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The American electoral process faces a two-sided threat: real external cyber/physical dangers and a pervasive, internal ecosystem of election denialism. This program is your blueprint for understanding how this coordinated strategy operates and what state governments are doing to fight back against the assault on trust.

The escalating cycle of denialism follows a three-step playbook designed to undermine confidence regardless of the facts:

1. Deceive (Erode Trust): This phase spreads targeted narratives using junk data. Groups file mass voter challenges using flawed commercial software, creating the illusion that voter rolls are corrupt. This consumes time for local officials and risks illegal purges of legitimate voters during the $\mathbf{90 \text{ day quiet period}$ before an election.

• The Myth: Claims of non-citizen voting (an already rare felony) are amplified, even though they represent statistically zero impact on election outcomes (e.g., 1,930 potential non-citizens in Texas represents 0.00001% of voters).

2. Disrupt (Create Chaos): This phase actively gums up the system to manufacture a pretext for disregarding results.

• Weaponizing Courts: Denial groups filed nearly 100 lawsuits challenging established election rules before the 2024 election. These are designed to fail legally but provide a veneer of legitimacy for conspiracy theories.

• Voter Intimidation: Self-appointed watchdogs harass voters and election workers, sometimes carrying tactical gear or firearms near drop boxes, in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.

• Abusing Public Records: Election offices face a 700% surge in frivolous records requests since 2020, forcing officials to divert staff from election preparation to avoid legal penalties.

3. Deny (Endgame): The final step is to interfere with the transfer of power.

• Refusing Certification: Local officials refuse to certify results based on debunked claims, fueling public distrust. The ECRA (Electoral Count Reform Act) of 2022 was passed to strengthen the process by raising the bar for objections in Congress.

• Audit Spectacle: After-the-fact challenges (like the Cyber Ninjas audit) cost millions and find no fraud (often slightly more votes for the rightful winner), but the spectacle keeps the "something must have been wrong" narrative alive.

Systemic election fraud is vanishingly rare—evidence proves the system catches the few isolated incidents of attempted fraud. However, the perception that fraud is common is rampant (≈40% of voters believe it) and is fueled by partisanship and susceptibility to broader conspiracy theories.

• The Human Cost: Over 200 coordinated bomb threats targeted election offices in the 2024 cycle. Over one in three local election officials now report experiencing threats or abuse, leading to high turnover and 23% of local officials handling their first presidential election in this high-threat environment.

• The Federal Pullback: Recent DHS and CISA reviews have led to significant cuts in federal election security support. This leaves a massive vacuum, making coordinated, well-resourced state leadership essential to ensure integrity.

Final Question: The research shows that people who follow politics less frequently are less likely to believe that election fraud is common. If being more politically engaged can sometimes lead to being paradoxically less connected to the factual reality of how elections work, what does that imply about media consumption, filter bubbles, and the future of democratic participation itself?

The Deceive-Disrupt-Deny StrategyThe Reality: High Stakes and State Leadership