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As the US inches closer to election day, a plague of disinformation has taken over social media and experts observing the polling event are concerned by its widespread impact on voters.
While the two presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump make their final election pitches, a wave of rumours, misleading claims and lies are parallelly trying to undermine their campaigns.
Hundreds of posts made by individuals, Republican backers and Democrat groups on social are giving a hard time to election officials who have to take out time from their usual polling duties to debunk these rumours.
What do the posts say?
Among the most viral social media posts that have caught the eyes of American voters are:
Posts that support Trump campaign’s claim that he had won the 2020 election and that it would not be a surprise if he loses this election by means of “cheating”. Earlier this week, the former president himself fraud in key swing states saying, “Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before. REPORT CHEATING TO AUTHORITIES. Law Enforcement must act, NOW!” His reaction was in response to three Pennsylvania counties that said they will work with local law enforcement to identify fake voter registration applications
Some posts verified by BBC imply that non-citizens find it easy to cast their votes while others falsely claim the inefficiency of voting machines. Many of these allegations are made on social networking sites and chat groups that are viewed by millions of people
One particular video showed Haitians casting their votes in Georgia. This was debunked by US officials last week who said that the video was made by “Russian influence actors”. Another post on X showed a Canadian citizen voting, as he said, “Figured I would drive across the border and vote”
Cases of exaggeration
Experts note that isolated cases of ballot fraud and administrative errors are a common occurrence in US presidential elections, which span all 50 states and, in 2020, involved over 150 million voters.
Authorities have even acknowledged isolated cases of ballot fraud but say that they are being shared excessively on social media making the issue greater than it actually is.
In Southern California, dozens of ballots were discovered in a storm drain. Although the circumstances surrounding the incident were unclear, online partisans quickly speculated that it was an act of deliberate fraud.
Who is behind these posts?
There are multiple groups and individuals, regardless of their allegiance to either Democrat or Republican, that are responsible for warping voters’ decision-making.
Organisations such as Texas-based True The Vote, founded in 2009, have been at the forefront of raising concerns about election security. On their app, VoteAlert, supporters share examples of supposed election irregularities.
“Our hope is we see exactly nothing at these drop boxes,” said True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht.
Elon Musk’s America political action committee has launched a community on X, similar to a message board, which is filled with rumors and allegations about voting. With 50,000 members, new posts are made nearly nonstop, with several appearing every minute.
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