Kate Starbird
Role at the time: Professor at the University of Washington and co-founder of its Center for an Informed Public, posting on her personal Bluesky account
Statement summary
Disinformation researcher Kate Starbird says the administration's efforts on mail-in voting sowed doubt and confusion among voters, while many voters are responding by voting early, using drop boxes and tracking their ballots.
“The bad news: The Trump admin's efforts to interfere w/ mail-in-voting were successful in sowing doubt & confusion. The good news: That's not stopping voters who are getting the message to vote early, use official ballot dropboxes, & track their ballots.”
Starbird's post links a University of Washington Center for an Informed Public article on voter confusion about mail voting.
Why we used this label
Starbird calls the administration's moves interference that sowed doubt and confusion, a negative judgment of the effort to impose the mail-ballot rules. The closest competing label is mixed or conditional, because she also says voters are adapting; it loses because that observation does not qualify her judgment of the effort.