What to Expect When We’re Electing: An Object-Oriented Framework for Pre-Election Rumors
The Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington, in an effort to support elections administrators, media professionals and consumers heading into the November 2024 elections, recently published, 'What to Expect When We're Electing,' as part of its Elections Rumor Research series.
Center for an Informed Public,
University of Washington
It’s early October and the 2024 U.S. general election is kicking into high gear. Registration efforts are ongoing, with deadlines approaching in some states. Mail-in ballots are being printed in some locations, and are already out the door in others. Early in-person voting is just around the corner. Political turmoil around the election is (arguably) at an all-time high, with assassination attempts against candidate Donald Trump and late-stage changes to the Democratic ticket. Meanwhile the echo of “voter fraud” claims from 2020 continue to bounce around an increasingly volatile, yet fragmented information ecosystem. All of this — the anxiety and uncertainty of the election, the chaos of our political moment, and lingering conspiracy theories about the 2020 election — set the stage for a period of intense rumoring about voting and election processes in the coming weeks.
Rumors are inherently emergent and dynamic, making them hard to precisely predict. However, our past research on rumoring in general — and election rumors in particular — can provide insight into the kinds of rumors that we might see this fall. For example, we know the most effective and potentially viral rumors often combine a novel element (like details from a recent event) with a familiar theme (“non-citizen voters”) or trope (e.g., “suspicious white vans”). Additionally, we know that most misleading rumors about election integrity either feature speculation without evidence or mislead by twisting evidence in five common ways: fabricating or manipulating evidence, misinterpreting/mischaracterizing evidence, obscuring remedies, exaggerating impact, and falsely attributing intent.
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