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Fast Take
Elon Musk’s Starlink system helped present web entry to communities affected by the latest hurricanes. However on-line posts unfold baseless claims that Starlink “uploaded votes in swing states” and helped Donald Trump win the election. Specialists mentioned voting machines aren’t related to the web throughout tabulation; one state election official referred to as the claims “utter rubbish.”
Full Story
President-elect Donald Trump won the presidential race propelled by victories in all seven swing states. Trump not solely gained the electoral school, however he’s forward of Vice President Kamala Harris within the common vote by about 2.6 million votes, as of Nov. 18.
In a statement days after the election, Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company, or CISA, wrote, “As we now have mentioned repeatedly, our election infrastructure has by no means been safer and the election group by no means higher ready to ship secure, safe, free, and honest elections for the American folks. … Importantly, we now have no proof of any malicious exercise that had a cloth impression on the safety or integrity of our election infrastructure.”
Nonetheless, baseless accusations of 2024 election interference have spread on social media. Most just lately, claims from partisan users are concentrating on Elon Musk’s Starlink system, a division of SpaceX that gives satellite-based broadband web.
Musk, CEO of SpaceX, endorsed Trump, who announced on Nov. 12 that Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, would lead what Trump is asking the Division of Authorities Effectivity. Trump mentioned the brand new division would “present recommendation and steerage from exterior of Authorities,” CNN reported.
The social media posts have falsely claimed that Musk, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin conspired to rig the election in Trump’s favor through the use of Starlink to systematically change votes throughout swing states. We debunked a similar conspiracy theory {that a} secret supercomputer and accompanying software program program have been used to modify votes from Trump to President-elect Joe Biden in 2020. Federal and state officers, in addition to specialists who research election safety, flatly rejected such claims on the time.
One of many latest posts asked, “Why was Starlink concerned in any means with the election tabulation?”
A second social media consumer misleadingly wrote, “The Russians have entry to Starlink terminals and subsequently the satellites. The Russians are identified hackers. Elon Musk and the US gov. despatched Starlink terminals to Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia because of the hurricanes.”
One other social media consumer said, “Trump cheats at every part in life. Putin interfered in [the] previous 3 elections. Musk & Trump discuss to Putin loads. Musk’s Starlink uploaded votes in swing states. Swing state voters went Dem downballot however Trump on the high? Unlikely. Starlink satellites exploding, destroying proof.”
Starlink did deploy satellite tv for pc programs to provide internet entry to communities affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. However that emergency response effort had nothing to do with the tabulation of ballots within the election.
No Proof of Systematic Vote Switching
Voting machines aren’t related to the web throughout voting tabulation, specialists defined.
Cait Conley, senior adviser to the CISA director, instructed us in an e mail: “There are a selection of explanation why the nation’s election infrastructure has by no means been safer. First, the machines Individuals use to vote aren’t related to the web.”
Ted Allen, an affiliate professor of built-in programs engineering on the Ohio State College and an professional with the MIT Election Knowledge and Science Lab, mentioned in an e mail, “It’s my understanding that there isn’t any involvement of Starlink in vote tallying in any U.S. county, even for abroad army voters. There was a time when the method was totally different for some states a few years in the past, earlier than Starlink existed.”
In Georgia, state legislation explicitly prohibits voting machines from connecting to the web. In response to the social media posts, Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for the Georgia secretary of state, instructed us, “This conspiracy is utter rubbish and 100% false. No Georgia election tabulation is related to the web, ever, not by Starlink or anything. Starlink gear was not deployed for or utilized in any means in connection [to] the 2024 common election.”
North Carolina legislation additionally expressly forbids web connectivity in its voting machines. Patrick Gannon, a spokesperson for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, instructed us, “Now we have no proof of any alteration of votes by anybody. We ask, once more, that individuals cease spreading false details about elections.”
“Satellite tv for pc-based web gadgets weren’t used to tabulate or add vote counts in North Carolina,” Gannon defined. “Our tabulated outcomes are encrypted from supply to vacation spot stopping outcomes being modified in transit. Moreover, tabulators and ballot-marking gadgets are by no means related to the web.”
The Wisconsin Elections Fee launched a statement addressing the social media claims on Nov. 14, reassuring the general public that Starlink “was not used to change … official or unofficial election outcomes” within the state. In response to the fee’s website, “Throughout the hours during which ballots are solid by voters, there are zero tabulators in Wisconsin with community connectivity enabled.”
The battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania have established comparable procedures.
There are a couple of exceptions in restricted circumstances, the Related Press has reported. “There are some jurisdictions in a couple of states that permit for poll scanners in polling places to transmit unofficial outcomes, utilizing a cell personal community, after voting has ended on Election Day and the reminiscence playing cards containing the vote tallies have been eliminated,” the AP mentioned in an Oct. 9 story. However specialists have mentioned that apply is dangerous and “needs to be prohibited,” the AP reported.
Extra checks and safety measures additional stop the potential of fraud all through the election course of. Conley instructed us, “Election officers have put in place a number of layers of safeguards to guard election programs, together with pre-election testing of kit, cybersecurity protections, bodily entry controls, and post-election auditing.”
“Over 97 p.c of registered voters – together with voters in each swing state – solid a poll in jurisdictions the place they obtained a paper report that they themselves may confirm,” Conley mentioned. Paper information additionally enable states to conduct post-election audits of tabulated outcomes.
“Every state runs elections in a different way – totally different processes, totally different gear – and it’s this numerous and decentralized nature of our nation’s election infrastructure that creates super resilience and ensures no single level of failure,” Conley mentioned.
As for claims about “Starlink satellites exploding,” decommissioned Starlink satellites are designed to expend throughout reentry in an effort to advertise house sustainability and security. The just lately spotted fireball within the southwestern U.S. was possible a decommissioned Starlink spacecraft. Starlink satellite tv for pc reentries happen practically every single day, Jonathan McDowell, a science knowledge system group chief at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Middle, told PolitiFact.
And opposite to a few of the social media posts, the practice of voting for candidates of opposing political events in the identical election, usually referred to as split-ticket voting, shouldn’t be proof of election interference.
Barry Burden, director of the Elections Analysis Middle on the College of Wisconsin-Madison, told us for a narrative in November 2020, “Even in an period of robust partisanship, some voters cut up their tickets.”
This isn’t proof of votes being switched by Starlink or any nefarious actor.
Editor’s observe: FactCheck.org is considered one of a number of organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our earlier tales might be discovered here. Fb has no control over our editorial content material.
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