Inside the Movement to Legalize Election Misinformation
Inside the Movement to Legalize Election Misinformation
On Monday, I wrote about the importance of Donald Trump’s upcoming trial on allegations he orchestrated a hush money scheme to mislead voters and aid his campaign.
It’s a crime in nearly every state to mislead and intimidate voters, and for good reason. Simplistic (but effective) voter suppression plots such as mass mailings declaring, “Due to overwhelming turnout, Jones supporters vote on Tuesday, and Smith supporters vote on Wednesday!” were once commonplace.
Just last month, New Hampshire investigated calls discouraging people from voting in the primary election. The calls—which used an AI-generated voice to sound like Joe Biden—likely violated the state’s misinformation law.1
Guarding against these misinformation and suppression tactics is essential in a functioning democracy.
And yet. In Minnesota, a group called Minnesota Voters Alliance is attacking the law that prohibits the spread of election misinformation. They want to make it legal to lie about candidates and elections.
The group’s argument is that it might accidentally misinterpret Minnesota’s law about who is and isn’t eligible to vote, causing them to mislead voters about who is eligible, which could subject them to penalties. They say that example alone means the entire law should be thrown out, opening the flood gates to election lies and voter intimidation.
Putting aside that Minnesota’s law only applies when someone misleads voters on purpose, the claim is still wildly over-broad. It’s like saying we should always allow insider trading, because we don’t want to risk penalizing the one case when someone profits off information they thought was public but was actually an insider tip. Better to get rid of the law altogether, they’d say.
Minnesota Voters Alliance has a track record of taking cases up to the U.S. Supreme Court, so I’ll be keeping an eye on this.2 The stakes are too high to flirt with taking away misinformation laws.
Imagine what things would be like this fall if officials can’t shut down AI-generated calls from “Joe Biden” telling voters he signed an executive order to allow voting on both Tuesday and Wednesday—resulting in thousands of disenfranchised voters (enough to change the result in a close race) who thought they had an extra day to vote.
Democracy would be in really, really rough shape.
For accurate information on Minnesota’s election rules, visit vote.org.
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https://apnews.com/article/biden-robocalls-artificial-intelligence-new-hampshire-texas-a8665277d43d05380d2c7594edf27617
In 2018, the Voters Alliance successfully challenged Minnesota’s law banning “political” apparel in polling places. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the law violated the First Amendment because it was worded too vaguely.