With the midterm election six days away, we offer a couple recommendations – each important to ensuring free and fair elections that reflect the will of Clark County voters.
One is a reminder to vote. While we all like to complain about government, we must remember that government is us. The people we elect make decisions that impact our daily lives.
If you are a registered voter, you should have received a ballot by now; they were mailed Oct. 21. If you are not registered, you may do so in person at the Clark County Elections office (1408 Franklin St., Vancouver) before 8 p.m. Tuesday. Ballots may be returned by mail (no postage due) but must be postmarked by Election Day in order to be counted. Or they may be dropped in an official ballot box by 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Registering to vote, filling out a ballot and returning it before the deadline are the relatively easy parts of the process. But being an informed voter requires a bit of homework.
This fact has been driven home by a recent study from New York University. There, researchers submitted 20 election advertisements with inaccurate claims to Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. The ads were targeted to battleground states such as Arizona and Georgia.
According to CNN.com: “While YouTube was able to detect and reject every test submission and suspend the channel used to post them, the other two platforms fared noticeably worse. TikTok approved 90 percent of ads that contained blatantly false or misleading information, the researchers found. Facebook, meanwhile, approved a ‘significant number.’”
Admittedly, this experiment uses a small sample size. But it is no surprise that misinformation disguised as political ads permeates social media. We are reminded of the 2016 election, when “news” articles spreading false information about Hillary Clinton went viral on Facebook. The problem: The “newspapers” that published the articles do not exist; if you believed a story from the Baltimore Gazette or the Denver Guardian, you were duped.
Most political ads are not blatantly false. But they tend to dance around the fringes of truth while trying to influence voters.
The (Spokane) Spokesman-Review recently looked at ads from both campaigns in the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democratic Sen. Patty Murray and Republican challenger Tiffany Smiley. Assertions made by the campaigns ranged from “false” to “likely a stretch” to “probably an exaggeration” to “mostly true.” Trying to score political points in a 30-second TV or internet ad ignores the context that goes into complicated issues such as abortion or Medicare funding.
OpenSecrets.org, which tracks campaign fundraising and spending, estimates that candidates across the country will spend more than $9 billion on this election. The reason is obvious: It works. Such spending allows candidates to spread their message and drive home wedge issues that separate them from challengers.
But being an informed voter requires that such advertising be viewed with skepticism. It also requires the seeking of information from reliable, unbiased sources. The Columbian has been covering local races for months. The news pages offer information about the candidates and issues. The editorial pages share the views of the Editorial Board and provide a public forum through letters to the editor; these are identified as “Opinion” at the top of the page.
Tuesday marks a consequential day in American history. It is the most important election of our lifetimes – at least until the next one. We should be prepared.
