“Operatives with GOP ties are helping Cornel West get on the ballot in a key state”

ballot access

NBC News:

Cornel West’s independent presidential campaign is broke. His former campaign manager says he knows nothing about ballot access. And he spent more on graphic design than petition-gathering in his most recent campaign finance report.

But tens of thousands of signatures have been gathered on behalf of the famed left-wing academic in key states thanks to self-organized grassroots volunteers — and some help from outside operatives tied to a Republican consulting firm.

Democrats fear West’s potential to siphon votes from President Joe Biden in places where he is on the ballot in a close election, and some Republicans are publicly discussing ways to boost West and other minor candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Green Party’s Jill Stein in the hopes of splitting the anti-Donald Trump coalition. 

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“Misunderstanding the harms of online misinformation”

cheap speech, political polarization

Ceren Budak, Brendan Nyhan, David M. Rothschild, Emily Thorson & Duncan J. Watts in Nature:

The controversy over online misinformation and social media has opened a gap between public discourse and scientific research. Public intellectuals and journalists frequently make sweeping claims about the effects of exposure to false content online that are inconsistent with much of the current empirical evidence. Here we identify three common misperceptions: that average exposure to problematic content is high, that algorithms are largely responsible for this exposure and that social media is a primary cause of broader social problems such as polarization. In our review of behavioural science research on online misinformation, we document a pattern of low exposure to false and inflammatory content that is concentrated among a narrow fringe with strong motivations to seek out such information. In response, we recommend holding platforms accountable for facilitating exposure to false and extreme content in the tails of the distribution, where consumption is highest and the risk of real-world harm is greatest. We also call for increased platform transparency, including collaborations with outside researchers, to better evaluate the effects of online misinformation and the most effective responses to it. Taking these steps is especially important outside the USA and Western Europe, where research and data are scant and harms may be more severe.

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“Google and Microsoft’s AI Chatbots Refuse to Say Who Won the 2020 US Election”

cheap speech

Wired:

When asked “Who won the 2020 US presidential election?” Microsoft’s chatbot Copilot, which is based on OpenAI’s GPT-4 large language model, responds by saying: “Looks like I can’t respond to this topic.” It then tells users to search on Bing instead.

When the same question is asked of Google’s Gemini chatbot, which is based on Google’s own large language model, also called Gemini, it responds: “I’m still learning how to answer this question.”

Changing the question to “Did Joe Biden win the 2020 US presidential election?” didn’t make a difference, either: Both chatbots would not answer.

The chatbots would not share the results of any election held around the world. They also refused to give the results of any historical US elections, including a question about the winner of the first US presidential election.

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“RNC hires a prominent ‘Stop the Steal’ advocate to help craft its 2024 platform”

election subversion risk

NBC News:

The Republican National Committee has hired a prominent supporter of the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” movement, who has since fueled conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, to help craft its 2024 party platform.

Ed Martin, a former chair of the Missouri Republican Party, was a major proponent of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. He gave a speech to Trump supporters in Washington on the eve of the Capitol attack, calling on “die-hard true Americans” to work until their “last breath” to “stop the steal,” according to video posted on social media.

On the morning of Jan. 6, Martin attended Trump’s speech near the White House before joining the crowd in marching to the Capitol and posting about it on social media. Capitol video surveillance footage published by House Republicans shows him arriving on the grounds at around 2:20 p.m. By that time, Trump’s backers had already broken through police lines and stormed the building itself in an attempt to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory.

There’s no evidence Martin was on restricted grounds of the Capitol, entered the building or broke the law that day. But the new RNC hire’s outspoken advocacy for reversing the 2020 election results and his defense of those actions in the years after highlights the extent to which the “Stop the Steal” movement has become institutionalized in the GOP. Trump is anchoring his 2024 bid on the false claim that the election was stolen from him, dangling pardons for Jan. 6 rioters and vowing retribution against his political foes — even floating imprisoning them — if elected.

Martin was tapped by the RNC on May 15 to serve as deputy policy director of the platform committee, which drafts the policies the party will run on in November. The RNC noted that he’s the president of the conservative Phyllis Schlafly Eagles and the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, as well as the author of the 2016 book “The Conservative Case for Trump.”

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“Kennedy’s Campaign Is Accused of Lying About His New York Residency”

ballot access

NYT:

A group aligned with President Biden is challenging Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s New York ballot petition, saying his campaign lied about his New York residency.

The group, Clear Choice, says he long ago moved to the West Coast and has virtually no connection to the address listed on his petitions — an address of a longtime friend, where Mr. Kennedy’s independent presidential campaign acknowledges he has never actually lived.

The complaint, filed with the state Board of Elections on Thursday afternoon, is one of more than a dozen filed with New York’s board of elections, some of which object to his campaign’s signature-gathering efforts. The group provided a time-stamped copy of the complaint to The New York Times.

A Board of Elections spokeswoman, Kathleen McGrath, said a determination of residency would be “outside the ministerial scope” of the board’s review of petitions.

“I will note that the courts and a judicial proceeding would be the appropriate venue for challenging his residency,” she said.

Still, residency challenges are certain to stall Mr. Kennedy’s ballot access push in New York, and possibly elsewhere: He has used the same address in a number of other states where he is filing to run.

A particular concern is California, whose 54 electoral votes make it the biggest prize in the presidential election. Mr. Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, also lists California as her home, which adds another complication for Mr. Kennedy. Under a Constitutional quirk, presidential and vice-presidential candidates who hail from the same state are ineligible to receive its electoral votes.

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Combating Misinformation and Building Trust in Elections: Assessing Election Official Communications During the 2022 Election Cycle

cheap speech, election administration
New report from Thessalia Merivaki and Mara Suttmann-Lea. Abstract: In this project, we identify the dominant trust-building campaigns used by state and local election officials, with an emphasis on combating misinformation, during the 2022 election cycle. In partnership with the… Continue reading