The election denial movement has come a long way since Donald Trump’s first attempt to “Stop the Steal.” Ahead of Election Day, MAGA media personalities and a newly institutionalized network of far-right advocacy organizations are better prepared than ever to undermine trust in American elections.
Gone are the days of Rudy Giuliani’s dripping hair dye and hearings in the Michigan state Senate wild enough for an send-up on “Saturday Night Live.” Today, election conspiracists are on the front foot and holding a powerful microphone. Groups like Election Integrity Network, The Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA have invested heavily in various election denial initiatives. Together, a supercharged network of professional right-wing election deniers have developed a three-prong strategy to convince the public Trump can’t lose and create a predicate for stealing the election.
Fox News and other like-minded outlets have gone all in on the idea that noncitizens will tip the election away from Trump.
These groups and their leaders, who both regularly appear throughout MAGA media and run their own media platforms, bring unique resources to the sprawling cause. Former Trump attorney Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network is the tip of the spear. Mitchell has used her stature and influence from her decades as a conservative movement lawyer to direct millions into funding a “permanent election integrity infrastructure.”
Mitchell claims to oversee a “volunteer army of citizens” involved as poll workers and within the Republican Party. The Election Integrity Network (EIN) has chapters across the country, including swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, where they have already worked to undermine the democratic process.
“We have a presence and we have eyes on the process that we really didn’t have in 2020,” Mitchell recently boasted. “We have so many volunteers who are trained who now know the election code better than most lawyers.”
The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, is also a central hub of the election denial movement. The right-wing powerhouse is behind voter suppression policies being pushed by election denial groups at the state level and is home to Hans von Spakovsky, another longtime “voter fraud” alarmist who frequently appears in right-wing media.
These groups and their MAGA media allies are collaborating to bring three complimentary tactics together as a comprehensive anti-democracy strategy.
The first prong is a messaging war. The powerful right-wing media creates a cocoon of voter fraud conspiracy theories that envelops their audience, fomenting a perpetual sense of grievance and outrage.
In 2024, “noncitizen voting” has become the most common form of fearmongering. Fox News and other like-minded outlets have gone all in on the idea that noncitizens will tip the election away from Trump. Of course, this idea is totally unfounded: Noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare. But though these conspiracy theories have serious consequences, the right is knitting together increasingly bloodthirsty xenophobia with Trump’s election denial to fuel distrust, perpetuate racial profiling and sow chaos ahead of this election.
According to Democracy Docket, election deniers have already filed 146 anti-voting lawsuits nationwide so far.
Right-wing media messaging has also focused on disenfranchising overseas voters. The conspiracy theory site The Gateway Pundit has spread the false notion that Democrats are weaponizing a law that allows military personnel and other Americans citizens living abroad to vote.
Some of these bad actors have faced consequences for spreading election misinformation, yet they are undeterred. Even though Fox News was forced to pay a historic $787 million settlement in its defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems, it has continued to push election falsehoods. And The Gateway Pundit has not been chastened either, despite recently settling a lawsuit with two Georgia election workers it targeted with conspiracy theories in the 2020 election’s aftermath. The site is now running the same kind of election misinformation to sow doubts in 2024. Election deniers then transform this media conspiracism into grassroots activism — the second prong of their strategy. One particularly concerning example is Julie Adams, a member of the Fulton County Board of Elections and an EIN activist. As ProPublica has reported, Adams has been “working to change the rules for certifying elections in Georgia.” Former Trump campaign official Steve Bannon, newly released from prison, has also been on the front lines, using his popular podcast to push election lies and then organizing his followers to take action through the “precinct strategy.” Bannon has urged his audience to get involved and fill precinct committee roles with their local Republican Parties. “In some states,” Propublica reported in 2021, “they have a say in choosing poll workers, and in others they help pick members of boards that oversee elections.” The Washington Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf has documented the impact of the precinct strategy, finding that this approach has “driven thousands of new Republican activists” to get involved since the 2020 election. “If you’re not prepared to be sent to a federal prison as a political prisoner,” Bannon told his audience this week, “then you’re not worthy to be in this movement.” Finally, the lawyers swoop in. According to Democracy Docket, election deniers have already filed 146 anti-voting lawsuits nationwide so far. As my colleague Abbie Richards explains, these lawsuits’ primary purpose is to confuse voters and sow chaos for election officials just trying to do their job. Often, the pipeline from right-wing media to the courts is remarkably direct, as in the case of multiple suits in swing states over the Uniformed and Overseas Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) that allows Americans abroad to vote. No one knows which way this election will go. But one thing is for sure — anti-democracy activists are digging in, not only in 2024, but for the foreseeable future. We must be “fearlessly pro-democracy,” in the words of voting rights lawyer Marc Elias, and “it will be the citizens themselves who will lead the way.” That starts by arming ourselves with facts and standing strong against the alliance of increasingly fascistic right-wing media and professional election deniers, all bent on overturning the outcome.
Madeline Peltz
Madeline Peltz is the Deputy Director of Rapid Response at Media Matters for America. Her work focuses on emerging trends in the right-wing media. 
