process, these state and local officials managed to run “the most secure election in American history.” It is no accident that now —... Election officials are facing personal threats and harassment, and state legislatures are creating criminal penalties for normal activities like proactively sending out mail ballot applications. Further, campaigns for election official positions are making this “election denial” a central issue, whether by embracing or attacking it, and many of these normally low-profile races are seeing unprecedented levels of fundraising.

Most troubling, state legislatures have taken steps to strip election officials of the power to run and certify elections, consolidating power in their own hands over processes intended to be free of partisan or... Everyone who believes in democracy must push back against these attempts to subvert fair elections The Trump Administration’s Campaign to Undermine the Next Election The executive branch is interfering in U.S. elections in unprecedented ways. NYU’s Michael Waldman says the 2024 election will go "overwhelmingly smoothly."

Michael Waldman, president of NYU's Brennan Center for Justice, discusses how elections have become increasingly secure. In a closely contested election, even the slightest hint of doubt about whether votes are counted accurately could incite violence and exacerbate political divisions in the U.S. ABC News' Linsey Davis sat down with Waldman to talk about the unprecedented security of U.S. elections and the threat of misinformation. ABC NEWS: Two thousand threats against election workers since the 2020 election. Officials are preparing for a wave of misinformation within the next 24 hours.

Joining us now is the head of the Brennan Center for Justice, Michael Waldman. Corresponding author. Email: natalia.bueno@emory.edu Received 2025 Jul 28; Accepted 2025 Aug 12; Collection date 2025 Aug 29. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial... Novel factual information can help safeguard the perceptions of election integrity in democracies.

What distinguishes democracies from autocracies is not the existence of elections but whether the public and political actors accept the results of fair elections as legitimate. When political leaders cast doubt on fair elections, they do more than contest outcomes—they corrode public trust in democratic institutions. These attacks make it harder for winners to govern and easier for citizens to justify antidemocratic actions, including violence and the refusal to concede power. We've made the decision to sunset Knowledia News to focus our efforts on building even more innovative ways to turn data into knowledge. We're grateful for your interest and excited about what's next!

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