During the presidential debate in September, former President Donald Trump asserted that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were killing and eating pets. This claim, fact-checked by ABC moderator David Muir, was completely false.

The claim allegedly stemmed from a viral video of a Springfield resident who said that immigrants in the community had killed ducks from a local park for food. The video of the resident telling the town’s council spread rapidly across right-wing social media platforms.

Misinformation can be defined as incorrect or misleading information, but in the political realm, it is often a deliberate effort to spread falsehoods to influence elections.

With the 2024 U.S. presidential election tomorrow, it is crucial for voters to have the resources to navigate misinformation and evaluate candidate credibility, especially since the internet and public figures often fail to provide accurate information.

A poll from the Pew Research Center reports that as of April 2024, 22% of Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” or “most of the time.”

Choosing leaders with integrity and actionable plans that reflect voters’ interests can foster more trust in government, ensure accountability and help create policies that effectively address the needs and concerns of the public.

Instead of researching political information or candidates, however, many voters use cognitive heuristics – mental shortcuts that voters use to streamline the process of assessing political information and making choices.

While heuristics can facilitate decision making, an article from the American Journal of Political Science highlights several drawbacks when utilized for voting. These include the risk of oversimplifying complex information and introducing biases.

This can potentially result in choices that do not align with the voters’ true interests.

Doing your own research may reveal that a presidential candidate you initially overlooked holds views that better align with your interests than your current candidate of choice.

However, UCLA communication studies professor Tim Groeling encourages people to be aware of their own biases when encountering new information.

“There are some pieces of information that you want to believe and apply a lower standard to, and there are some that you are desperate to prove false,” he said.

Groeling added that any information that produces an emotional reaction is likely designed to produce that reaction.

Online fact-checkers are one of the simplest ways to verify information coming from politicians and the media. PolitiFact, a nonpartisan fact-checking website, conducts on-the-record interviews and provides a list of sources for each fact-check.

Whenever possible, the website includes links to freely available sources, though some may require paid subscriptions. This approach allows readers to evaluate the evidence themselves and come to their own informed conclusions.

But Groeling cautions that fact-checking can have its own biases.

“It’s relatively easy to tell something is presentation bias, like whether or not they seem to be presenting just one side, and what they’re saying,” he said. “But the harder thing to recognize is selection bias, where they choose to fact check some things but not other things at all.”

The News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit that is the U.S.’s leading provider of news literacy education, is another organization that offers free resources for the public.

These resources include an e-learning platform, an app, a podcast, an annual news literacy event and, most notably, their “Misinformation Dashboard,” a unique tool that tracks the topics and tactics of the 2024 election.

It is also important to remember that most of our consumption of media is indirect.

UCLA political science professor Chris Tausanovitch broke down the implications of secondhand information.

“Almost all the information that we have about politics and policy is secondhand, and that means that we’re mainly relying on the credibility of the institutions that provide us that information,” he said.

Beleh Toma, a fourth-year political science and history student who serves as the chair of the Political Science Undergraduate Council, emphasized the importance of evaluating these institutions.

“First, understand and notice where your news is coming from,” Toma said. “Where did you read it? That’s the first thing – you always want to find out where your source comes from.”

Tausanovitch added that unknown accounts on social media platforms have less credibility, especially at a time when generative AI makes it easier than ever to produce images, videos and audio that are not real.

Despite AI being new to the scene, misinformation tactics in politics are nothing novel.

In an interview with CNN host Dana Bash, Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance stated that he is willing to create stories to shift the media’s focus toward pressing issues, arguing that it should pay more attention to the suffering of the American people.

While Vance insists that fabricating falsehoods is a necessary response to the media’s alleged neglect of real issues, the mainstream media remains a critical line of defense against the spread of misinformation from AI and politicians themselves.

“They have incentives to get the facts right,” Tausanovitch said. “Looking for whether it (a particular fact) has been reported in a mainstream media institution is still a very easy and straightforward way to establish the truth of that fact. And particularly if it is something of importance, the idea that the mainstream media would not report it – it’s just unlikely.”

Learning about the institutions that provide information in our society and their incentives to provide credible information is the foundation for navigating this upcoming election.

The next step, Tausanovitch said, is having a better understanding of the nature of evidence and how to arrive at conclusions based on evidence so people in more walks of life can evaluate evidence in a fine-grained way.

In an era where misinformation is rampant and political narratives can distort reality, voters should approach the 2024 election armed with critical thinking and reliable resources.

By staying informed and fact-checking claims, citizens can make more deliberate and well-rounded decisions that truly reflect their values along with the future they wish to see.