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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Right-wing media seize on flimsy voter fraud stories to spread misinformation

Alex Walker at MMFA:

Conservative media — desperate to propagate the myth of widespread voter fraud — are publicizing and distorting local stories to fearmonger about mail-in voting, regardless of whether the original reporting holds up.

As Election Day approaches, right-wing media have been promoting a steady drumbeat of local stories that are supposedly indicative of a national voter fraud crisis. But when examined more closely, these stories often fall apart or otherwise fail to reflect the type of rampant fraud right-wing media figures claim exists.

Coverage of these stories often follows a predictable pattern. Reporting by local outlets, with or without proper context, is written up by conservative publications and shared on Twitter before making its way to Fox News -- and even to the presidential debate stage. Occasionally, as President Donald Trump's administration recently demonstrated, the information comes from the other direction, with White House officials helping to spread these dubious claims from the top down.

In each case, the end goal of this conservative misinformation is clear — to undermine faith in elections through outsized and unwarranted media attention.

During the past month, four such local stories — some which took place in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin —  received national attention. But in all four cases, the reality on the ground tells a different story than what right-wing media outlets implied.