We investigate rumors. Here’s how the right-wing 2024 election denial machine has evolved.

Since 2020, many voters have become increasingly primed to view elections as unfair and potentially rigged. Persistent election denial has fueled distrust in election administration. especially among Republicans. After Donald Trump questioned or rejected the validity of the results both 2016 and 2020 competitionsit could be especially difficult for his supporters to accept a potential loss in such a tight race in 2024.

As researchers of rumors and hearsayingwe investigate how people give meaning to what is going on in highly uncertain scenarios such as elections. In the coming days, we expect thousands of rumors to circulate on (and beyond) social media. While some may be based on facts, misleading rumors distort the truth and context, obscure solutions, and fuel conspiracy theories about intentional voter fraud.

What is striking about the 2024 election is not the prevalence of rumors, but the maturation of one “evidence generation infrastructure,” consisting of political organizations, partisan media, social media, technological platforms and a growing legal apparatus. The collaboration is loosely organised, but also strategic, working both to advance the ‘evidence’ of fraud and to motivate political and legal action to challenge the results. Early versions of this infrastructure were in place for the 2020 and 2022 elections – but now the machine is well oiled and ready for action. It works through three Cs: convincing the public of election fraud, gathering alleged “evidence” of alleged fraud, and challenging election processes and results using this “evidence.”

Last week we saw the “three C’s” at work. On Tuesday, Pennsylvanians facing long lines at Bucks County elections office to register for a ballot before that afternoon’s deadline — sparking rumors online.

Law enforcement officials had told people in line that they were closing lines early — a move that violates standard protocol to allow those in line before a deadline to remain in line to vote. Aspiring voters quickly posted videos of their arguments with police and poll workers. Political actors and influencers packaged and deceptively promoted these videos as evidence of a larger, nefarious effort by Democrats to manipulate the election. They urged those in line to file reports with election integrity groups. To counter these claims, some voices on the left accused the right of hiring actors to play police officers.

Ultimately Trump’s campaign filed and won a lawsuit that extended the deadline for those in line. Influencers celebrated the victory and the work of the watchdogs, who posted the videos and made them go viral.

Like many voting-related rumors, this one was based on a real problem, which was eventually resolved. But the misleading narrative that the closing of the lines was a deliberate attempt to suppress Republican votes as part of a larger conspiracy? That baseless story will likely persist.

At their best, election integrity monitors can serve to quickly uncover real problems. At worst, they can encourage misleading or unfounded rumors that can increase distrust in electoral procedures. Self-proclaimed election integrity organizations, many of them sympathetic to Trump, have developed new tools and repurposed existing infrastructure to encourage the collection and digital sharing of “evidence” of perceived election fraud – evidence that is often deliberately mischaracterized to spread a narrative that the election is rigged.

Starting in 2020, political actors have built an infrastructure to recruit poll workers, preparing them for suspicions of massive voter fraud and encouraging them to report even routine procedures and minor issues like conspiracies. We’ve seen before that this reporting leads to misleading claims that can quickly spread online and support lawsuits, affidavits, and other actions that fuel further rumors. Even as individual rumors fade or are debunked, the overall story of a rigged election lives on.

The continued election denial that this “evidence generation infrastructure” in 2020, election administration, voting law and electoral trust changed – often for the worse. After four years of development, this infrastructure is already exacerbating the cycle of convincing the public of voter fraud, encouraging evidence gathering, and mobilizing political and legal action to challenge procedures and results. The Trump campaign and Republican partisans have already begun filing lawsuits claiming voter fraud in swing states, many of which are “zombie lawsuits“Probably intended less to solve a specific problem than to sow doubt about the election results in general.

Given this robust infrastructure and the Trump campaign’s significant resources for legal funds and “election integrity” efforts, we did already seen hundreds of lawsuits before the elections and we expect to see many more. In key races, candidates or political groups that already subscribe to “rigged election theories” may stage protests at vote counting centers or even attempt to overturn the results.

Tensions are running high as election day approaches. Depending on the outcomes and margins of key races, they could get worse. Partisan operatives have already succeeded in convincing the public that the election is fraudulent. We will see these agents collect and spread misleading or false “evidence” of manipulation. And using this election denial machine, some MAGA partisans are ready to challenge the outcomes. Let’s hope they don’t go so far as to question democracy itself.