EIP has closely followed the coordinated effort to push #BallotHarvesting on multiple social networks starting on Sunday night. While this is ongoing, we have published a post analyzing the first 36 hours: eipartnership.net/rapid-response…
The video made several claims about the integrity of the election that have either been debunked or are without factual support. This video is an interesting example of a domestic, coordinated elite disinfo campaign. gen.medium.com/why-fears-of-f…
The pre-amplification of the #BallotHarvesting narrative began on 9/24 when Project Veritas released a teaser of their coming exposee. This was amplified by prominent conservatives across social media, with a release date set for 9/28. faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/Ballot…
The first video instead dropped on Sunday at 6pm PT (teased 3 hrs earlier by Mike Lindell), a day earlier than originally announced. An influencer-led effort got #BallotHarvesting trending within minutes.
Among the earliest and most notable tweeters, Donald Trump Jr, who independently uploaded the same O’Keefe video and a message propagating the #BallotHarvesting narrative within seven minutes of O’Keefe’s original post. Jr. also posted to his Facebook, 10 minutes before O’Keefe.
The incident exemplifies the ability of a small number of coordinated influencers to drive political narratives and generate millions of impressions w/in minutes. TikTok was the only platform to take aggressive action
The video’s virality was not organic - the effectiveness of the technique coupled with weak or slow platform response lends us to believe that we should expect it to be reused on misleading videos throughout the election season.
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🧵Like 2020, we’re seeing images & videos of graphs misrepresenting common variations in how votes are counted & visualized. As vote count claims spread on Twitter, Telegram & alt platforms, note that they can be misleading. We recommend looking at many news sites & not just one
These misleading claims appear to originate from Mike Lindell’s widely shared livestream. Lindell is a popular right-wing influencer, who has a history of using supposed statistical and technical evidence to allege election fraud in the 2020 election. washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/…
@PolitiFact investigated one of these misleading claims about the Michigan attorney general’s race and found no evidence of election fraud: politifact.com/factchecks/202…
🧵 We have been tracking a rumor that Detroit voters were told they had already voted when they arrived at polling stations on Election Day. This claim has been fact-checked as a data error by @PolitiFact: factcheck.org/2022/11/harmle…
In a video from this morning, Detroit newsman Charlie Langton claimed some voters had been falsely told they’d already voted absentee when they arrived at the polls. Langton said election officials were working on a fix but highlighted that eligible voters would be able to vote
The same video spread on alt platforms without linking to Langton’s tweet. It has since received thousands of views across Rumble and Telegram.
🧵We are tracking ongoing rumors surrounding printers in Maricopa County, Arizona suggesting that ballots are being printed in a way that may not be readable by ballot scanners.
Tweets reporting this issue arose in the morning of November 8. As of right now the most retweeted claim of this narrative is a tweet by Tyler Bowyer, the chief operating officer at conservative activist organization Turning Point USA.
This narrative is spreading on Twitter, gaining the attention of conservative influencers, media personalities and their audiences.
🧵We’re tracking another emerging conversation around real issues with printers running out of paper in Luzerne County, PA. wnep.com/article/news/l…
Spread on Twitter is still relatively low (~10,000 related tweets). There are also several prominent posts of Facebook which are receiving significant engagement, including comment posts.
In addition to legitimate concerns and motivated criticisms of the election process, we are also seeing some false claims — especially in quote tweets of influencer accounts — about these issues being intentional and/or part of an effort to steal the election.
🧵Maricopa County, AZ election officials have released a statement this morning addressing issues with some of the tabulators on voting machines in the state.
In a video posted on Twitter this morning, an election worker informed a long line of voters outside an Anthem, AZ polling location that one of their two tabulators is not working, with the other scanning at a 75% success rate.
In the video election officials highlight that 20% of polling locations in AZ have issues with the tabulation systems. Officials assure voters that this will not impact their vote being counted. Instead, votes will go into secure lock boxes attached to the machines for counting.
🧵We are tracking responses to Monday morning’s U.S. Department of Justice announcement of the municipalities to which the Civil Rights division will send monitors. justice.gov/opa/pr/justice…
The Justice Department has sent election monitors to voting sites to ensure compliance with federal voting laws since the 1960s, including in 2020 under the Trump administration. justice.gov/opa/pr/justice…
On Twitter, most of the discourse around the event has been dominated by strong news sources. However, a number of influencers have portrayed the action, which is taken each election cycle, as suspicious.