ATLANTA (AP) — Voting machines cancel votes. More registered voters than eligible people. A large number of non-citizens vote.

With less than two weeks to go Election Daya resurgence conspiracy theories and misinformation about voting forces state and local election officials to spend their time debunk rumors And explain how elections are held at the same time, they supervise early voting and prepare for November 5.

“The truth is boring, the facts are boring, and the outrage is really interesting,” says Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who oversees elections in her state. “It’s like playing whack-a-mole with the truth. But what we’re trying to do is just put out as much information as possible.

This year’s election is the first presidential election under former President Donald Trump. spread lies on the widespread electoral fraud which cost him his re-election in 2020. false allegationsthat he keep repeatinghave undermined public confidence in elections and the people who oversee them. a large swath of Republican voters . Investigations revealed no widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines four years ago, and each of the battlefield states where Trump disputed his loss has asserted Victory for Democrat Joe Biden.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed that a voting machine altered a voter’s ballot in his Georgia precinct during early voting, and Elon Muskthe billionaire owner of social media platform X, has promoted various conspiracy theories about voting machines and election fraud, both online and on the ground. rally for Trump in Pennsylvania.

The floodgates are “very much” open, said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who now runs the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group that works with state and local election officials .

“It makes the life of election officials a lot more difficult,” he said.

Eric Olsen, who oversees elections in Prince William County, Virginia, said combating misinformation has become an important and difficult part of his job.

“It’s often very difficult because of our position, because social media makes it seem like there’s a giant wave coming at you and we’re in a little canoe with a paddle,” he said. “But we have to do this work.”

During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly said I tried to sow doubt on the upcoming elections – something he did before his two previous runs for the White House. Even after his 2016 victory, he claimed he lost the popular vote due to a flood of illegal votes and formed a presidential advisory commission to investigate. The commission dissolved without finding widespread fraud.

This year, Trump says Democrats will cheat again and uses “Too Big to Rig” as a rallying cry to encourage his supporters to vote. Election experts see this as a way to prepare the ground to contest the elections again in the event of defeat.

The spread of false accusations about the elections has other consequences. It’s already leads to a wave of harassment, threats And turnover election workers as well as violent attack at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The conspiracy theories that have surfaced in recent weeks are not new. There have long been allegations of “vote flipping,” most recently surfacing in Georgia and Tennessee.

A claim in Georgia’s Whitfield County was highlighted by Greene on Alex Jones’ “InfoWars” show. Jones has a history of spreading lies and was ordered to pay $1.5 billion for his false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a hoax.

County election officials issued a statement, noting that the case affected one out of every 6,000 voters cast since early voting began. The ballot was spoiled and the voter cast a replacement which was counted. Officials said there were no problems with the voting machine.

Gabriel Sterling, director of operations for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said all reports they’ve seen so far of someone claiming their printed ballot did not reflect their selections on the touch screen voting machine were the result of voter error.

“There is no evidence that a machine switched an individual’s vote,” he said. “Are there any elderly people whose hands are shaking and who probably pressed the wrong button slightly and didn’t properly review their ballot before printing it? This is the main situation we have seen. There is literally no evidence – and I say this to some members of Congress in this state – of evidence of machines flipping votes. This statement was a lie in 2020 and it is a lie now. »

In Shelby County, Tennessee, county election officials said human error was to blame for reports of vote changes. Voters used their fingers instead of a stylus to mark their choices on voting machines, officials said.

In Washington state, Republican Jerrod Sessler, a candidate for the state’s 4th Congressional District seat, shared a video on social media this week that purported to show how easily fraudulent ballots can be created. But the video does not specify that voter information on each ballot is verified against the state’s voter rolls.

“A ballot returned with false voter registration information will not be counted and is illegal in Washington state,” Charlie Boisner, a spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office, said in a statement. e-mail.

Musk recently brought up Dominion Voting Systems as part of his remarks to a gathering in Pennsylvania, appearing to suggest that its equipment was unreliable. Dominion has been center of conspiracy theories linked to the 2020 elections and settled its defamation lawsuit against Fox News last year for $787 million due to false allegations repeatedly aired on the network. The judge in the case said it was “CLEAR CRYSTAL” that none of the allegations made by Trump’s allies on the network were true.

In a statement, Dominion said it was “closely monitoring allegations regarding the November 2024 election” and was “fully prepared to defend our company and our customers against lies and those who spread them.”

A request for comment from Musk was not immediately returned.

Musk, who supported Trump, repeatedly pushed misinformation on electoral fraud to his 200 million followers on the X platform, where false information is spread largely uncontrolled.

He frequently argued online with Michigan’s secretary of state. Jocelyne Benson. Recently, the two clashed Musk’s claim that there were more registered voters in Michigan, a presidential battleground state, than people eligible to vote. Benson said Musk included inactive voters scheduled for removal in his count. A federal judge Tuesday launched a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee citing problems with the state’s voter rolls.

In an interview last month, Benson said she was disheartened to see someone in Musk’s position repeating false information.

“If he were sincerely committed, as he claims, to ensuring citizens have access to information, then I hope he would amplify truthful information – factual and accurate information – about the security of our elections in the instead of simply amplifying conspiracy theories and in a way that directs the anger of many of his supporters against us as individual election administrators,” Benson said. “This is something we haven’t had to deal with in 2020 and it creates a new battlefront and challenge for us.”

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