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WASHINGTON (AP) — A relatively trouble-free presidential election was good news for those working to restore faith in the system. Less encouraging was a flood of misinformation that sought to undermine trust in voting and sow chaos, something experts say is likely to get worse in the years ahead.
The most significant test for officials on Election Day was a series of bomb threats reported in five battleground states, some of which forced polling places to be evacuated temporarily. The day otherwise played out like most other election days, with only routine problems, and former President Donald Trump's commanding lead allowed the presidential race to be called early Wednesday morning.
“High turnout and wide margins – that’s all we ever hope for,” said Zach Manifold, the elections supervisor in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
The more than 84 million people who voted early, either in person or by mail, eased the crush on Tuesday and provided election workers with more flexibility to respond to unexpected problems.
“Yesterday and the election season was a wonderful example of how early voting is so important to maintain security, and how it actually minimized and mitigated some of the threats that we saw,” David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department attorney who leads the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said the day after Election Day.
When the bomb threats came in – starting early in the day in the Atlanta area and then spreading to Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — election officials were prepared. They had spent the better part of the year meeting with local law enforcement, training through various scenarios and updating their emergency plans.
"I saw professionals all across the country saying, ‘OK, here’s what we’re going to do,'” said Carolina Lopez, a former local election official who leads the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions.
The FBI said the threats appeared to originate from Russian email domains, though federal cybersecurity officials cautioned the culprits were not necessarily Russian.
Interference from Russia and other foreign adversaries was a constant theme running through election season.
Russia, Iran and China steadily increased their use of English-language disinformation in the months leading up to Election Day, Their motives varied, but their tactics were similar: using networks of bogus social media accounts and websites to spread content designed to erode confidence in election security and American democracy.
Russia was particularly audacious, creating and spreading staged videos that aimed to smear Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The Kremlin’s efforts this year also involved paying a Tennessee media company $10 million to produce pro-Russian content.
“Russia clearly interfered in this election,” said Brian Taylor, a political science professor and Russia expert at Syracuse University. He said Russia’s objectives were to “help Trump and to sow chaos more generally — although there is no evidence that their activities changed the outcome.”
Experts say America’s adversaries are playing a long game, using disinformation to undermine Americans' confidence in their own country and gradually diminish U.S. power. Russia, in particular, preferred Trump as a candidate because he is seen as less likely to support assistance for Ukraine, said Emerson Brooking, resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which tracks foreign disinformation.
“None of this goes away after Election Day,” Brooking said. “What are Russia’s goals? It wasn’t to elect President Trump, but to steer the United States in a particular direction. Trump’s election is one step in that process.”
Russia, Iran and China have rejected allegations they sought to meddle with the U.S. election.
Steve Simon, president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, praised the quick work done by federal agencies to call out the disinformation. He said federal officials had within a day identified Russia as being behind a viral video purporting to show voter fraud in Georgia.
“The nature of their response and the timeliness of their response really helped confront and limit the influence of those messages,” said Simon, who serves as Minnesota’s top state election official.
Kim Wyman, a former official with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the agency had proven its value this year given the meddling by other countries.
“What was certainly demonstrated in this election is that foreign adversaries have not stopped trying to have an impact in U.S. elections, and we anticipate that will continue in the future,” said Wyman, who also served as Washington’s secretary of state.
She said she'd like the Republican-controlled Congress to continue supporting CISA and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which works with states to improve election operations and certifies voting systems.
Voting rights groups said they hoped an election with no major problems would temper talk about making widespread changes to voting procedures. During the campaign, Trump and his allies had spoken of a desire for a single day of voting, pushing false claims of widespread voter fraud with mail ballots. It's not clear whether that talk will continue, given that Republicans flocked to early voting this year after Trump encouraged it.
The president-elect has been spreading election lies for years related to his re-election loss in 2020. He repeatedly questioned voting procedures and accused Democrats of cheating before and during Election Day, but stopped making those claims once he took the lead.
“I’m hopeful that we’ll keep the things in place that work for the vast majorities of voters,” said Jay Young, senior director of voting and democracy with Common Cause.
Young said he would be concerned about any effort to restrict voting based on false claims, such as the one peddled by Republicans this year that large numbers of noncitizens were voting. Republicans in Congress have been pushing legislation on the issue.
“There is a lot of noise out there that is not based in fact,” Young said. “It’s my job, frankly, to make sure my organization and the groups that we are part of, that we can’t let someone try to seize on a moment in time to achieve a political end.”
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Associated Press writer Ali Swenson contributed to this report.