![]() We also consider implications of the associated framing for election workers, journalists, and policy makers, and make some preliminary recommendations. While there is much to be said about illegal ballot collection claims and narratives, this article focuses on a more limited issue: the rise of a new, arguably deceptive, and inflammatory frame for the practice: “ballot trafficking.” We detail the emergence of this term, look at its path to prominence, and examine its current level and locus of use. At the same time, introducing any individual between the voter and the ballot box entails risk. ![]() To restrict collection is to potentially disenfranchise some set of voters, and such impacts are not felt equally. Ballot collection is relied on by many, including those on tribal lands and those who are ill or disabled, and has been part of general voter engagement strategies in a number of rural and urban centers. Campaigns to restrict ballot collection are necessarily contentious. In states where third parties may return votes for the voter, the practice of collecting ballots in this manner has been referred to pejoratively as “ballot harvesting,” a term which implies a level of mechanistic manipulation. Some level of ballot collection is allowed (or not expressly prohibited) in all states except Alabama. Restrictions as to who this person may be apply in many states, with some states only allowing family members and caregivers to return ballots. Backgroundīallot collection is a practice whereby a person who is not the voter transports a ballot to a voting location. And we document how this term took shape and spread online in the months leading up to the release of D’Souza’s film. Here, we explain how the rhetoric around “ballot trafficking” - an antecedent of the “ballot mules” claim - encompasses a potentially misleading framing of ballot collection violations and invites confusion of the ultimate impact of such violations. ![]() And though the central claims in “2000 Mules” are new, they are perhaps not surprising - our own research team predicted as early as October 2020 that election fraud narratives would develop around “videos claiming to show issues around ballot dropboxes, such as voters dropping off more votes than allowed, or security being mishandled.” This includes relaying speculation that Sharpie pens may have been causing the disenfranchisement of voters in Arizona and repeatedly retweeting claims that large numbers of dead people had voted. D’Souza participated in the propagation of several of these - previously offering different explanations for the mechanism of alleged election fraud. The CIP has tracked related claims before in work with the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), documenting hundreds of false, misleading, exaggerated and/or unsubstantiated claims about the 2020 election that functioned to sow doubt in election procedures and election results. Regardless of the veracity of the upcoming film’s claims, they can be seen in the context of a grander narrative - alleging a highly coordinated election fraud campaign of a scale that would have impacted the result of the 2020 election. According to the publisher description of Dinesh D’Souza’s related book, D’Souza will present evidence that “The 2020 presidential election was rife with fraud orchestrated by the Democratic Party,” where “ballot mules” took ballots and dumped those ballots in collection boxes throughout a voting district. The following analysis from researchers at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP) examines emerging online narratives involving “ballot trafficking” ahead of the release of the documentary 2000 Mules, which, according to its film trailer, will feature videos of people engaging in suspicious activity around ballot drop boxes, presented within a “trafficking” frame. Authors: Mike Caulfield, Kayla Duskin, Stephen Prochaska, Scott Philips Johnson, Annie Denton, Zarine Kharazian, and Kate Starbird
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