It’s the most important day in American democracy. It’s also the Super Bowl for misinformation on the internet.

With tens of millions of people voting in tens of thousands of polling locations across the continental United States and beyond, Election Day is the perfect breeding ground for viral conspiracy theories and confusion.

Elections are run by humans who rely on machines, from simple printers to sophisticated technology designed to protect the integrity of the vote. Humans, like machines, can sometimes make mistakes. Printers jam, a fuse blows and the power is cut, poll workers don’t have the right keys to open a polling location. Mishaps like this happen more than you might think.

Election workers have contingency plans for just about every scenario to do their best to ensure no one is disenfranchised. If a polling location is delayed opening because someone forgot a key, its opening hours can be extended by a judge beyond the regular closing time. If there is an issue with a voting machine, election workers can have voters put their ballots into a secure ballot box and the ballot will be protected and processed later.

Minor mishaps and mistakes will almost certainly happen. They are not, however, automatic proof of malice. But in our hyper-polarized, hyper-online world, any Election Day snafu has the potential to spiral into a storm of speculation.

Further complicating matters, elections are run locally, not federally. Rules, processes, voting machines and contingency plans vary depending on the state, city, township or tribal land where you vote.

All election systems are designed to keep the vote secure and maintain election integrity, but amid the maelstrom of social media, any voting process that appears unfamiliar is often framed as suspicious — a sign that something untoward is afoot.

I have spent the past five federal election cycles tracking the spread of misinformation. Here are a few things to watch out for on Election Day: There are almost always some issues somewhere at the start of polling day.

Voters who have shown up early to cast their ballot might post on social media their frustration about whatever issue they’re experiencing. These understandable, and not ill-intended, posts on social media will now often get picked up by the algorithms and people seeking to question the integrity of the electoral process. Before the voter knows it, their early morning social media complaint has ricocheted across the internet, been viewed millions of times, and woven into whatever narrative interested parties are trying to portray.

During the last midterm elections in 2022, an issue with printers cropped up at some polling locations in Maricopa County, Arizona. Officials there quickly implemented a contingency plan and people were able to securely cast their vote. Indeed, a Maricopa judge who was asked to adjudicate the issue later that day said there was no evidence that anyone who wanted to vote was not able to.

And yet, prominent election deniers on social media spent hours that Election Day pointing to the issue in Maricopa as sign of a grand conspiracy to “steal” the election. A classic of the genre!

As sure as John King standing at CNN’s Magic Wall on election night, you can be sure someone will post a video on Election Day they claim shows a machine changing their vote.

This issue often occurs due to human error or sometimes because of an issue with the older touchscreen technology used in some voting machines.

If this does happen, voters can almost always talk to an election worker, and there is usually a process in place to ensure their vote is cast correctly.

It’s worth asking if you see these videos circulating on Election Day if the person who posted it actually sought to remedy the issue in-person with the election staff at the polling location — or if they are primarily motivated by chasing social media views.

Artificial intelligence is permeating every aspect of our lives. From kids using it to do their homework to video tools that can make it look like grandpa is dancing the Macarena.

Given its ubiquity, it may be hard to believe it was only a couple of years ago that creating convincing fake videos took considerable effort and skill.

On Election Day 2020, a video of a ballot marked for President Trump being set on fire spread across social media, it was even shared by the president’s son Eric. In 2024, a video purporting to show an election worker tearing up ballots also went viral.

Both videos were confirmed to be fake, and it turned out that Russian operatives were behind the 2024 video. The people who made the fakes had to go to some effort, at least, to print out fake ballots to try to make the videos convincing.

New research from the nonpartisan Brennan Center shows how videos and images convincingly purporting to show some kind of electoral malfeasance can now be created with the click of a button using AI chat tools available to all of us. Be prepared for a lot of fake videos this Tuesday! Once the polls close, attention will turn to the count.

Different states count their votes in different ways. Some states are slower than others. In 2020, that difference in pace was the source of endless conspiracy theories that persist to this day.

In some states, the Democratic Party often makes significant gains through mail-in ballots that get counted after Election Day. This might mean a candidate who appears ahead in the early stage of the count, might fall behind when all the votes are tallied.

Likewise, results arriving from heavily red or heavily blue districts might suddenly change who is leading the count. All of this is overseen by experts, representatives from both parties who observe vote counts, and is explained at length by our election expert colleagues. But still, the conspiracy theories persist. The tsunami of misinformation can be overwhelming.

On Tuesday, the zone will very likely be flooded with endless accounts of alleged voter fraud, many of them will likely be amplified by the president of the United States.

American elections are not perfect – no system is. But it’s important to remember on this Election Day that there are thousands of devoted election officials working across the country to ensure the election is safe and secure.

There is also a committed industry of election deniers, motivated by politics or money or both, devoted to telling you otherwise. They will seek to flood the zone, to create the impression that there is a lot of smoke in the hope you might believe there is a fire.