OPINION: Voter misinformation is a big problem. Election officials say it's getting worse.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The general election is still 46 days away, but some results are already in: Dead people are not casting ballots, and noncitizens are not rushing to polling places to swing the race for president one way or the other.

That was the conclusion of top election officials from six swing states as they gathered Thursday in Ann Arbor to discuss the general election.

Those officials – Republicans and Democrats – agreed that their real problem is disinformation about unsubstantiated voter fraud.

For hours, they explained to journalists from around the country the procedures used to register people, maintain accurate voter rolls, run elections and tally the ballots. The whole event was sponsored by Keep Our Republic, a nonpartisan nonprofit working to uphold the integrity of our electoral system.

They assiduously avoided mentioning candidates for office, but it came across loud and clear that the confusion and disinformation concerning them emanate primarily from Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican Party.

This all played out as the U.S. House was stymied in partisan politics, with Speaker Mike Johnson’s failure this week to link legislation to keep funding the government after Sept. 30 to a “messaging bill” about noncitizens voting.

Johnson is risking a federal government shutdown for what election professionals on Thursday said was a minuscule problem that is easily caught and corrected.

Noncitizens are not overwhelming our election booths

Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s secretary of state, was the lone Republican election official in Philadelphia seven years ago when he discovered a flaw in the state’s motor-voter system allowing noncitizens to register to vote.

Schmidt said that “occurred very, very, very infrequently.” He worked with local and state officials to correct the problem.

On Thursday, he decried the “disinformation” on voting matters prompting unreasonable behaviors among people “acting out in a way that must be reasonable to them.”

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Lisa Posthumus Lyons, Kent County clerk in Michigan, said November will be her 27th election and she has “never experienced a noncitizen having cast a ballot.” She has, however, found rare instances of noncitizens “inadvertently” being registered to vote.

“In these very few instances, they’ve self-reported to us,” she said. “They want off the rolls.”

The misinformation about dead people voting

Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, said he faced claims after the 2020 election that 10,315 dead people voted in his state. His office found just four people who had cast ballots in the name of a dead person. Those four were referred to prosecutors.

“There’s all sorts of allegations,” said Raffensperger, a Republican who, like the other elections officials, emphasized the need to closely monitor the accuracy of voter rolls. “That’s where the hard work is. Because if you have a clean list, then that really gives people confidence.”

Karen Brinson Bell, North Carolina’s election director, said if someone votes early in her state but dies before the election, that ballot can be challenged.

“We actually had a county elections director who had to process a challenge to remove her mother’s ballot in 2020 when her mother lost her battle with cancer,” Brinson Bell said.

Election officials know ballots take time to count, even if voters want to pretend they don't

What became clear from the conversations at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library is that counting ballots takes time. It’s not a football game. We don’t know the score when the clock hits zero.

But that time opens a window for a flood of falsehoods, especially in states where absentee and mail ballots can’t be processed until the polls open on Election Day.

Meagan Wolfe, Wisconsin’s chief election official, said her state deals with that rule.

“I think it’s always going to be a challenge for us for the facts about elections to compete with the claims about elections,” Wolfe said. “Because the facts about elections are a lot less interesting and are a lot less sensational.”

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Arizona, which has offered early voting for 30 years, is still dealing this year with Republican encouragement in 2020 for people to vote in person or drop off an early ballot on Election Day.

Lisa Marra, Arizona’s election director, said “hundreds of thousands of people” still do that now.

“Even working around the clock with several shifts, it’s going to be problematic,” she said, noting that all those ballots need to be verified before the final tally is issued.

What threats do election officials across the country face?

The danger of disinformation became clear when the election officials were asked about what threats they faced.

Marra said the U.S. Postal Service intercepted a suspicious envelope mailed to the Arizona secretary of state that was incepted and handed off to the FBI. Brinson Bell had a similar experience in North Carolina.

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Raffensperger said his office in Georgia has been informed that a suspicious package is headed their way and that law enforcement is now trying to intercept it.

All of the election officials discussed training they’ve put in place to deescalate confrontations at polling places and to help local poll workers deal with the increased stress they now face.

Election workers know they're under attack. They just want to do their jobs.

This, too, came through – these people are bureaucrats in the finest meaning of the word. They didn’t get into election administration for fame or fortune. They certainly didn’t take on the work to get disparaged with disinformation or threatened by people unhinged by those lies.

This is the place where I should call for politicians like Trump to stop spreading falsehoods about elections to knock it off in the name of public safety and common decency. I won’t waste my time. I know they won’t.

The election officials on Thursday showed a mix of optimism and realism. Consider Stephen Richer, the recorder in Maricopa County, Arizona, who called himself “cautiously optimistic” since the conversation we were having didn’t happen in 2020.

Richer also said this: “I think we will have collectively a bloody nose by the time we’re done. I hope it's just that.”

Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: OPINION: Noncitizens aren't voting. You're being lied to