Commentary: Crisis – How Misinformation Impacts Latino Voters

Bridgeport State Rep. Christopher Rosario who serves as deputy speaker and member of the Government Administration and Elections Committee and Arturo Vargas, chief executive officer of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to strengthen American democracy by promoting the full participation of Latinos in civic life, share this commentary highlighting the challenges Latinos face from misguided information flow.

According to projections from NALEO Educational Fund, at least 17.5 million Latinos will cast ballots in the 2024 elections, representing a 6.5 percent increase from 2020 and a 38 percent increase since 2016. Latinos will represent at least 11 percent of all those voting by Election Day. But, as we close Hispanic Heritage Month and with Election Day around the corner, we want to call attention to the growing challenge of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (MDM) and how they affect Latino political participation.

We know from years of research and field experience that Latinos still lack access to accurate and timely information about the electoral process. For example, 82.8 percent of the more than 4,500 elections-related calls to NALEO Educational Fund’s information and assistance hotline between July 1 and Oct. 7 of this year dealt with basic questions about electoral participation, such as voter registration information. Additionally, the organization recently released a poll of Latino registered voters in California, showing 21 percent of respondents believing they can vote online in the upcoming elections.

This structural challenge is compounded by the spread of elections-related MDM narratives, which can erode the community’s trust in elections administration and depress turnout rates.

Latinos are not uniquely vulnerable to the spread of MDM narratives, but specific characteristics of the community present obvious risk factors. First, the Latino community has a significant online presence and relies on social media platforms for news consumption. A 2024 study by the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University found that 57 percent of respondents reported receiving news from social media. The same study also saw that number grow to 74 percent for those who consume Spanish-language news. With social media companies still facing gaps in their ability to moderate online content in languages other than English, this problem heavily affects the Latino community.

Second, many Latinos utilize platforms with encrypted technology, which hinders the ability of social media companies and other actors to moderate the content that is shared on them. Platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram offer private messaging between users and are commonly used by Latinos in the United States to communicate with friends and loved ones abroad.

Community leaders hoping to combat the spread of MDM narratives can take various actions to address this issue. They can use their public platforms to promote resources such as media literacy tools, fact-checking services, and inoculation messaging that can help constituents build resiliency against MDM. Media literacy resources such as MediaWise and PEN America offer tools in both Spanish and English that help communities distinguish between accurate and false information. Community leaders can also amplify inoculation messaging and uplift the voices of trusted messengers within their communities. For example, a recent survey

of California Latino registered voters found that 91 percent of respondents identify nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals as trusted messengers, and 83 percent also trust messages from teachers and local educators. Community leaders can also share fact-checking tools such as Factchequeado, Univision’s El Detector, and Telemundo’s TVerifica with their constituents or networks to give them the ability to verify the information they come across on social media and elsewhere. Finally, community leaders in elected or appointed public office can advance measures to call attention to this issue and bring tools to broader population segments through legislation or budgetary allocations.

No single intervention described above will solve the problem on its own, but the cumulative efforts of Latino community leaders, elected or otherwise, doing what they can to help tackle this growing issue and offer community members the information and encouragement they need is a step in the right direction.