By Christina Lilavois
As political advertisements increasingly roam social media, text messages, and third party websites, it becomes harder for voters to determine which information they’re receiving is accurate.
With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, voters in states such as Colorado and Washington have been warned by election officials to be wary of the information they receive from organizations such as America PAC, a political action committee lead by the billionaire Elon Musk.
According to an October 14th CNN report, Colorado voters received text messages from America PAC informing them that their ballot requests had been submitted and asking them to confirm where and when to return their ballots. This message confused many voters since Colorado automatically sends mail-in ballots to all registered voters.
This instance raises broader questions as to the influence rich political donors have in elections as well as the spread of election misinformation, and how voters can decipher between accurate information and misleading political attempts.
With millions of dollars being invested in voter outreach and political advertisements, some voters raise concerns as to how these campaigns affect their ability to make an informed decision in elections.
“You know, it kind of depends. I think it depends on what state you're voting in and what who the candidates are,” says Lauren Pasternack, a student at Pace University who attended the Absentee Ballot Voting event held by Pace’s Political Science Department.
I think also with big money in politics and, like, super pacs and, paying for ads and stuff, there's a lot of misinformation of candidates, like attacking each other. That can make it really complicated for those to get accurate information.” Says Pasternack when discussing the challenges voters face in detecting accurate election information.
Super political action committees, known as super PACS, are organizations that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support political candidates. Super PAC’s influence can be traced back to 2010 in a Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United v Federal Election Committee. In this ruling, the Supreme Court decided that the government could not dictate or control the monetary aspects of political campaigns.
This decision raised concerns on the potential power wealthy donors have in the election process. A January 2012 Pew Research Center survey found that 65% of registered voters who were aware of the new ruling regarding campaign finances, believed it negatively affected the 2012 Presidential campaign.
Election misinformation can also shape how voters see the legitimacy of voting themselves. David Assouline-Sampson discusses previous misleading statements regarding mail-in voting and how that impacted voters’ decisions during the 2024 presidential election.
“I know with this last election in 2024, there was several people who decided that they wanted to vote in person instead of mail-in voting because they were worried that their mail-in votes wouldn't count. Then the Trump administration tried to spin that into these people could have voted twice and we have no clue of knowing that,” says Assouline-Sampson.
For voters, it is important to verify your sources before participating in the election process.
