Mishaps, distrust spur Election Day misinformation
Election machine mishaps and delays in vote counting became the latest fodder for political misinformation on Election Day
Voters casting ballots in Tuesday's pivotal midterms grappled with misleading claims about glitchy election machines and delayed results, the final crest of a wave of misinformation that's expected to linger long after the last votes are tallied.
In Arizona, news of snags with vote tabulators spawned baseless claims about vote rigging, which quickly jumped from fringe sites popular with the far-right to mainstream platforms. It didn't matter that local officials were quick to report the problem and debunk the theory.
In Pennsylvania, election officials pushed back on baseless claims that delays in counting the vote equate to election fraud. But the conspiracy theory spread anyway, thanks in part to Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and other prominent Republicans who have amplified the idea.
There was lots of other misinformation too: false claims about ballots cast by non-citizens or dead people; hoaxes about voting machines that automatically change ballots and tales of suspicious Wi-Fi networks at election offices.
