Election integrity expert warns about the spread of misinformation

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Michael Waldman, president of NYU's Brennan Center for Justice, discusses how elections have become increasingly secure.

In a closely contested election, even the slightest hint of doubt about whether votes are counted accurately could incite violence and exacerbate political divisions in the U.S.

ABC News' Linsey Davis sat down with Waldman to talk about the unprecedented security of U.S. elections and the threat of misinformation.

ABC NEWS: Two thousand threats against election workers since the 2020 election. Officials are preparing for a wave of misinformation within the next 24 hours. Joining us now is the head of the Brennan Center for Justice, Michael Waldman.

Michael, thank you so much for joining us. First, let's just talk about the civic exercise of voting. What do you make of the 80 million Americans who've already voted early?

WALDMAN: Well, people are eager to participate. People are eager to have their voices heard. And people are taking advantage of these new ways to vote, early voting in particular. But that still means a lot of people are going to have that time-honored sort of civic ritual of showing up on Election Day.

You know, this compressed campaign with only three months where Vice President Harris has been the nominee, actually has made it more exciting, more like almost like a European campaign, a snap election than it would have been otherwise. And so we expect a very high turnout.

And despite the intense and growing and far more organized threats to the election from the conspiracy theorists and the election deniers, the system is much stronger than it was four years ago. There are new laws. Law enforcement is very involved in protecting polling places, and Americans should have very little difficulty voting tomorrow in a way that is calm, probably uneventful and secure.

ABC NEWS: That said, how do you think elections are going so far? Because, of course, we started out this segment with you showing the video of those ballots exploding. So people see things like that and think that must be happening everywhere. So by and large, do you feel like things are going smoothly?

WALDMAN: Overwhelmingly smoothly. Yes. It's important for all of us to not overreact to one, you know, cell phone video of a, of a bombing of a drop box somewhere. That's exactly what the conspiracy theorists want us to do.

What I'm more worried about is what comes after the election, because, you know, Donald Trump and others have said, well, the only way he can lose is if there's massive cheating. And already it appears that Russia and others are pumping disinformation into the system.

And we can expect a lot of fake videos, deep fakes, a lot of lies coming not before the voting, but after. It's really important we remember it's going to take a few days to count the votes. That doesn't mean it's a problem. It doesn't mean there's fraud. It just means that the public servants who run the elections are doing their job conscientiously.

ABC NEWS: So if you were a betting man, when do you think that we might be able to determine who has won this election? And I'm asking that based on when you think we're going to start getting those results in, because a number of the states, including Pennsylvania, they're saying that they have newer, faster equipment and that they could very well have their results by Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.

WALDMAN: So it varies state by state. And it really would be better off if all states were as fast as they could be. Michigan and North Carolina, among these swing states, are likely to come in early. Pennsylvania did not change its law to make it so they could start counting absentee ballots before Election Day. They do have new equipment and that should make a difference. Again, we're not going to know the results.

We have heard already that Donald Trump is going to claim victory tomorrow night, just as he did in 2020 before the votes are counted. And so whenever we hear him or any other candidate claiming victory before the votes have been counted, know that it's basically, it's not real. It's not on the level. And that's part of the disinformation we all have to kind of have our guard against.

ABC NEWS: Brennan Center head Michael Waldman, we thank you so much for your time tonight. Appreciate it.

WALDMAN: Thank you.