Bringing Up the Murder: Fighting a Controversy Scenario to the Head of the Election Integrity Network and the America PAC

The work of election-denying groups like the Election Integrity Network is augmented by the election integrity group from the America PAC. This is a sham designed to lay the groundwork for baseless objections to elections after Election Day. This is going on all across the country, and it’s extremely dangerous,” says Barrett. “And we’re going to see the results of it almost immediately when the polls close on November 5th.”

In January of the following year, Trump’s account was banned from being used by the company because of his statements about violence at the Capitol. But since taking over and rebranding it as X, Musk has fired many of the people on the teams that worked to keep mis- and disinformation off the platform. Last year, X fired much of what remained of its elections integrity team. Musk posted on X, saying “Oh you mean the Election Integrity Team that was undermining election integrity?” after the news broke. Yeah, they’re gone.”

Musk encouraged Trump supporters to vote at a rally in Pennsylvania in October where he claimed Democrats would allow illegal immigrants to vote.

In practice, it is a cesspool of election conspiracy theories, alleging everything from unauthorized immigrants voting to misspelled candidate names on ballots. “It’s just an election denier jamboree,” says Paul Barrett, deputy director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University, who authored a recent report on how social media facilitates political violence.

Four years later, Trump is again on the ballot. He didn’t guarantee he would accept the results, even though he claims his rivals want to steal the election. Election tech providers are going on the defensive, trying to convince the public of their trustworthiness. But they’re contending with a problem that seems sometimes insurmountable: fighting conspiracy theories amid a crisis of trust.

When Smartmatic started working in the industry it was not always thought of as a communication company. The job of an election commission is to make sure votes are counted and voter rolls are up to date. If not the largest, election administrators around the world recognize that disinformation is one of the biggest challenges they face.

Smith said that in 2020 the industry was caught off-guard by the volume and the ferociousness of the misinformation, and that there had long been activists sowing doubt in the voting system. False claims came from the then-sitting president and leader of the Republican Party. Fox News was repeating their claims.

Election lies aren’t gone from conservative news outlets, according to the left-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters, but the tactics have changed. “The difference that we’ve seen so far in 2024 is that MAGA personalities appear to have been able to steer conversations away from specific potential defamatory claims, particularly about voting companies — even as those sorts of claims continue to circulate on social media,” Media Matters senior adviser John Whitehouse says in a statement. “The lesson for MAGA media seems to be that the core audience wants more election denial — and they’re gonna give it to them.”

But the court of public opinion is just as important. Smartmatic and Dominion maintain pages on their websites explaining how they work, as well aschecking false claims about their technologies. Smartmatic began publishing a handbook for fighting misinformation. Its latest edition walks election officials through steps like auditing media channels where citizens get information, building relationships with journalists and influencers, and creating a crisis communications plan. It advises election officials to be concerned and make sure their explanation is not too complicated.

Letting voters observe the process themselves can help, says Sara Cutter, executive director of the nonpartisan trade group American Council for Election Technology (ACET). Jay Schneider was one of the skeptics about the election process. When the 2020 election came around, I thought of what had been going on. There’s some shenanigans going around and around the country,’” he told Spotlight PA in a 2023 story. After working the polls, he became so convinced by the strength of the system that he decided to work as a judge of elections.

Smith agrees that personal experience with the system is valuable. “When you are aware of those sorts of checks and balances, you know that throwing the election in the manner that people are saying it’s thrown would just be an impossible dream,” he says.

Smith has experience with successful persuasion. Many people are content with learning more about the checks on the election system that prevent fraud, but for some people it doesn’t really sink in.

Part of the problem is that conspiracy theorists — including Trump and allies like Giuliani — have undercut trust in the very institutions trying to restore it. Smith says the Secretary of State website lacks the willingness of people to say that voting by mail is safe. Now, people just simply don’t believe that individual.”

misunderstandings may be the cause of some false claims. The industry was “surprised” by calls for paper ballots, says Cutter, since “98 percent of jurisdictions” do use paper — some just have those ballots marked with electronic devices designed for greater accessibility.

Likewise, while ensuring voting machines are secure is important, these machines are just one part of a larger system. Like the government itself, American elections have built in checks and balances. “Basically no two jurisdictions are going to have the exact same mix of technology and election administration procedures that allow them to be compromised at a systemic level.”

An attacker would need a lot of different hardware and software to do significant damage. And by the same token, a single company like Dominion couldn’t simply flip a switch to change election results because there are processes to catch machinery that’s not working as expected.

The backlash against voting tech companies “is steeling their resolve,” Cutter says — “once elections get into your blood, a lot of folks don’t ever leave this space.” It is still taking a toll. Some ACET members have installed extra security cameras, she says, and a few have even made emergency plans for moving offices.

They aren’t the only ones preparing for the possibility of violence. Across the country, election officials have stepped up security, anticipating threats. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that election workers in Arizona have undergone active shooter drills, and an election office in Maricopa County now has armed guards and metal detectors. And even before Election Day, Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, have seen fires at ballot boxes damage hundreds of ballots.

Why is it that you want that to be false, if you believe in rigged elections? Because I still believe in America. I believe in our innovation, in the hope that we give the world. I believe in American resilience and the accountability that we have built into our systems.