‘Election Workers’ Safety at Risk Due to Misleading Ads, SAY OFFICIALS

ATLANTA (AP) — Several Democrats working as top election officials in their respective states have written to Facebook’s parent corporation, requesting that it stop permitting advertising claiming that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the secretaries of state from Colorado, Maine, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Vermont stated that allowing such ads would erode trust in elections and fuel threats of political violence against election workers, which has already caused some to leave the profession. Sarah Godlewski, Wisconsin Secretary of State, also signed the letter even though she does not manage elections.

“Meta is allowing extremists and election deniers to further undermine our elections,” the secretaries said in the letter, which was forwarded to the tech company on Thursday. “As Secretaries of State, we are strongly opposed to Meta’s decision to allow ads promoting election denialism and urge you to repeal this policy before it inflicts more damage.” Nearly four years later, conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and unfounded claims of widespread fraud and voting system manipulation continue.

Former President Donald Trump continues to claim victory in the election, despite the lack of evidence of widespread fraud, as he pursues a return to the White House. Reviews recounts, and audits in the swing states where he contested his loss have all confirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s victory, and even Trump’s former attorney general has stated that there was no fraud on a large scale that could have swung the election.

In an appearance with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this week, Trump erroneously claimed to have won Wisconsin, despite losing by almost 21,000 votes to Biden. Trump told the news source that he would accept the November election results “if everything’s honest.”

Since the 2020 election, election workers in many parts of the country have received death threats and intimidation. According to a recent poll conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU, 34% of local election authorities were aware of one or more local election officials or election workers who had quit their jobs due to safety concerns, threats, or intimidation.

The climate has resulted in a record turnover of election workers across the country.YouTube, a Google-owned video provider, implemented a policy similar to Meta’s last year, stating that it would no longer remove content that erroneously claimed previous US presidential elections were compromised by fraud.

Meta has defended its efforts to preserve global elections. A company spokesperson discussed how the company views elections, citing its 2022 plan for the midterm elections, in which the company stated that it will “continually review content to determine if it violates our community standards, including our policies on the election and voter interference, hate speech, coordinating harm and publicizing crime, and bullying and harassment.”

As part of its efforts, Meta stated that it would remove election-related content such as misrepresentation concerning “dates, locations, times, and methods of voting,” as well as calls for violence in connection with voting or election results. In that plan, the business stated that it would reject ads that called into question the legitimacy of a forthcoming or ongoing election.

However, the group of Democratic secretaries of state is concerned about commercials relating to the 2020 election, including some campaign ads earlier this year that repeated erroneous accusations that the election was rigged. The letter was organized by the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, a political action organization linked with the Democratic National organization, and was distributed exclusively to Democrats.

“When people believe an election was stolen, they are less likely to trust the system, which lowers turnout,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said in an interview Friday. “We want voters to know the truth about elections and feel empowered to participate.”