Helping Election Officials Combat Misinformation in 2024: An Updated Course from CDT and CTCL
Election officials face an increasingly demanding set of responsibilities, from protecting their systems from cybersecurity threats to managing and responding to emergencies. At the same time, election officials increasingly report facing threats and harassment, often motivated by mis- and disinformation, which may be contributing to increasing turnover rates. These challenges are compounded by limited budgets for training staff on new and emerging threats.
Despite these headwinds, election officials have become the most trusted sources of authoritative information about elections in the country. Their voices are crucial for tamping down misinformation about voting procedures, but they must first be equipped with the necessary skills and strategies.
That’s why this year CDT partnered with the Center for Technology and Civic Life to develop “Combatting Election Misinformation,” a course designed to help election officials navigate and respond to misinformation.
The course, originally created ahead of the 2020 election, relaunched in June of 2024. Much has changed since the original training was developed in 2020: the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine and its attendant social cleavages, the Stop the Steal movement and January 6th insurrection, and the introduction of widely available generative AI.
Many of the goals for this course remain the same as in 2020, as election officials are a key actor in upholding election integrity, providing authoritative information about the time, place, and manner of elections, and countering voter suppression misinformation. The course is intended to support election officials in those roles by teaching terms and concepts related to information operations, helping them identify and respond to mis-, dis-, and malinformation, and preparing them to respond with a defensive communications strategy.
The changes to the course reflected the changing election information environment ahead of November. Generative AI tools, like chatbots and image generators, have the potential to increase the scale and sophistication of false and misleading content online. Deepfakes are a major concern, as illustrated by the robocall that impersonated President Biden and told New Hampshire residents not to vote in January’s primary. Some AI image generators produce photorealistic images, such as Joe Biden in a hospital bed and ballot box theft in Venezuela, that could be used to support false or misleading narratives. OpenAI recently released a report detailing attempts by Iranian operatives to use Chat-GPT to develop messaging about US presidential candidates for use in an online influence operation. Generative AI can also make microtargeting easier, opening the door to hyperlocal disinformation that targets particular demographic groups, such as minority language communities. While these technologies have not yet caused the massive disruptions that some predicted, the risks and examples that have been observed so far remain serious.
Given the urgency of these concerns, CDT was pleased to partner with CTCL to train election officials across the country. In the past, we have teamed up with CTCL to contribute to courses on cybersecurity and post-election audits. We hope that this latest course will give election officials an additional set of tools to make sure that elections continue to become more secure, fair, and trusted.