- This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St.

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[Music] Election day is on the horizon.

It is on November the 3rd, and early voting wraps up this weekend across Tampa Bay.

Political ad spending is on track to reach a record high.

How do fact checkers decide what to check?

And is that claim about voting true or false?

Well, we put election myths to the test.

Plus, fewer than half of voters say they believe that their vote will be counted accurately.

And what really happens after the polls close?

Joining me are three guests to help sort what's true, what's legal, and what may just be a rumor.

We're helping you sort fact from fiction before you vote.

That's next on Florida This Week.

[Music] Welcome back everybody.

I'm your host, Lissette Campos.

Election day is on Tuesday, November the 3rd.

And this week we're looking at how voting works and how much people trust it.

Joining me are three guests, Katie Sanders, editor-in-chief of PolitiFact.

Tara Newsom, a legal analyst and law professor.

And Terri Kondos of the League of Women Voters of Florida.

And Terri, welcome to your very first Florida This Week.

We're so happy to have you.

Really happy to have all of you here.

Thanks for coming in.

There is no shortage of claims this election and no shortage of money that's being pushed behind them.

A group that tracks political advertisement ad impact projects that this election cycle will bring in about $11.6 billion in ad spending, the highest on record.

Katie, I want to start with you with that many ads.

How does PolitiFact decide which claims to even check?

- You're right.

It's a very daunting task.

And our team is sharing ideas constantly from TV, mail, or TV ads and mailers that we get at home.

And so what we're really looking for is how prominent is this claim?

Are voters really seeing it?

Do we think that it's wrong based on our initial research?

And then is it checkable?

Is it making a prediction or is it something that we can actually investigate, measure, etc.

So those are the factors that go into it.

- Okay.

Terri, what are the members of the League of Women Voters asking the most about what are they?

What is the recurring question that you're hearing?

Yeah.

- So what we're hearing, not just from our own members, but from voters across the state they are particularly interested Um, and obviously the candidates and a nonpartisan view of the candidates, um, which were, which were able to provide, but also particularly in the amendments.

These amendments are very consequential.

And so those are the things that we're getting the biggest hit on, and we try our best to provide that via a service that we have nationwide called Vote411, and Vote411 is a digital platform, but then we also turn it into printed, um, products that we can use in our communities.

- Tara, I want to ask you a question about the claims that many people are seeing online, and the instinct is to share it, right?

Because you want your circles of influence to see this particular item.

What's the one question, though, that they should ask themselves before they see a political claim and share it?

- Well, I think, first off, most of users of social media have a skepticism of what they see.

So there's a lot of questioning is this real?

Is this AI?

But I think also who bought the ad.

It always comes back to money.

Who put the money in?

Is it somebody in our own community, our own state, or is it outside money?

And I think a lot of people using social media to sort of their information diet for politics are recognizing that outside forces, millions and millions of dollars are pouring into the state of Florida and really are actually impacting our social media and our micro-targeting and our messaging.

So you got to ask who paid for that ad and, and what's the purpose in it?

- Katie, you know, PolitiFact recently rated two claims about statewide races.

Half true.

And so it's like, what, what do I, as a voter do with a half true rating to you?

One was about a Senate candidate and the other one was about a gubernatorial candidate.

So what, what does half-true mean?

Explain that to...I mean, aside from the obvious, what should voters, um, weigh with something like that?

- So our first question when we see a claim is what is the source behind it?

We do ask who is sharing it, but what's the source?

And what we know at PolitiFact is that answers are often not black and white, true or false.

So that's why we have a truth-o-meter from true.

Mostly true, half true, mostly false, false, and pants on fire.

So a half true rating, which used to be our most common rating before we did a lot more social media debunking.

It means it's partially accurate.

So there's something there that is substantive, but it's omitting critical context.

And so there's a fine line between mostly true, half true, mostly false.

That's why all of our ratings come after a really robust discussion among three editors who are trying to stretch the claim and the reported evidence and figure out which rating we think will track the makes the most sense for that claim.

- And Terri, when you all are directing callers or folks asking questions to the Vote411.org.

Um, you are explaining the different items on the ballot for your area, correct?

What are, what are folks most interested in from the website.

- Yeah, from the website it is.

Um, right now, um, at this point, with only a few days left in the election, the, um, the candidate responses, right?

So trying to keep that neutral, nonpartisan the way the league does it is anyone who is filed and qualified and is running in that, in that race, we asked them a set of questions relevant to their position, and they are all given the opportunity to reply.

And we literally give it word for word if they have misspelled it, if they have, if they have grammar errors, we don't change it.

And so, um, I think that's highly of interest right now.

And as I said before, um, amendment three is just very much on people's minds and they're trying to find information about that.

So that's at the top level of the Florida page.

But to your point, we, um, this league, because we work across the nation at the local level, at the state level and at the nationwide level, we're able to give voters all of those different, um, perspectives, right?

Whether it's a local race, a state race, or a national race, if you go in to vote for one and put in your address, you're going to get the entire stack.

And so local leagues are obviously focused on providing the local information, like the referendum in our county, etc.

At the state level, we're talking about the constitutional amendments.

And then at the national level, we're talking about the things that are going on.

- That's really helpful because the voter can really do the homework, fill out their ballot ahead of time so that they feel like they're confident; they know how they're going to vote once they get into that.

- I got to give a shout out to the League of Women Voters because when you ask about when people look at social media and students are always saying, how do I consume better information?

How can my information diet help me make a better democracy?

I mean, we're actually having those conversations on campuses, and the league does such a beautiful job.

They make it very accessible for students.

And that's one of the places where students go to have a nonpartisan.

If you vote yes, it means this.

If you vote no, now you make up your own mind.

- So I would just add that the last thing you want to do when you walk in to cast your vote is be unprepared.

And you may think you know what's on the ballot because of all the races that are, you know, blasting you with ads.

But there's a lot more to it than that.

Yeah, exactly.

And it does go to those questions too.

So you got to do your homework.

But yeah, we have groups come prepared.

- So we're going to switch now.

We're going to pivot to claims.

We're going to put some of them to the test.

It's time for our true or false.

I'm going to read the claim out loud.

And then I'm going to ask each of our panelists to say whether it's true or false and why.

So, Katie, I'm going to start with you.

This claim.

If a poll worker writes on your ballot, it is thrown out.

True or false?

- False.

This has been debunked for many years.

It's not true.

Why?

Well, this actually, Seminole County administrator said they don't do this, first of all.

But this is a claim that just passes state lines.

And so the states where this does happen, it's used to help, especially during early voting sort ballots, but they're not marking within the fields where selections are made.

So that's really important.

- So marks in the margins do not count.

Yeah.

Okay.

The next claim I want you to say if it's true or false voting machines can flip your vote.

True or false.

- This is false.

Yes.

This is one we've recently debunked.

Two, because there's a big social media conversation with what looks to be video evidence.

Even Dolly Parton's sister was sharing this information.

But when we talk to election administrators, they say this usually comes down to some user error.

And the screens can be sensitive.

So they provide styluses so that people can make very precise marks.

But it's really important to know the machines are not hooked up to the internet.

So there's no like silent swiping of your ballots, but you can also verify it on a piece of paper that your vote was cast correctly.

So make sure you take that step.

- Well, Tara, she answered the question that I was going to ask you next.

True or false voting machines are connected to the internet.

I heard this claim a lot.

- It's worth saying twice.

That's right.

It is worth saying twice.

- Absolutely not.

And they go to extreme lengths to make sure that voter integrity is preserved.

And there's an entire election team for every precinct every supervisor of elections has.

Our neighbors are serving on those election teams, and they take it very seriously under lock and key.

They follow protocol very.

I have a very close friend that has a number of precincts he's responsible for.

And man, they follow those step by step and they, they lock it up and they don't let the internet connect to those machines.

- I got another one for you.

This claim says if your signature does not match, your mail ballot is thrown out.

True.

- Absolutely false.

And if you're like me, as you age, your signature changes a little bit and actually right in right in time, the person at the election polling place will have you correct it, and you can actually be reminded of your signature.

You can take a look at your driver's license or your ID card, and they'll let you correct it, but you have up to two days to correct it after you submit your signature.

- And if you're worried about it, you can also check the website.

If you did an early ballot to make sure it was counted.

Yes, that's what I did today.

- That we especially emphasize when we're going into senior communities, because as you age or if you've had some kind of medical condition, um, you can't do this in like the week before the election.

But in general, if you're concerned about your signature, you can actually submit a new signature of record like at any point.

Um, if you are concerned, but in general, we find that canvassing boards and elections officials are, they make very common sense decisions about before they would reject a signature.

- And just for, for, for the point of balance, there are medical reasons why sometimes your signature changes.

There's a medication, there's a the onset of symptoms of a disease that you didn't have before.

So there are reasons for that.

Okay.

So Terri, my, my claim for you to can tell us if it's true or false.

A mail ballot counts if it is postmarked by Election day.

- So in Florida, that is false.

Um, and it's a, it's a point of confusion, though, because there are a lot of people in Florida who are Florida voters today, but who have voted previously or been residents in other states.

And because the rules vary from state to state.

This is a very important topic to cover.

So what we need voters to know is that in Florida, your ballot has to be received in the Supervisor of Elections office physically by 7 p.m.

on Election Day.

- It has to arrive.

- It has to arrive.

It cannot just be postmarked.

And given what we've all seen happening with the Postal Service.

You need to either have sent it a couple of weeks ago, or you want to use those early voting locations to go drop it off in person.

- I've got one more for you.

Okay.

Ready?

Okay.

Claim says that Election Day, on Election Day, you can vote at any polling place.

True or false?

- That is false.

Um, at early voting Locations.

Oftentimes, county supervisors give you an option to go to any rural early voting site, but on Election Day, you have an assigned polling location and that is the only place that you can vote.

Now, if you've had a change of address, you can show up at the polling place for your new address and you can on the spot change and update your address.

But you only have one place where you can vote and it's tied to your address.

- So you can update your information, but you will not be able to vote.

But that's why.

- People need to also get ready to vote, become vote-ready, because precincts have changed and polling places have changed and people just need to update, go on.

The Supervisor of Elections website put in their address and they'll see because oftentimes you'll be thinking you're going to one church and you're really at another school, and it could be a drive where you actually miss the vote.

- We're going to switch now to voter trust.

Questions about voting pop up every single election cycle.

But one recurring question that seems to be looming large over this midterm is the one voters asking, do I trust the count?

A recent poll from The Associated Press finds that fewer than half of voters, about 45%, are confident that votes will be counted accurately in the state of Florida.

There are several efforts in place to increase voter...voter awareness as well as voter trust.

For example, every county has a three-member canvassing board.

Also, counties test their voting equipment in public before Election Day.

The Associated Press and the Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago have been doing these surveys, these political polls, since 2011.

And so when that poll says that more than half of Americans do not believe that their votes are being counted accurately, that is quite a watershed moment, Terri.

What helps people trust the results then?

- Well, Hopefully it would help people trust the vote to know that people who focus on this all the time, like the league, like some of these panel members here today, I can tell you definitively that I have full confidence in the election in my county and in my state, because if you spend any time with elections officials, I think that's the number one recommendation I would have is that if you're that person who feels like you can't trust it, you should walk yourself down to your county's or your city's supervisor of elections and, and ask for a tour.

They'll give it to you.

They'll talk to you.

They are very transparent.

And so I think that should be the I know it's the number one thing that gives me confidence, as well as the knowledge that we do have an extensive set of checks and balances, canvassing boards, poll monitors, poll watchers.

Right.

And so I think it's very easy to just listen to what people are talking about in social media, on the television, and fall into this, you know, pit of despair that your vote is not going to count.

But there's so many reasons you should trust it.

- And that leads to my question for Tara.

What what gets in the way of that trust?

- Well, first.

- Off, I mean, I think all three of us are going to say, please trust the election results.

Um, we have detailed state law and statutes that are, um, followed very detailed by our election teams.

Um, I just was speaking with our Secretary of State, Cord Byrd.

He is working with the 67 Supervisors of Elections to make sure election integrity is top of mind.

And there's very little reason to not trust Florida elections.

I think the reason people don't trust Florida elections is because voters conflate all the noise around the election with, um, being uneasy with election results, for instance, denialism.

We of course, had that in 2020 when our president denied the election results.

Then we, of course, in Florida had a whole slew of legislation that came after that.

We had the formation of the first ever in the entire country, an Office of Election and Protection and Security.

We have 13 million voters in the state of Florida, and they have arrested 20 this year.

So that tells you what the $5 million goes for.

Then, of course, we had another law that said, hey, we're going to change our voter registration where a lot of our partners, like the league and other third party voter registration organizations that predominantly tried to register vulnerable voters, stopped doing it because of possible fines and even criminal prosecution.

And so those organizations, predominantly registered Democrats, that's what in part gave to the structural advantage for Republicans.

I mean, I could keep going.

We have historic mid-decade redistricting, even though we have a constitutional amendment for fair districts.

Then we have our attorney general's office that's actually going after TV stations saying, if you run commercials that are not advantageous to us, we're going to, you know, go after you.

- There's a Hope Florida scandal - Factoring into that.

- But voters are conflating all that with why they don't trust it, because there's absolutely no evidence that from Republican Supervisor of Elections or Democratic supervisor, Supervisor of Elections across the country and in Florida that there's any evidence of it.

- Katie, looking ahead to election night, which will be very busy for you all at PolitiFact, how does a fact checker tell a real problem from a rumor on election night when that deadline is really on you?

- We pick up the phone, we contact county officials, local folks who know what's going on best.

When we see a viral claim being amplified from people who deny election results, typically, and we say, what happened here?

And usually there's a very human explanation or a very technical explanation about a piece of equipment just not working the way it's supposed to.

We've been covering these claims for so many cycles now, and I can just tell you, for all of the noise you might hear, I would bet you are going to hear.

You have to look at the track record.

You have to look at the data, and you have to look at the lack of evidence that has turned up in dozens of investigations and court cases over the years into alleged malfeasance.

It just isn't there.

- How do you prepare for that night?

Because you all, even though you're based here, right here at home.

For us in St.

Petersburg, PolitiFact, based out of the Poynter Institute, you all are helping a different race, different media outlets throughout the country.

- We are just listening.

We're paying attention to social media claims.

We're looking at other places for what's going on, and we're already seeing it.

You know, the top two true or false claims that you threw at me were in reference to fact checks that we've posted in the last week.

So we are conditioned to know what to expect.

And a lot of those things we mentioned have come up in previous cycles.

So there's kind of a lack of originality sometimes that helps us to.

- Okay, so we've talked about leading up to election night, we've talked about election night.

Let's turn our attention to what happens after the polls close on election night.

Trust starts with understanding the process.

So we wanted to ask our expert what happens once the polls close.

When the polls close, the work behind the scenes is just getting started.

Election workers check mail-in ballots.

They scan ballots and count them.

Some ballots are rejected, and in some cases, voters can fix them.

So my question to you, I'd like to start with you, Terri.

Walk us through the process of what happens after the polls close and before the election.

Can then, the results can be official.

- Well, I will start with 7 p.m., right?

So as an advocate for voters, I want every voter to know that if you're in line at 7 p.m., you still get to vote, even if that takes till 8:00.

No election official can turn you away if you are in line at 7 p.m., but the line will be exhausted at some point, and then that local elections official has to close up shop.

And as Tara was pointing to, you know, our elections officials, our supervisors of elections across the state, they have rigorous checklists that they go through.

And so that poll, a polling official at that site, they have to single-, double-, triple- check everything at their site, get make sure that the counts all match multiple times.

They have a whole host of poll watchers that are watching the process to make sure that everything is done by the book, and nothing is going to leave that polling location until all of those steps have been taken and everything is in order before it's going to then go off to the supervisor of election.

- Katie, what should viewers keep in mind on Tuesday night when those first numbers start coming in?

- Oh several things.

Because there's Florida and there's the rest of the country that has different rules in Florida.

And I'll talk more about that in a second.

But you might see some early results change as big cities are counted, you know?

So don't be surprised by big swings in Florida and elsewhere.

Um, and you also have the additional layer of people watching the elections from the media.

You have, um, you know, people who call help call races that are before they're officially confirmed.

Um, so when I'm watching election night returns, I'm turning to reliable sources.

I'm not buying into sketchy screenshots on X or TikTok or whatever alleging that something wrong happened.

I'm trying to stick to what is the local government saying?

What is the media saying?

- Okay, so before we go, we want to take advantage of your expertise and ask you, what are the other big stories that you all are following?

Terri, I'd like to ask you.

- So I think the big story I'm following right now, and this happens every two-year election cycle is the, um, the lack of the proper execution of what is in our Florida Constitution, which is a universal primary, and whether we're in a Democratic area or in a Republican area, we see tragic stories every two years of voters not being able to vote in the way that our Constitution says they should when there are no opposing candidates after a primary.

And so we've had an example of this, where I come from in Manatee County, where, um, 25,000 people in a county district should have been able to vote for their county board of commissioners candidate and weren't able to because of this write-in loophole.

And that is something that the league is very focused on because, yeah, this write in candidate loophole in our universal primary.

And so as an advocate for the for voters, the league has already tried once to get after this in Tallahassee with legislation.

And I think because we just see examples of it every cycle, we're going to run at that again and see if we can't get that closed because of just the tremendous disenfranchisement that happens.

- Tara, what's your big story?

- You know, it's the.

- Election and all of us that are, you know, dialed in.

But there are three things of this election, whether it's an election of realignment or of parties or of supporters.

But the first is gerrymandering is the for specific districts that we're really trying to redesign to make sure that they were going to be Republican leaning, are they going to go to the Republican or Democrat?

And there's about, you know, three other really competitive congressional districts.

So if Democrats come out and they win, you know, around four, they've done great.

If if Republicans win six out of the seven that are up, they.

That has to be for a good night.

But I'm also looking at crossover votes.

How many Republicans are going to cross over to vote for Democrats like they did in special elections, especially here in our Tampa Bay area?

What are the Latinos and Cubans?

Are they coming out to vote Florida and South Florida?

Are they are they watching for socialism, or is affordability and ICE?

Is that going to produce a different impact than the last elections?

And then finally, money in politics, millions of dollars are being poured into Florida.

The only reason that's happening is because Florida is in play.

Are we going to remain a ruby red state, or is all that money coming in because someone's going like, hey, they're actually turning back to more purple state.

And I'm going to be looking at those three.

- Katie, tell me about you.

- Um, my story is a PolitiFact story and it's called it's normal not to have results on election night.

Now, I know we're all eager to know who is going to control Congress during Donald Trump's final two years in office.

But we may not have that answer for a few days or possibly longer.

So I want people to understand that different states have different rules that allow for votes to be counted beyond 7 p.m.

or, you know, the night of the election.

Um, and this, these are these rules are important and very key states.

Alaska and California, for example, have much longer amounts of time to count their ballots and deliver results.

And Alaska has a pretty important Senate race that could play a role.

There are also different roles or rules in Michigan and Maine.

Um, there's some ranked choice voting to consider.

So no state does it exactly the same way.

And that means we need to be patient out there and not fall for the social media misinformation that we know will follow.

- Well, ladies, thank you so much for joining me.

We love having you on the show.

Before we go, a few deadline for the voters: early voting wraps up this weekend.

It ends on Saturday, October 31st in Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties.

It ends on Sunday, November 1st in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee and Sarasota counties.

The hours do vary by county, so you want to be sure to check with your local supervisor of elections, office.

And Election Day, as always is Tuesday, the first Tuesday of November.

November 3rd.

If you have a mail-in ballot, it must reach your Supervisor of Elections office by 7 p.m.

that day.

At this point, you can drop it off in person instead of mailing it in.

If you haven't done so already, the deadlines to register and to request a mail-in ballot have passed.

And that's all the time we have for now.

Thank you to our guest: Katie Sanders, Tara Newsom and Terri Kondos.

We know you've got plenty of choices for your news and information, and we thank you for choosing us.

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