Misinformation and the midterm elections: What to expect

Conspiracy theories about mail ballots. Anonymous text messages warning voters to stay home. Fringe social media platforms where election misinformation spreads with impunity.

Misinformation about the upcoming midterm elections has been building for months, challenging election officials and tech companies while offering another reminder of how conspiracy theories and distrust are shaping America’s politics.

The claims are fueling the candidacies of election deniers and threatening to further corrode faith in voting and democracy. Many of them can be traced back to 2020, when then-President Donald Trump refused to accept the outcome of the election he lost to Joe Biden and began lying about its results.

“Misinformation is going to be central to this midterm election and central to the 2024 election,” said Bhaskar Chakravorti, who studies technological change and society and is the dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. “The single galvanizing narrative is that the 2020 election was stolen.”

A look at key misinformation challenges heading into the 2022 election:

MISLEADING CLAIMS ABOUT VOTING

Political misinformation often focuses on immigration, crime, public health, geopolitics, disasters, education or mass shootings. This year, it’s mostly about voting.

Claims about the security of mail ballots have grown in recent weeks, as have baseless rumors about noncitizens voting. That’s in addition to claims about dead people casting ballots, ballot drop boxes being moved or wild stories about voting machines.

Trump, a Republican, attacked the legitimacy of the election even before he lost. He then refused to concede, spreading lies about the election that inspired the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. His contention was rejected in more than 60 court cases and by his own attorney general, William Barr.

Together, these misleading claims about the nation’s electoral system have led some Republicans to say they’re going to hold onto their mail ballots until Election Day — a move that could slow down the count.

Others vow to monitor the polls to prevent cheating, leading to concerns about intimidation and even the possibility of violence at election sites.

Tech companies say they’ve implemented new policies and programs designed to ferret out misinformation.

“We’ve seen…