Protecting Elections in the United States

In recent surveys, one in three US election officials reports feeling unsafe in their jobs, and one in five reports a plan to quit their post. This leaves US election infrastructure dangerously vulnerable at a time of deepening partisan crisis. 

Social media is known as a major catalyst in this trend of harm, but the complexity and scale of these platforms makes exposure of harms, and therefore accountability and change, all but impossible.
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In 2022, Pluro Labs supported and applied new AI tools to complete the first systematic analysis of harassment of local US election officials on one the world's leading social media platforms.

Our findings were bracing: hundreds of channels - with collective views in the tens of millions - that proliferate, glorify, and monetize the harassment, denigration, and doxxing of local election and public officials across the United States. This content depicts election law breaking, while driving incitement against election workers and safe election process, plainly visible across comments from viewers. Worst, most actors involved - including the tech platform - make money through this activity - comprising a thriving online economy fueling anti-democratic disruption and subversion.

This self-funding, ongoing engine of harm - through both disruption and disinformation - elevates the threat of election subversion and political violence in the critical November 2024 elections.

In 2024, armed with newfound data and insight into this phenomenon, Pluro Labs has partnered with leaders across democracy, law, and press to launch an initiative to counter this threat and deepen US electoral resilience ahead of the November 2024 elections. 

We plan to:
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• Enable major press to expose this problem to public, enable the field to respond, and drive pressure on the tech firm to take immediate action
• Remove actors and channels from tech platform driving real world anti-democratic harassment, election law breaking and anti-democratic subversion - before the 2024 election
• Prepare election and local democratic officials for the unique dangers in this trend
• Monitor harmful actors and networks through Election Day to enable rapid response as necessary
• Strengthen efforts to enhance election safety and protections for election workers nationwide
• Shape lasting protections clearly banning harassment of election personnel on leading technology platforms
  

This initiative has benefitted from the expertise, operational capability, and collaboration of various organizations, including:
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• States United Democracy Center
• Harvard Berkman Klein Center
• Center for Tech and Civic Life
• Trusted Elections Fund
  
• UC Berkeley Human Rights Center