Republican congressional candidate Joe Kent recently claimed “rampant voter fraud” in the 2020 election in an ad on Facebook — a misinformation problem Facebook has tried to correct.

The ad, which ran in mid-May as part of the former president Donald Trump-endorsed candidate’s race to win Washington state’s 3rd District, was one of several by the campaign to go undetected by Facebook’s system designed to remove false claims that the election results are invalid, according to a Washington Post analysis of Facebook’s ad library.

It’s one example of the type of misinformation already testing Facebook in the midterm elections, according to researchers, civil rights advocates and some former employees, who are calling on Facebook to ramp up its policies to prevent the spread of election-related misinformation. The primaries are already well underway, and at least one candidate on Wednesday was being urged by Trump to declare victory before the results were in.

Facebook, like many social media platforms, constantly needs to shift and update policies as it learns how its platform has been misused — taking steps to remedy problems for the next election. For instance, Facebook ramped up its programs to address foreign interference after the 2016 election, when Russian operatives were found to have meddled with the presidential race.

Researchers expect misinformation spreading the “big lie,” purporting that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, as well as efforts to suppress...

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