PolitiFact: How days of vote counting became go-to ‘evidence’ for false election fraud claims

PolitiFact: How days of vote counting became go-to ‘evidence’ for false election fraud claims

"There was a major backlash to election officials and party leaders like President (Joe) Biden saying that it would take time to count votes," said Emma Steiner, disinformation analyst at Common Cause, a voting rights group. "We saw a lot of conspiratorial narratives arise saying they were ‘announcing their plan’" to steal the election. Conspiracy theorists seemed more likely to anticipate that results would take longer in 2022 — and to "just automatically view it as suspicious," Steiner said. In 2022, election deniers made a strategy of preemptively working to discredit any results that came in after Election Day, Steiner said.  ... "Mainstream platforms have been a breeding ground for conspiracies about elections," Steiner said. But more specific strategies linked to this narrative — such as the push to vote in person after 3 p.m. on Election Day — originated on less widely used alt-tech platforms like Telegram and Truth Social.  "There’s a definite tendency for these types of conspiratorial narratives to find fertile ground on (alternative) platforms and then cross over into mainstream platforms," Steiner said. "Then, eventually, you have elected officials and high profile influencers repeating it." 

When Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state called a press conference two weeks before polls closed on the 2022 midterm elections, she said her aim was to prevent the spread of misinformation.

“It’s really important for us to get accurate information about the election process in Pennsylvania so voters and the public know that when there are delays in counting, it doesn’t mean that there’s anything nefarious happening,” Acting Secretary of Commonwealth Leigh Chapman said. “It’s just what the law is in Pennsylvania.”

Her statements might have reassured some people. But according to an analysis by Zignal Labs, a media intelligence company, Chapman’s comments were used as fodder for a growing narrative that perpetuated the election myth she was trying to dispel.

From Sept. 1 to Nov. 8 on Twitter, the three most-shared headlines related to unannounced election returns were pinned to Chapman’s statements and came from conservative and libertarian media sites. …

Although the articles did not outright allege that slow results would signal fraud, they generated online discussion that claimed as much.

The narrative built as election night neared and lasted through election week.

“There was a major backlash to election officials and party leaders like President (Joe) Biden saying that it would take time to count votes,” said Emma Steiner, disinformation analyst at Common Cause, a voting rights group. “We saw a lot of conspiratorial narratives arise saying they were ‘announcing their plan’” to steal the election. …

Conspiracy theorists seemed more likely to anticipate that results would take longer in 2022 — and to “just automatically view it as suspicious,” Steiner said. …

In 2022, election deniers made a strategy of preemptively working to discredit any results that came in after Election Day, Steiner said.  …

“Mainstream platforms have been a breeding ground for conspiracies about elections,” Steiner said. But more specific strategies linked to this narrative — such as the push to vote in person after 3 p.m. on Election Day — originated on less widely used alt-tech platforms like Telegram and Truth Social.

“There’s a definite tendency for these types of conspiratorial narratives to find fertile ground on (alternative) platforms and then cross over into mainstream platforms,” Steiner said. “Then, eventually, you have elected officials and high profile influencers repeating it.”