Election officials are holding their breath this midterm election cycle with heightened political rhetoric, impassioned voters, close races and misinformation and conspiracy theories swirling. The FBI has warned that extremist groups could pose a threat. And we’ve already seen voter and election official harassment and a shocking act of likely political violence against Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

Some Republican candidates are preemptively questioning the election results, a worrisome tactic, particularly because many races could take days to finalize, leaving time for false claims to flourish. In addition, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court just ordered county election officials to set aside undated mail-in ballots — a victory of the Republican groups who filed the lawsuit to remove them from the count.

Today, we’ll talk about security in our election system and if it can withstand the pressure and attacks. We’ll also look at how false election claims have been used to sow distrust in our electoral process and how to counter them.

Guests

Leigh Chapman, Pennsylvania’s Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth,

Al Schmidt, President and CEO of the Committee of Seventy

Nick Corasaniti, national politics reporter for The New York Times.