Election Integrity Partnership Releases Final Report on Mis- and Disinformation in 2020 U.S. Election
Election Integrity Partnership Releases Final Report on Mis- and Disinformation in 2020 U.S. Election
Researchers from Stanford University, the University of Washington, Graphika and Atlantic Council’s DFRLab released their findings in ‘The Long Fuse: Misinformation and the 2020 Election.’
The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a nonpartisan coalition of misinformation researchers that identified, tracked and responded to voting-related misinformation during the 2020 U.S. elections, have released their final report, “The Long Fuse: Misinformation and the 2020 Election.”
The report expands upon the coalition’s rapid-response research and policy analysis surrounding the November 2020 U.S. election and details how misleading narratives and false claims about voting coalesced into the metanarrative of a “stolen election,” which propelled the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The Election Integrity Partnership was formed in July 2020, and brought together misinformation researchers from across four organizations — Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, Graphika and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.
“This report is the culmination of a five month effort by over one hundred researchers to document election disinformation in real-time, including 38 Stanford students who spent their summer and fall scouring the internet for false claims," said Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory. "I'm very proud of all of my colleagues and their thoughtful contribution to the historical record.”
The authors of the report discussed their findings during a public webinar on Wednesday, March 3, which also featured a conversation with Christopher Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Administration at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The EIP focused on voting-related misinformation and the delegitimization of election results. Its primary goals were to: (1) identify mis- and disinformation before it went viral and during viral outbreaks, (2) share clear, accurate counter messaging, and (3) increase transparency into dynamics shaping the information space during the 2020 election and its aftermath.
“The Long Fuse” also includes a set of policy recommendations and shares insights about how the coalition of researchers carried out their work, and how this model may be expanded to combat future large scale misinformation events.
Media Contact: Ari Chasnoff, Associate Director for Communications, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
