Fact Based "Pre-Bunking" Alone Can’t Safeguard Democratic Elections
The key findings of two U.S. and Brazilian research studies (reported in the August 25, 2025 Science article Trust in elections rises after ‘inoculations’ meant to preempt false fraud claims) show that methods used to counter claims of election fraud in advance (“pre-bunking” and “inoculation”) were most successful with people who already had the least trust in elections. This effect was especially strong when the source of information about the election process was trusted—for example, a member of one’s own political party.
There are many variables at play here, all of which may influence whether someone trusts the outcome of an election.
One major variable is the perceived trustworthiness of the “pre-bunking” source. Misinformation and disinformation spread easily online, given the rise of social media and diminished importance of mainstream media and official government sources. All such sources can be both selectively trusted--and selectively manipulated. Add to this the ability of AI-based content generation tools to create original-sounding messaging; as a result, we now face a vast proliferation of both trustworthy and untrustworthy information.
If we focus only on misinformation about voting and the voting process, we can see, here in the U.S., state-sanctioned attempts to game the system from the outset through gerrymandering. One can argue that when the rules for voting are established by those intent on manipulating the system, no amount of “debunking” information will “inoculate” voters against a process that has been designed from the ground up to be rigged, especially when that rigging can be positioned (truthfully or falsely) as the will of the majority.
In other words, spreading “truth” about the election process in advance may not guarantee that (a) the election process itself will be trustworthy or (b) the outcome of the election will be accepted by all.
Perhaps the bottom line is this: no amount of human- or AI-mediated messaging can ensure a fair and accurate outcome—or public acceptance of that outcome—if those who control the election process have nefarious motives. That is why maintaining the trustworthiness of election processes, overseen by people who genuinely believe in democracy, is critical.
The important question then becomes: how do we maintain fair and accurate control, and how do we most effectively use the information tools at our disposal? Are we justified in countering manipulation through measures such as “counter-gerrymandering,” as has been proposed in California? Or does such a tactic risk becoming a “destroy the village in order to save it” approach?
I’m not sure what the solution is to this quandary. Despite having devoted my professional life to information systems, I’m not convinced that manipulating information channels and messaging alone will be to address challenges such as attacks on the integrity of elections.
Somehow, the solution has to come from unmanipulated, honest communication between real people who trust one another. While I once believed social media would promote this kind of genuine connection through expanded sharing and interaction, that has not been the case.
Perhaps the only reliable source of “truth” is what you can directly see, feel, and touch with your own senses, unencumbered by intervening media or distance. At a minimum, people who care about preserving election integrity—which should be all of us—need to start asking whenever we see or read something about elections: “How do I know this is true?”
That is a complex question. I will attempt to address it in a future article. Meanwhile, a partial response is, “Don’t just say ‘google it!’”
Copyright 2025 by Dennis D. McDonald
Keywords Addendum
On Sept 14, 2025, ChatGPT Plus suggested the following keywords to accompany the above article: election integrity, voting systems, democratic processes, gerrymandering, voter trust, misinformation, disinformation, pre-bunking, information systems, AI-generated content, social media manipulation, public trust, political communication, media literacy, information integrity, civic engagement, countering election fraud narratives, role of AI in political misinformation, trust in democratic elections, challenges to election fairness in the U.S., pre-bunking vs. debunking strategies.
