The seemingly never-ending 2024 presidential election is in its final sprint, with early voting underway in some states and less than a week to go before voting hits its zenith on Election Day.
The race remains too close to call and candidates are making the most of its last days, bouncing from one battleground state to another, trying to, if not change voters' minds, then at least make sure their supporters turn up at the polls.
From a technical standpoint, experts say, the American election system is stronger than it's ever been. Voting technology has been hardened over the past several election cycles, boosting security and making it easier to double-check results, if need be. Voting tech has also gotten a boost from a new, younger and tech-savvy workforce.
"In many ways we are increasingly confident about the run-up to the election — that we will have an election that is free and fair and secure and smooth," Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, said during an Oct. 16 press briefing.
But that hasn't stopped former President Donald Trump, his allies and others from spreading disinformation and outright lies about the voting process for their own political gain, effectively laying the groundwork for court challenges if they lose.
On Tuesday, for instance, in a post on the social media platform X, Trump made accusations of voter fraud in Pennsylvania's York and Lancaster counties, even though officials in those locations are still investigating what, if any, problems may have occurred with voter registration applications.
Voting experts fully expect court challenges over mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, if Trump loses.
This is what they say they worry about most: that frivolous lawsuits will drag out the election certification process while also covering baseless conspiracy theories with a veneer of false legitimacy. Or worse: that a misunderstood, disputed outcome could lead to violence.
And especially with a race this close, counting everyone's vote will take time. It's unlikely that we'll know who the winner is right away.
"We're increasingly nervous about the aftermath, about the consequences of the efforts to discredit the results and what will come after, potentially," said Waldman.
That's why it's so important for voters to know that voting technology and the processes around it are secure and well-run.
The Trump campaign didn't respond to an email seeking comment for this story.
Secure by design
Trump has refused to say he'll accept the results of the election if he loses. This isn't new or unexpected. Trump and other election deniers continue to claim — falsely — that the 2020 election was rigged.
Not only were the 2020 presidential results repeatedly backed by both voting experts and the courts, election security has continued to improve in the years since, said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director for Verified Voting, which promotes the responsible use of technology in elections.
Lindeman pointed to the near elimination of paperless electronic voting machines. Voting experts had fretted about these devices for years, because they didn't include a paper printout of votes that election officials could use for an audit or recount.
And though the idea of someone hacking an election to change an outcome was always farfetched, the concerns have boosted awareness among elections officials of the need for cybersecurity measures and practices. (Misinformation campaigns are a different matter.)
The generation of election workers that's come in to replace retiring baby boomers has helped with this, Lindeman said. They bring with them both a comfort with technology and an eagerness to learn about the election process.
Although election security isn't necessarily perfect, Lindeman says the vast majority of the things that could go wrong with election technology are largely problems the system could recover from.
"We talk about resilience," he said. "That's what resilience means. If something breaks, we fix it. That's a pretty good place to be."
Your vote is your voice.
Getty Images/Viva Tung/CNETThe monsters in the closet aren't real
Despite what some people still think, the very nature of how elections are run, and the technology behind them, make elections incredibly hard to hack in the traditional sense.
Elections are run by individual states, not the federal government. Voting machines vary across the country, and each state does things a little differently. Most of these systems aren't connected to the internet. Paper copies ensure that votes can't be flipped. Results can't be changed by some shadowy figure on the other side of the world.
But some people are just never going to believe that. And it doesn't help that people in positions of authority continue to spread conspiracy theories focused on baseless claims of undocumented immigrants casting ballots and voting machines being compromised, and that they continue to push the falsehood that the 2020 election was fixed.
"When people have made up their minds to believe that something terrible happened, you're never going to argue them out of that," Lindeman said. "It's like trying to argue with your kid about a monster in the closet."
The Russians figured that out, too. Reports of Kremlin-sponsored election meddling go back to at least the 2016 election. More recently, US officials in September seized a pair of websites tied to the Russian government and charged two Russian state media employees with spreading disinformation ahead of the November election.
And US officials said last week that it was Russia that created and spread a fake video that purports to show someone destroying ballots marked for Trump in Pennsylvania. The bogus video was quickly debunked by local officials, yet it still circulated widely on social media.
But some of the most damaging disinformation, voting experts say, has been spread by Trump and his allies, including billionaire Elon Musk and House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, both known for spreading voter fraud conspiracy theories on platforms like X. Musk, who's endorsed Trump and recently appeared alongside him at rallies, is the most-followed person on X. As the platform's owner, his posts often show up in the feeds of users who don't follow him.
Greene, meanwhile, claimed in recent X posts that a voting machine in her district "flipped" a vote and she encouraged voters to check their paper printouts to make sure the same thing didn't happen to them. Lindeman said there's nothing nefarious behind such a mixup and that it's likely the voter possibly had shaky hands or otherwise just tapped the touchscreen button for a different candidate than they wanted. And local officials said the problem was taken care of before the voter left the precinct. Still, Greene's original post has so far been viewed more than 3.6 million times.
Regardless of Greene's claim, the incident underlines Lindeman's point about how paperless electronic voting machines have largely been eliminated, allowing for printouts that not just election officials but also every voter can check to make sure they got things right. Such assurances, however, aren't enough to keep social media posts like Greene's from going viral and stoking voter fears of those imaginary monsters in the closet.
That's especially worrisome in a highly anxious political environment still scarred by the bloody Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters as Congress was gathered to certify the 2020 election results. In the Public Religion Research Institute's American Values Survey, released earlier this month in partnership with the Brookings Institution, 29% of Republicans said they believe that "true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country," compared with 16% of independents and 8% of Democrats.
"We should just let this sink in a little bit," Robert Jones, PRRI's president and founder said at a Brookings Institution event announcing the survey results. "This is actually quite alarming."
Making it harder to vote doesn't make elections more secure.
Getty Images/Viva Tung/CNETNew laws could make voting harder
Voting experts say that given the groundwork already laid, court challenges are almost a certainty if Trump loses. It's anyone's guess if there will be political violence akin to the Jan. 6 assault.
But those who've made it their mission to protect voting rights say damage has already been done. Laws that've been passed in the name of solving election security problems that just don't exist are instead keeping legitimate voters from casting their ballots.
Since the last election, lawmakers in 32 states have passed a combined 133 laws that have either made it harder for voters to access the ballot, or made it harder for local elections officials to do their jobs, said Jay Young, senior director of voting and democracy for the social justice group Common Cause. The new hurdles those voters face include things like new proof of residency requirements, shortened deadlines for mail-in ballot applications, the elimination of drop boxes, and restrictive voter ID requirements, Young said.
Ezra Rosenberg, director of the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said citizen access to voting is the real concern.
"Quite frankly, the threat to election integrity in this country is not the maybe one or two people who vote every year who should not be allowed to vote," Rosenberg said during a recent panel discussion held by the Brookings Institution. "It's the threat that thousands of people who are eligible to vote are being denied the right to vote either intentionally or inadvertently."
Election Day and beyond
The thought of political intimidation and violence, whether it be armed people camped out beside a ballot drop box, or something on the scale of the Jan. 6 insurrection, has a lot of people worried.
So does the thought of endless frivolous court challenges aimed at dragging out the election certification process and breeding distrust in the election system. Given the tightness of the race and the passage of laws in some key states, like Pennsylvania, that will make the vote-counting process slower, we probably won't know immediately who won the election.
It's possible the process could take days, especially if some results are audited or recounted. And that's OK, said Lindeman. It's all part of the American election process.
The problem is that although that time helps ensure accurate results, it also gives disinformation time to take hold and flourish. Lindeman said voters should be patient and give election workers the time they need to do their jobs right.
And though it might not be quick and easy this time around, Lindeman said he's optimistic democracy will prevail. There will be a winner and reasonable agreement among most people as to who that winner is.
"I think we're all going to come out the other side of this," he said.