This year’s
Thanksgiving is going to be really happening! Picture this: Turkey, uncles
joining the dinner via zoom, intenser-than-usual-interactions with relatives, and
probably a new tradition of debating who’s actually won the presidential
election 2020.
Pandemic
crisis means that it’s going to take days or may be weeks for states like
Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots, while Donald Trump (as usual) will be crying
over false allegations about fraud or “fake news.” Or perhaps, the Democrats or
Republicans may be debating on television over how this election was ‘rigged’
and ‘unfair.’
Well, all in
all, we need to prepare ourselves for the worst (maybe better) to come! As
polls across America have now closed, results are coming in and online
misinformation peddlers are already rushed off their digits!
Despite the
pandemic, voter turnout in the 2020 election was historically high! If you have
voted this year, you know you have made history by electing a president in the
midst of a pandemic! Since everybody has voted, social media posts with
misleading or incorrect claims started surfacing early Tuesday morning from key
states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Seems like
internet misinformation peddlers are not having a day off even in this election
season. Many of these claims include the same old misleading narratives related to election fraud as we
all can expect on Election Day, such as viral videos of broken machines,
accusations of suspicious polling places, and phoney or sensationalized claims
of voter suspension and so on.
For example
in Philadelphia, a Twitter user uploaded a photo of a sign endorsing Democrats
at a polling station. The post was retweeted more than 7,000 times. Later,
election officials came into action and investigated this misleading tweet.
Several twitteratis
also shared misleading rumors about exorbitantly long queues at polling places
in Republican districts, nonfunctional voting machines in Republican-leaning
precincts, or accusations of attempting to suppress voters for President Trump.
These posts were mostly made with the hashtag #StopTheSteal.
Some people
even fed incorrect information to eligible voters regarding the voting process,
registrations, and polling places in an attempt to waste their votes.
The bottom
line is: The internet should never be a place to put all your eggs in! Since
the upcoming days are epoch-making for the country, it’s time to be more
vigilant and responsible to look for sources that are legitimate and true!
We’ve
combined the most trusted sources you can look for news regarding the US
presidential election 2020. Be a responsible citizen and share this list with your
friends and family to stop the spread of misinformation once and for all!
Legitimate news channels
-ABC News: According
to a survey conducted by statista in 2019, about 48% of adult respondents
mentioned ABC News as the most trusted and reliable news source for elections.
-CNN: Contrary to the popular Trump
belief ‘CNN is fake news,’ about 47% of US adults consider the news channel as
a legitimate source of information in 2019.
-NBC: Next in line is NBC, standing at
3rd position with 47% respondents mentioning the channel as the most
trustworthy and legitimate source of information.
-CBS: According to a statista survey,
about 45% respondents believed CBS as a reliable source when it comes to news
regarding politics.
-Fox News: Despite all
the controversies, Fox News has made it to the top 5 list of most reliable news
sources in the United States, with 43% respondents mentioning so.
-PBS: 43% respondents consider PBS as a
reliable source of news and information regarding politics.
-BBC and NYTimes: BBC
and NYTimes levels on the same position, with 35% respondents mentioning both
the news channels as reliable and trusted sources of information.
Almost all
these channels are covering the election live; you can follow their verified
social accounts or tune into television or radio to remain informed and updated
regarding the changing political scenarios.
Reliable Twitter accounts to follow for latest
election news and polling results information:
Twitter has
always been the go-to news source of news, where you can catch up with all the
gossip, controversies, surprises and polling throughout the election season as
quickly as they happen. But not all the information fed on the twitter is true,
so we’ve rounded up a list of top twitter accounts to follow, based on the judgment
on best use of twitter through frequency, engagement, and interaction:
Top Journalist accounts:
Political
blogger for Slate, specializes in Tea Party and conservative coverage
Washington
bureau chief of USA Today
Covering
Florida politics for the Miami Herald
ABC News
senior White House correspondent
Reporter in
the Tribune Washington DC bureau for the Los Angeles Times
NewsFeed Accounts:
Political
coverage from National Public Radio News
Washington DC
bureau of the McClatchy Newspapers chain
Swing State Project @SwingState
Democrat-orientated
highly detailed campaign and election news
Tweets from a
nonpartisan politics fact-checking website
Cook Political Report @CookPolitical
Twitter feed
for Charlie Cook’s respected forecasting outfit
Political Parties verified accounts:
Republican Study Committee @RepublicanStudy
Influential
caucus of House conservatives
Executive
director of Democratic Governors Association
2020 Election coverage by top Tech Platforms
With the big
night come big plans; top tech companies including Facebook, Twitter, and
Google have prepared big for the election coverage. Here’s how you can catch up
with the latest news on these platforms without getting misinformed:
Twitter:
For
legitimate election results, Twitter has created an “Election hub” on top of
most U.S users’ home timelines from Tuesday. It will display all the tweets and
information from reliable news sources from ABC News, the Associated Press,
CBS, CNN, BBC, etc.
Facebook:
You can see
an information Centre on the top of both Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram
apps. The web pages will show results when they’re conformed by the legitimate
sources. Moreover, these social applications will notify users when the polls
first close with warnings “votes are still being counted,” or “too early to
poll.”
Facebook says
that they have their own “decision desks” who are constantly analyzing results
from the legitimate sources and six major media publications.
Google Search:
Like every
year, Google is once again displaying its own versions of election results
through maps and graphs on its search pages. The company has created a detailed
information panel that draws information mostly from the AP.
It includes a
U.S map and a section designated to see results for specific states, races, and
ballot measures. All you have to do is to search the relevant keywords similar
to ‘US 2020 ELECTION,’ “US election” to see the results.
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