Pennsylvania
As November approaches, top election officials around the country are sharing critical information with voters, in part to combat any disinformation that may arise around the voting process or how votes are counted.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt knows the personal impact of disinformation all too well. The Republican was personally named and accused by former President Donald Trump of ignoring unfounded claims of corruption and fraud in the 2020 elections in Philadelphia while he served as a city commissioner. Death threats and harassment followed.
During a recent visit to Washington D.C., Schmidt spoke with Scripps News’ Disinformation Desk about his method of debunking false information — acknowledging that elected officials around the country have different approaches to this. Schmidt says he closely monitors the disinformation to “make sure we’re sharing accurate information parallel to the sort of things that we see intending to deceive voters.”
“It’s usually, in my experience, orchestrated,” Schmidt said of the disinformation targeting voters. “And what you’ll see is something pretty widespread being shared out there, particularly in social media platforms, intending to undermine confidence based on one or another thing that has no basis in fact whatsoever.”