2024 U.S. ELECTIONS RAPID RESEARCH BLOG
RESEARCH MEMO | WEEK OF OCTOBER 21
This is part of an ongoing series of rapid research blog posts and rapid research analysis about the 2024 U.S. elections from the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public. It was crossposted on the CIP’s election rumor research Substack newsletter.
Each week our team collates emerging rumors from across social media platforms related to election processes and procedures. This collection highlights novel or viral rumors our researchers have identified using a combination of qualitative, quantitative, digital ethnographic, and visual, methodologies. Some of these rumors have been featured in longer analysis pieces on our Substack newsletter (linked below). Many of these rumors are false, but some may be true or partially true. Often, they are misleading in one of five familiar ways, as we discuss in this analysis.
If you are a journalist, researcher, or election official who would like more information on a particular rumor, or wish to speak to the CIP research team about our ongoing rapid research findings, you can contact us using this Google Form.
This Week On Our Substack
Image 1: Photo of a ballot box in Los Angeles | Photo by Oxana Melis on Unsplash
We put out longer analysis pieces as well as shorter rapid research blog posts on our Substack. This week we’ve published several rapid research items including: “Rumors Rapidly Spreading About Reissued Department of Defense Directive 5240.01, “Fake Mail-In Ballot Envelope Sparks Rumors” and “Florida sues the Department of Homeland Security for citizenship data, sparking rumors” Also on Substack: a follow-up post about the UOCAVA lawsuits filed in swing states. We also published a longer article exploring our recent poll in collaboration with The Seattle Times and KING5: “WA Poll sheds light on concerns over a disputed election, post-election violence and non-citizen voting.”
Emergent Rumors
Cybersecurity Conference in Atlanta Prompts Election Interference Rumors and Speculation
- The Atlanta chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association International (AFCEA), is hosting a Homeland Security Critical Infrastructure Conference on November 6-7. A pre-conference cybersecurity exercise will be conducted on Election Day, November 5.
- The timing of the event and pre-conference has prompted rumors that this cybersecurity exercise is actually an attempt at election interference, which has received significant attention on various online platforms. (See Figure 1)
- We first observed this rumor on October 18, with a post from @LaCivita (an advisor to Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign) with a screenshot of this conference exercise occurring on November 5, claiming it is suspicious. Shortly after, we saw a far larger account, Laura Loomer (a conservative political commentator who has appeared in our previous research) posting a claim that this is “election interference by Homeland Security” based on this test being run on election day in a swing state (See Image 2).
- We continued to see cross-platform spread of the rumor on TikTok and Rumble, where a video of Owen Shroyer’s War Room Podcast (run by InfoWars) covered the conference and exercise. This video is then cross-posted to X.
- This style of cybersecurity exercise has been conducted in the past in multiple cities including Charleston, South Carolina, New York City, and Savannah, Georgia, and appears to be intended to simulate testing civilian infrastructure resilience to various forms of cyberattacks on infrastructure.
- Georgia, particularly Atlanta and Fulton County, has been a focal point of previous election integrity rumors in 2020 and this year. By ascribing intent of election fraud to a pre-conference practice exercise at a security conference that has been occurring for years, this rumor could be used to diminish confidence in the election results in Georgia and by extension could sow doubt in the presidential election results.
Figure 1: A graph showing the cumulative number of tweets related to rumoring surrounding the cybersecurity exercise in Atlanta. Nodes are sized by the number of followers of the tweeting account, and only accounts with 50,000 or more followers are visualized, although the y-axis includes counts for all engagement regardless of account size. For the labels, white boxes indicate original tweets, while gray boxes indicate retweets.
Image 2: A tweet from Laura Loomer on October 18 suggesting that the timing of the security conference is an intentional effort by the Department of Homeland Security to engage in election interference.
Allegations of voting machines in Tennessee, Texas and Georgia flipping votes
- Various posts on X referred to an alleged incident in Tarrant County, Texas at the White Settlement Community Center where a voter said that the machine output for their Presidential vote was different than what they had selected.
- In reporting from the NBC local affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth, Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons said there was “zero evidence” of vote switching by machines. County officials encouraged voters to double check their selections on the physical paper ballot to ensure they properly selected who they wished to vote for.
- Parallel claims were made pertaining to voting in Tennessee and Georgia. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted that Dominion Voting Systems machines switched votes in her district, Whitfield County, and urged voters to check their paper ballot. Georgia officials confirm that there is “zero evidence” of machines flipping votes in the state.
- Building on claims from Georgia, a user on X posted allegations that Dominion voting machines were “flipping votes from Trump to Harris” in Tennessee.
DHS warns of bombs and violence at drop boxes
- Posters on Bluesky shared a story from Wired about the potential of security risks around drop boxes.
- According to the story, U.S. intelligence officials have been issuing warnings to government agencies about the threat of election deniers placing bombs at drop boxes and other potential “lone wolf” attacks against election facilities.
- Threats of violence ahead of elections are common within election rumoring. While it is important to take such claims seriously to ensure voters are safe, the spread of such rumors can be a tool for voter suppression by stoking fear around using certain voting methods. Our “What to Expect” post “An Election Rumoring Timeline” further analyzes such threats of violence.
- In a parallel story, a U.S. Postal Service mail collection box in Phoenix was set on fire overnight in what is believed to be arson. Investigators found a number of mail-in ballots damaged by the fire but it is not known whether ballots were the target of the blaze.
Rumors swirl around prolonged ballot counting process expected in Pennsylvania
- In light of a recent CBS News “60 Minutes” segment about a Pennsylvania ballot intake center, users on X argued that the lengthy procedures (and potentially long ballot counting process), was actually “setting the stage for the steal.”
- In conspiratorial rumors around the episode, users argued that the episode was “predictive programming” aimed at “trying to pre-bunk any future allegations” and that delays in counting would happen in order to “traffic ballots to deep blue parts of the state.”
Various efforts by Elon Musk to influence swing state voters drive rumors of election interference and illegality
- Conversations and rumors on X and TikTok this week discussed Elon Musk’s increasing involvement in election campaigning and related activities.
- On TikTok, left-leaning creators argued that Musk is “mass funding a voter disinformation campaign” targeting Pennsylvania, pointing to an alleged Musk-funded project called “Project 2028” (separate from Project 2025) that claims to be affiliated with the Harris campaign but is supposedly sending misinformation to voters.
- Other TikTok creators discussed Elon’s “$1 million-a-day petition,” describing it as an attempt by Musk to “buy voters” and discussing its potential illegality. On X, one user defended the petition, suggesting that Biden’s efforts to forgive student loans were an actual example of “bribing” voters.
Viral TikTok Trends and Rumors
Our research team has developed a qualitative research method designed to surface election administration-related content tailored to different community, identity and interest groups. The following is a collection of videos and trends our researchers have captured in the past week.
- Republican congressional candidate’s ad misleads Black voters on election date: Republican congressional candidate Tom Barrett printed an ad in a Black-owned newspaper in Michigan stating that election day is on Nov. 6, though there is no evidence that this error was intentional. He printed the correct election date in a different ad in a newspaper that is not Black-owned. One TikTok creator states he is trying to mislead Black voters about the election date.
- Purging voter rolls used as motivation to vote: A creator uses the example of the Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt purging one-fifth of the state’s voter rolls as evidence that people are trying to disenfranchise legitimate voters. The creator then uses this to motivate viewers to register to vote using the links on their profile.
- Voting Machine Accepted an “Upside-Down” Ballot: A medium virality post describes a first-hand account with a voting machine that seemingly would not accept her ballot – until an election worker stepped in and re-inserted it the wrong way (the arrow pointing down instead of up). The creator was suspicious of the election worker, warning viewers not to let anyone else handle their ballots when they vote. She and the commenters expressed distrust toward voting machines’ alleged lack of traceability. It is not known at this time what state this incident happened in.
- Three Swing States Won’t Have Results Ready by Election Night: A medium virality post briefly questions why Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia will not have election results ready by Election Night, despite them being less populous than other states. While the creator does not offer their own theory as to why, most of the top comments, including one with almost 20K likes, speculate that this is a sign of election fraud.
- Clashes with election workers as in-person voting begins: Multiple videos emerged of people going to vote in person and experiencing negative interactions with election workers. In one video, a woman gets a Trump tattoo on her face and is told she has to cover it up or not vote.