By Pam Fessler, The Elections Group and former NPR News correspondent

This is it, folks. September marks the start of the big push by candidates and election officials to reach the finish line (hopefully, in November). Journalists will be under intense pressure to inform the public accurately amid rapid news developments, a constant stream of partisan claims, and widespread misinformation. The latter will involve not only domestic parties, but also foreign efforts to disrupt U.S. elections. 

Some of those foreign threats have already begun. The campaign of former President Trump said in August that its email system had been hacked by Iranians; investigators have warned of other, similar efforts. 

By now, you should have developed reliable sources to help you navigate these and other election stories in the coming months. You should also have some sense of how elections are run and the obstacles they face. If not, check out the tips and resources provided in our August post and at the Knight Election Hub, including The Election Group’s Covering Elections and Voting in 2024 media guide.

For this month, here are issues you should keep your eyes on:

MISINFORMATION

The rapid spread of false and misleading information and its use to undermine public trust will be one of the main election stories this fall. The threat is so pervasive and takes so many forms, it’s difficult to know where to start. But here are some angles to explore:

• Foreign interference. As noted above, intelligence officials and others have detected efforts by Iranian and Russian actors to disrupt this year’s election. They are not only trying to hack into campaigns but have set up phony social media accounts to fuel partisan divisions and domestic unrest. While social media companies, especially X, are doing less this year to identify and stop election disinformation, there are other monitoring efforts you can tap for the latest developments. The U.S. intelligence community, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) have vowed to keep the public informed about foreign election interference. Microsoft is also monitoring and publicizing foreign interference efforts, as are several nonprofit think tanks, including the Alliance for Securing Democracy.
• Domestic disinformation. Some candidates, especially former President Trump, continue to spread falsehoods about the 2020 election being “stolen” and claim that Democrats are trying to cheat in 2024. These unproven allegations have become a campaign staple and add to public confusion about voting. Many online “news” sites have popped up recently that are in fact fronts for partisan interests — or foreign countries — and provide slanted or misleading information. Several groups track and try to counter such disinformation and could be helpful sources. These include the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public and the Center for Democracy and Technology. You can also sign up for Newsguard’s free Reality Check newsletter, which identifies election misinformation trends and fake news sites. Keep an eye on efforts to spread election disinformation on platforms directed at non-English speaking voters as well.
• Artificial intelligence. The ability of bad actors to use artificial intelligence to create and amplify election disinformation is a special concern this year. The above groups are tracking that as well. The AI Incident Database also catalogs instances — including election-related events — where AI has been used to manipulate reality. There are other potential AI threats to watch. Five secretaries of state recently sent a letter urging X owner Elon Musk to fix its AI chatbot Grok, which provided inaccurate information about state ballot deadlines. As always, check with trusted local and state election officials when in doubt about the facts. 

STORY IDEAS

The most important reporting you can do this year is to identify what is disinformation, who is spreading it and why. What foreign influence campaigns are emerging and what appears to be their target? What impact are domestic disinformation campaigns having on public trust and voter behavior? What is being done to counter them? 

BALLOTS ARE IN THE MAIL

This is the month that ballots are printed and start to go out in the mail. Most states have completed their primaries and know who the candidates are — although Massachusetts, Delaware, Rhode Island and New Hampshire will hold primaries Sept. 3 and 10. In any event, every state is required to send ballots to military and overseas voters at least 45 days before the election, which this year is Sept. 21. The Federal Voting Assistance Program and the Overseas Vote Foundation are both good sources to find out what’s happening with military and overseas voting. 

Expect conservative election “integrity” groups this year to challenge some overseas votes now that Democrats have launched a major push to encourage Americans living abroad to cast ballots.

Many states will also begin mailing out ballots to other eligible voters this month; North Carolina will be the first to go on Sept. 6. While it’s a convenience for voters, mail balloting can be a huge logistical challenge for election offices. Ballots need to be printed in ways that are easy for voters to use and understand, but also easy to count. They need to be mailed in a timely way to the right voters at the right addresses. And they need to be verified as legitimate votes when returned. Many election offices turn to outside vendors to both print and mail their ballots.

States have very different rules about when mail ballots must be returned and how. Hundreds of thousands of ballots are rejected each year because voters fail to provide a signature or date on the outside envelope or send them back past the deadline. (You can see the percentage of ballots that each state rejected during the last election at MIT’s Elections Performance Index.) In some states, a person can return only their own or a family member’s ballot; in others, a person can return ballots for multiple voters. They can be returned by mail or in person; many election offices also provide outside drop boxes where voters can deposit their ballots. 

All this variation can lead to voter confusion and open the way for conspiracy theories and allegations of fraud. Check out state-by-state rules here, here or at your state or local election office. The National Vote at Home Institute is another good source to help you explain the process to voters. Take note: they can be referred to as “mail,” “absentee” or “vote-by-mail” ballots, sometimes interchangeably, but not always.

STORY IDEAS

What are the rules for mail ballots in your area and who is eligible to use them? What vendors have been hired to print and mail ballots and are they up to the job? How do election officials ensure that the right ballot gets to the right voter?  How do they ensure that the returned ballot came from an eligible voter and hasn’t been manipulated? Is the U.S. Postal Service up to the task of delivering ballots on time? Do drop boxes pose a security risk, and if not, why are they so controversial? Are there measures to help voters “cure” or correct mistakes (like missing signatures) on their ballots so they will be counted? When are these ballots counted and what happens to them in the meantime?

LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE

As you’re covering these and other election stories this month, you might want to put them into a broader context. What happens locally in elections is often part of a national trend. It will help focus your own coverage if you can keep on top of election news developments around the country. It’s not as hard as it sounds. Sign up for Electionline, a project of the nonpartisan Election Center, for daily state-by-state rundowns and links to the latest election news stories. You can easily see if something you’re covering locally is going on elsewhere; you might even be the first to spot a bigger national story. You can follow the Election Law Blog for the latest legal developments. 

Another good source for ideas and perspective is VoteBeat, a nonprofit news site that covers crucial election administration stories in battleground states and provides backgrounders on key voting topics.

In fact, VoteBeat has produced a good summary of recent developments related to certification of election results, a once obscure procedure that could become a major stumbling block in this year’s race. We’ll have more on the topic next month, but it’s not too soon to start learning the certification requirements in your area and find out who’s in charge of applying them. 

GET OUT THOSE VOTER GUIDES

Another useful thing to do this month is to pull together practical information to help voters — whether it’s details on where, when and how they can vote, information about the qualifications needed to perform certain elected roles or backgrounders on candidates and ballot initiatives. 

• Databases like Ballotpedia and the Center for Tech and Civic Life can help you gather data and decide the scope of your guide.
• The News Revenue Hub’s Guide to Voter Guides offers tips on how to reach the widest possible audience with your guide, and Election SOS’s voter guide email course walks you through the planning. 
• Tools like Govpack, ElectUp and BallotReady make it possible to display candidate information and Q&A’s in a streamlined manner, even if you don’t have a full-time developer on staff.
• If you’re looking to differentiate your voter guide, there are many ways to make it stand out. To make your guide more community centered, check out this Election SOS webinar, or go all in with a Citizens Agenda approach. Consider adding icons for important  attributes of candidates to make voter guides easy to scan. You can even create a voter guide in the style of a hiring committee, noting qualifications, experience and qualities of candidates that may make them ready or not for the job. 

Voter guides fill a critical civic information hole in most local communities. Make it clear that your guides are nonpartisan, to differentiate them from the guides that advocacy groups may put out close to the election. 

October will be here before you know it. The campaigns will be in full swing and efforts to disrupt the election will likely be in full swing too. We’ll have more tips then on how journalists can help voters untangle fact from fiction, and hopefully feel good about going to the polls!