Democracy depends on trust in elections; that trust is under attack. We explore different examples of false narratives that we are likely to see during these different periods — a chaotic Election Day, an uncertain election night, and during a predicted “Blue Wave” (or alternatively a “Red Wave”) shift in ballot counts. We also provide some suggestions for how we (as members of the public and public communicators) might want to approach the emergence of certain misleading narratives, in terms of pre-bunking, debunking, or coveraging them as they spread.

The Election Integrity Partnership brought together four organizations, all with extensive experience in the study of online disinformation, to provide real-time detection, analysis and mitigation of election-related misinformation and disinformation. After a summer of preparation, hiring and training, the EIP began its full operational schedule on Tuesday, Sept. 8. Every few weeks, we will be posting a summary of our work to highlight major publications as well as notable narrative trends.