Voters in North Carolina Deal With Misinformation As They Cast Their Ballots

Voters in western North Carolina were thinking about how misinformation impacted how they voted in the upcoming presidential election.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency faced rampant disinformation about its response to Hurricane Helene, which came ashore in Florida on Sept. 26 before heading north and leaving a trail of destruction across six states. Reports of threats to aid workers sparked a temporary shift in how FEMA was operating in western North Carolina.

During the first day of early voting on Thursday in Black Mountain, North Carolina, long lines of people were ready to cast their ballots even as they endured homes without power or running water.

Michael Sobol, mayor of Black Mountain, said he was encouraged by the turnout even with all the challenges people were facing.

"Some of the challenges, which is the challenges that democracy is facing, is, is the lies," said Sobol. "We've just had a tremendous disaster here, as you probably have seen. And so we've had to deal with people talking about FEMA and saying that FEMA not doing their job. Well, they're doing their job."

He said that rumors get larger when they are spread.

"The problem is, is we got a lot of people who are, who like to sow some seeds of mistruths," said Sobol. "And then those seeds get get morphed into a bigger seed and a bigger seed."

Susan Miller, of Black Mountain, said those stories about FEMA not helping in western North Carolina had upset her and made her want to cast her ballot the first day of early voting.

"Are you kidding me? Guess what? FEMA is here. FEMA is helping the best they can," said Miller. "They have outposts and stuff. And the lies that I've been hearing have made me very angry. And it was one more reason why I was going to vote today."

Lynn Ferry, of Black Mountain, said voters should seek out as many sources of information as possible to make their own decisions about what is true or not.

"You can't have censorship of this speech or that speech with the excuse of, 'It's disinformation or it's hate speech.' You know, that right there? Who's, who's to say what is disinformation?" said Ferry. “Because a lot of 'disinformation' comes out to be true after time has vetted it and truth has come out. So that's why our First Amendment is the most critical point that we preserve so that people can seek out and find the truth and not have bits of it decided on by others that, 'Oh this is not true, you can't hear this.'”