Elections 2024: disinformation did not keep voters from the polls
With polling places closed in much of the United States, election officials and voting rights advocates say voting-related problems have been minimal so far, but federal officials still warned of the lingering dangers of foreign disinformation operations aimed at destroying trust to undermine the democratic system.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump continued to make baseless claims that the election was rigged, he said Tuesday afternoon Truth Social Post there was “a lot of talk about massive hoaxing in Philadelphia” and that law enforcement was on its way. But the Philadelphia police told CNN they didn’t know what Trump was talking about. Trump also made similar comments about Detroitwith police there too debunk claims of a heavy police response.
Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said that while some “minor disruptive activities” occurred on Tuesday, they were largely expected and planned. Furthermore, CISA has seen no evidence of malicious activity affecting the security or integrity of the elections.
“More broadly, we witnessed the resilience of our process and the preparedness of election officials in delivering free, fair, secure elections,” Easterly said on a conference call with reporters just before midnight on the East Coast.
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Lawsaid the parade of voters to the polls was “remarkable” given the ongoing swirl of misinformation and lawsuits aimed at deterring people from voting.
“People are voting today and that’s worth noting,” Hewitt said during an afternoon news conference held by the voting rights umbrella group Election Protection. “Democracy works if you let it, and sometimes we have to give it a little push to make sure there are no obstacles in the way.”
While distributed polling places suffered from the kinds of problems you would expect when polls opened, such as faulty equipment and longer-than-expected lines, most of the problems were localized and easily resolved at the local level.
Several early in the day non-credible bomb threats caused the temporary closure of two polling stations in Georgia. The The FBI released a statement later in the day it said it was aware of multiple bomb threats in several states, but none were considered credible. It added that many of them appeared to come from Russian email domains.
Hewitt emphasized that Georgia voters were safe at the polls and that the threats did not deter people from voting but only made the process take longer. One of the polling places will stay open longer to make up for time lost due to the bomb threat evacuations, and Hewitt said his group was seeking an extension for the other.
The group also asked that some polling places in Pennsylvania, including those at Lehigh and Villanova universities, along with Lafayette College, stay open later due to more than four-hour wait times to vote at those locations.
Easterly said CISA did not monitor any disruptions nationally throughout the day. As the election draws to a close, she urged Americans to be patient, stressing that vote totals announced on election night are not final results and that election workers need time to do their work.
Meanwhile, CISA remains concerned that America’s adversaries, especially Russia and to a lesser extent Iran, will do so continue to increase their disinformation activitiesin an attempt to undermine American confidence in the legitimacy of the election and fuel violence in the coming days.
“We cannot, as we have said repeatedly, allow our opponents to have votes in our elections,” Easterly said. “We all have a role to play in protecting and preserving democracy.”
