Voting-related falsehoods and rumors are flourishing across social media in the final stretch before Election Day on Tuesday.
Much of the misinformation and conspiracy theories, which are swirling on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, build on familiar and unsubstantiated narratives spread about the 2020 presidential election. They include debunked claims of meddling with voting equipment, falsehoods about fraudulent ballots, alleged malfeasance by elections officials and unsubstantiated rumors about mail-in voting.
Many of the posts are outright falsehoods, while others appear intended to simply raise doubts and undermine confidence in voting, researchers said. And they are spreading through more conduits, such as the fast-rising video app TikTok and right-wing social media sites like Truth Social, Rumble and Telegram, according to the data research firms Zignal and Graphika and researchers.
“People are primed, much more mobilized and more soaked in conspiracy theories,” said Mike Caulfield, a research scientist who studies election misinformation at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public.
Here are some of the most widespread falsehoods and rumors related to voting.
President Donald J. Trump and his allies falsely claimed in 2020 that ballot-tabulating machines had changed votes for him to votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. They claimed the voting machines were connected to the internet, allowing corrupt election...
A federal jury has convicted a San Francisco man of conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering in connection with a scheme involving fraudulent insurance claims on already-wrecked vehicles, pros...