Election officials face huge disinformation challenge

Voting in this year’s election will be recorded and counted securely, but election officials face unprecedented disinformation challenges, election fraud experts said at an Oct. 28 National Press Club Headliners Cocktails & Conversation.

Election administrators learned a lot responding to the balloting difficulties posed by the pandemic in 2020 and are poised to put that knowledge to work this year, said Jennifer Morrell, CEO and co-founder of The Elections Group.

“The 2020 election was the most secure ever,” Morrell said. “The 2024 election will be even more secure and better run.”

But election officials are having a hard time convincing Americans about the security of the balloting system.

“Unfortunately, the challenges [election officials] are dealing with are unprecedented,” Morell said. “It’s unlike anything I’ve seen in my experience. The amount of misinformation out there, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like a tsunami.”

She added that election administrators, poll workers and others are receiving personal threats.

"We're still dealing with a barrage of hate and threats and harassment," Morrell said. "I mean death threats. There are jurisdictions that have snipers on their roofs. There's a small county in Pennsylvania that just put boulders in front of their door to protect against a bomb going off."

Click here to watch the full discussion.

Bill Kresse, a commissioner of the Chicago Board of Elections, said he has no doubts about the integrity of next week’s election. He’s worried about rampant misperceptions by the public.

“What’s keeping me from sleeping is the misinformation and disinformation going on out there about our elections,” said Kresse, founder and president of the Institute of Election Auditors. “These are very good elections that we run. The presidential, of all the elections, is structurally built so that fraud is difficult.”

Erroneous claims about election malfeasance can be tough to bat down quickly, said Dick Riley, the Louis F. Tanner Distinguished Professor of Public Accounting at West Virginia University.

He is disturbed by “the speed with which allegations are made and then the time it takes to address the assertions or concerns. If too much time passes, these assertions can become seemingly true whether or not there’s evidence behind it.”