By admin 
By CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY and DAVID KLEPPER
WASHINGTON (AP) — A relatively trouble-free presidential election was good news for those working to restore confidence in the system. Less encouraging was the flood of misinformation aimed at undermining confidence in voting and sowing chaos, something experts say is likely to get worse in the coming years.
The most important test for officials on Election Day was one series of bomb threats reported in five battleground states, some forcing polling places to temporarily evacuate. The day proceeded like most other election days, with only routine issues, and former President Donald Trump’s commanding lead allowed the presidential race to be called early Wednesday morning.
“High turnout and wide margins — that’s all we could ever hope for,” said Zach Manifold, elections supervisor in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
The more than 84 million people who voted earlyin person or by mail, eased the crowds on Tuesday and gave election workers more flexibility to respond to unexpected issues.
“Yesterday and the election season were a great example of how early voting is so important to maintaining security, and how it actually minimized and mitigated some of the threats we saw,” said David Becker, a former attorney for the U.S. Ministry of Justice which heads the Centre. for Election Innovation and Research, said the day after Election Day.
When the bomb threats came in — which started early in the day in the Atlanta area and then spread to Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — election officials were prepared. They had spent most of the year meeting with local policetraining through different scenarios and updating their emergency plans.
“I saw professionals across the country saying, ‘Okay, this is what we’re going to do,’” said Carolina Lopez, a former local elections official who heads the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions.
The FBI said the threats appeared to come from Russian email domains, although federal cybersecurity officials cautioned that the perpetrators were not necessarily Russian.
Interference from Russia and other foreign adversaries has been a constant theme during the election season.
Russia, Iran and China have steadily expanded their use of English-language disinformation in the months leading up to Election Day. Their motives varied, but their tactics were similar: using networks of fake social media accounts and websites to spread content intended to undermine confidence in the elections. election security and American democracy.
Russia was particularly daring, creating and spreading staged videos which was intended to smear Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The Kremlin’s efforts this year were also involved paying a media company in Tennessee $10 million to produce pro-Russian content.
“Russia clearly meddled in this election,” said Brian Taylor, a political science professor and Russia expert at Syracuse University. He said Russia’s objectives were “to help Trump and sow chaos more generally — although there is no evidence that their activities changed the outcome.”
Experts say America’s adversaries are playing a long game, using disinformation to undermine American confidence in their own country and gradually reduce American power. Russia in particular favored Trump as a candidate because he is less likely to support aid to Ukraine, said Emerson Brooking, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which tracks foreign disinformation.
“None of this goes away after Election Day,” Brooking said. “What are Russia’s objectives? It was not to elect President Trump, but to move the United States in a certain direction. The election of Trump is a step in that process.”
Russia, Iran and China have rejected accusations that they tried to interfere in the US elections.
Steve Simon, president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, praised the quick work of federal agencies to expose the misinformation. He said federal officials had done that identified Russia within a day as behind a viral video claiming to show voter fraud in Georgia.
“The nature of their response and the timeliness of their response really helped confront and limit the impact of these messages,” said Simon, who serves as Minnesota’s top elections official.
Kim Wyman, a former official at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the agency has proven its worth this year in the face of interference from other countries.
“What this election has certainly shown is that foreign adversaries have not stopped trying to influence U.S. elections, and we expect that will continue in the future,” said Wyman, who is also secretary of state. Washington’s business.
She said she wishes the Republican-controlled Congress would continue to support CISA and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which works with states to improve election operations and certify voting systems.
Voting rights groups said they hoped an election without major problems would dampen debate about making widespread changes to voting procedures. During the campaign, Trump and his allies had talked about wanting just one day of voting, pushing false claims of widespread voter fraud involving mail-in ballots. It’s not clear whether that conversation will continue, as Republicans flocked to early voting this year after Trump encouraged it.
The president-elect has spread out election lies years in connection with his re-election loss in 2020. He repeatedly questioned voting procedures and accused Democrats of cheating before and during Election Day, but stopped making those claims when he took the lead.
“I’m hopeful that we can preserve the things that work for the vast majority of voters,” said Jay Young, senior director of voting and democracy at Common Cause.
Young said he would be concerned about any effort to restrict voting based on false claims, such as those made by Republicans this year that large numbers of voters non-citizens were voting. Republicans in Congress have been too push for legislation about the issue.
“There’s a lot of noise that’s not based on facts,” Young said. “My job, frankly, is to make sure that my organization and the groups we are a part of cannot allow anyone to try to leverage a moment in time to achieve a political goal.”
Associated Press writer Ali Swenson contributed to this report.
Originally published: November 8, 2024 at 10:14 am PST