Manufactured Chaos

Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

With the start of voting in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election quickly approaching, we can expect the level of “noise” about elections to reach a fever pitch in the final sprint after Labor Day. Energized by the former president’s persistent lies about the outcome of the 2020 election, election deniers are sowing doubt about the legitimacy of elections through mis- and disinformation across multiple platforms. It’s not a pretty picture for democracy.

These efforts have been super-charged by a veritable “cottage industry” of false narratives flooding the airwaves since 2020, at the same time that Big Tech social media platforms have dramatically retrenched their efforts to combat election-related falsehoods. Twitter’s transformation into X as a factory for anti-democratic (small “d”)  propaganda, and amplification of disinformation about elections, is the most dramatic example of how the information landscape has been degraded in recent years.

Lastly, quasi-legalistic efforts continue to “prime” and enable the losing side to reject election results that they do not like. From the fake electors scheme (which led Congress to pass reforms, thankfully) to attacks on the courts, to placing partisans on formerly ministerial election boards, those seeking to undermine confidence in election administration are working on multiple fronts.

The upshot? When confusion and persistent falsehoods seep into the minds of average voters, they not only threaten the public’s trust in elections, but democracy itself.  

The strategy fueling this movement is what we call…

Manufactured Chaos

“Manufactured chaos” includes coordinated attempts to interfere with — and potentially overwhelm — normal election administration processes based on claims of malfeasance that are not supported by facts.

This chaos has been enabled and accelerated by one cataclysmic shift in our political terrain:  The wall between impartial technocratic election administration and partisan warfare has been largely decimated. 

Our democracy is under threat because it’s now viewed as legitimate political discourse (in some quarters) to cast doubt upon the very idea that our elections are run fairly and competently — and therefore result in transfers of power that can be deemed illegitimate.

Example #1:

Flooding election officials with overwhelming numbers of record requests about past elections; these are often copied & pasted and have no foundation in local voting processes. The emergence of generative AI also raises the possibility that election deniers might mass-produce FOIA requests at an even greater rate.

Example #2:

Ginning up baseless fears. Although there’s no credible evidence that non-citizens fraudulently vote in significant numbers, this boogeyman is being energized by partisans on the right to undermine confidence in election outcomes. Witness the SAVE Act likely to be employed as a condition of avoiding a government shutdown by the end of September.

Example #3:

Using AI image generators to fabricate synthetic and misleading images of sensitive election administration activities, in an effort to cast doubt on election security.

Example #4:

Intentionally inserting partisans into the ranks of election boards, to overturn normal rules and standards. In Georgia, a critical swing state, a partisan election board recently adopted new rules that make it easier to withhold certification of an election, by removing guardrails to “just asking questions,” after the canvass is complete.

Final and most concerning…

Example #5:

Perhaps the most dangerous of all: insider threats. In Mesa Co, CO, an election official was recently convicted for cooperating with partisan actors to breach the county’s election system in violation of state law. The growing list of partisan dilettantes that want to put their hands on sensitive voting equipment is very troubling. Another disturbing case took place in Coffee County, Georgia.

Manufactured chaos is Orwellian

It undermines public confidence in election processes, under the guise of  “election integrity.” Facts from election officials are denied, baseless lies are elevated, and election workers are harassed.

This is incredibly destabilizing because innuendo and suspicion can be used to justify anti-democratic actions like allowing state legislatures to nullify the popular vote, or mobilizing intimidating forces for “protection.”

What can be done in the near term? 

For Voters

• Think before sharing election-related information online.

• Learn more about how to spot mis- and disinformation.

• If you have questions about voting protocols and processes, reach out to your election officials. 

For Election Officials

• Getting ahead of falsehoods ASAP is necessary and effective!

• Enlist the media in forcefully telling the real story. 

For Journalists

• If outlandish claims are trending, speak to local election officials early, get the facts, and pre-bunk the claims.

For Everyone

• The tactics of manufactured chaos can neither be described nor viewed as “normal” partisan politics or “gamesmanship.”

  • Call these tactics what they are: anti-democratic, baseless attacks on the legitimacy of US elections.

  • The bad actors who traffic in chaos want to dismantle our democracy and shred the fabric of the US democratic republic that has endured since the 18th century.

  • Call it what it is, because that is exactly what they are trying to do.

Attacking the idea of legitimate election processes is insidious. In a world of fact-free conspiracies, outrageous claims are used to justify election interference that would have been wildly out-of-bounds before.

Stay vigilant.

Facts matter.