While Election Day is November 5, early voting began in September some states. While waiting for the final results to be announced, there is a good chance that you will come across false or misleading information.

To avoid spreading false information during this election period, here are four elements to consider.

We will not know the full picture on the night of November 5

Election rules and procedures vary from state to state. Within a state, they can even vary from county to county. Some states allow advance processing of absentee ballots received before Election Day. Others abandon processing and counting mail-in ballots until the polling stations close on election day.

This means that results can change significantly during election night, depending on which ballots are counted first. This happened in 2020 when states where President Donald Trump appeared to lead turned to Joe Biden late in the evening.

If you react strongly to new information, take a break

It’s normal to have an emotional reaction to information you encounter online or in the news. But if the information you just received sparks a particularly strong emotion in you, it could be a signal to put on the brakes, said Rachel Moran of Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington. “A lot of misleading information is intentionally created to confuse or provoke an emotional response. So if that’s happening in you, it doesn’t necessarily mean what you read is wrong, but it’s a good signal to kind of slow down,” she said.

We want to see our beliefs reflected in our minds, so it’s easy to agree with something if it reinforces our worldview — even if it’s not true, said Hannah Covington, senior content director. education at the University of Ottawa. Information Literacy Project. “When you see information that you automatically agree with, that’s really a signal to pause and maybe do a quick search.”

Consider the reliability of your information source

Open your favorite search engine and perform a quick keyword search to see what other reliable sources say about the information you are evaluating. “If you don’t see something reported by multiple media outlets, then it’s probably time to wait (before sharing),” Covington said.

When determining whether a news source is trustworthy, look for how it handles errors in its reporting. Trusting a source that makes mistakes may seem counterintuitive, “but actually correcting information when there’s an inaccuracy is a huge sign of credibility,” Covington told NPR.

Be careful with information translated from another language. A good translator must know the language and culture to be able to discern whether the original message is meant to be satirical or ironic, said Laura Zommer, co-founder and CEO of Factchecked.

If you receive a message on WhatsApp marked as “forwarded” or “transmitted several times“, “be especially careful, as this indicates that it is unclear who is authoring the content and not the person who sent (you) the message,” Zommer told NPR in an email.

Be wary of what photos and videos are supposed to “prove”

Use caution when evaluating images, video and audio. They are easily manipulated or taken out of context. Take this tweet 2020 alleging voter suppression, allegedly evidenced by a photo of a stack of mailboxes. It reads: “Photo taken in Wisconsin. This is happening before our eyes. They are sabotaging the USPS to sabotage mail-in voting. This is massive voter suppression and part of their plan to steal the election.

UCLA law professor Richard L. Hasen investigated this claim in his 2022 book: Cheap talk: how misinformation is poisoning our politics – and what to do about it. It turns out that even if the photo is real, the allegation of voter suppression is not. The mailboxes were photographed outside a company that had a contract to repair old mailboxes for the U.S. Postal Service, not to scrap them.

These days, Moran said “the old adage… ‘seeing is believing’ just isn’t really true anymore. When you come across an online medium, it’s worth asking yourself: “This is who I am audience Or vision AI generated? Or could it be real and misleadingly edited?”

Ultimately, “it’s up to us to protect ourselves and our communities (from misinformation) by only sharing what is verified,” Covington said.

NPR’s Brett Neely contributed reporting to this story.

About voting in California

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