US election: Voters voice worst-case scenarios - BBC News
Fliers were distributed to trick college students. The Bangor Daily News reports that were fliers left on the campus of Bates College, in Maine, telling students that if they wanted to vote in Lewiston, they would have to pay to change their drivers licenses and re-register any vehicle in the city. These sorts of hoaxes are common on college campuses.
A mayor posted a message with an incorrect date for Election Day. Jefferson Riley, the Republican mayor of Mansfield, Ga., posted a message on his Facebook page: Remember the voting days: Republicans vote on Tuesday, 11/8 and Democrats vote on Wednesday, 11/9.
He soon deleted the post.
Jeana Hyde, the city clerk in Mansfield, confirmed that Mayor Riley had made the post on his personal account. She said that while she couldnt speak for the mayor, she believed that the post had been a joke, but I really dont know.
Hes a good man; hes a good mayor, she said. And good people do crazy stuff sometimes.
Needless to say, Tuesday is Electing Day for all Americans, regardless of their political affiliations.
MisinformationOther falsehoods are spread by seemingly well-meaning entities corporate accounts and misinformed individuals who trumpet claims that turn out not to be true.
Here were some Election Day examples:
An inaccurate guide was distributed to voters. Urban Outfitters on Monday tweeted an Election Day guide that contained wrong information, telling voters that they needed a voters registration card along with their identification to vote. There is not a single state that requires such a card.
The retailer has since corrected its guide.
Incorrect information was circulating at the polls. Anni OConnor, 53, of Paradise Valley, Ariz., reported on The New York Timess Facebook page that she overheard a woman in line at her polling place say that all her friends had voted online already. Ms. OConnor, who had been an independent voter for many years but registered as a Democrat to support Hillary Clinton in this years primary, said she told the woman to alert her friends that they had not voted.
There is no state in which votes can be submitted online, though a few states make exceptions for military and overseas voters.
A much-shared tweet about election workers being fired in Florida got some things right, but got key details wrong. Even when people seem eager to help spread the truth, theres often misinformation given out. For instance, look at this tweet from Adam D. Brown, a Republican politician:
While Mr. Brown is correct that two Florida election clerks were removed from their duties on Tuesday, it was in Broward County, not Miami-Dade.
Tonya Edwards, a spokeswoman for the Broward County elections supervisor, confirmed that two clerks had been removed from their duties before noon, and had been replaced by other poll workers.
The clerks were removed, Ms. Edwards said, because they were not adhering to our election policies and procedures as they were trained.
Asked to elaborate, she said that they had obstructed and interfered with the voting process but could not give any more information. She said that the episode had not ended up affecting anyones ability to vote.
CNN corrected a tweet from Mr. Trump. The Republican nominee tweeted on Tuesday that Utah officials had reported problems with voting machines across the country.
Later, Jake Tapper, a CNN anchor, addressed Mr. Trumps tweet during a live broadcast.
CNN is not reporting that, Mr. Tapper said. The problem is, the problems across the county. A county. Not a country, as Mr. Trump tweeted.
A tweet about a rigged voting machine in Philadelphia was shared more than 11,000 times. But it was user error, according to ProPublicas Electionland project.
A Few Tips for Spotting a FakeOn Election Day and in the days afteward, Snopes and BuzzFeed, two operations that vigilantly debunk fake news sites, will be useful.
First, a note: A growing tendency to dive into our own echo chambers and construct our personal versions of the truth on social media has been destructive to the ability to call out misinformation online. A post that contains an opinion you disagree with isnt necessarily fake or inaccurate. Were looking for stories that seem designed to misinform the reader.
Heres a quick primer for spotting fake news:
Check the account history of the source. One red flag is usually the number of posts and the span of time the account has been active. Is the story one of 50 coming from a Facebook account that was created just last week? It warrants a deeper look.
Images are often reused from one live event to another to deceive people. Do a reverse-image search with a service like TinEye. The site should tell you if the photo has been used elsewhere.
Check for context. Distortion is a powerful tactic used by sites designed to mislead the public. Images, videos and text snippets will be chopped, twisted and stuffed into a new headline to fit an inflammatory new narrative.
In one example cited in a recent BuzzFeed study, a site called Freedom Daily wrote fake details around a months-old video to make it seem like two white men had been beaten and set on fire by supporters of the Black Lives Matter Movement. The story was, in fact, a dispute between two co-workers, and BuzzFeed found that it had nothing to do with racially motivated violence.
But it got a lot of shares.
Continue reading the main storySource: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/debunk-fake-news-election-day.html
