Disinformation Concerns from Virginia’s Last Election Raise Fears for 2025

Election Officials Brace for Disinformation Wave in Virginia’s 2025 Gubernatorial Race

When Eric Olsen decided to host an open house at the Prince William County election office, he had modest expectations. As the county registrar since 2021, with nearly 15 years of election administration experience across D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, Olsen has handled numerous voting challenges. But in recent years, his team has faced a threat that no amount of experience fully prepared them for: disinformation.

“I wanted to bring some of those individuals in and help them understand the process better,” Olsen told Democracy Docket, referring to both informed citizens who could help educate others and skeptics with doubts about election integrity. While some visitors “left feeling much better about the process,” others arrived with firmly entrenched beliefs that elections don’t work. “I know that some of them changed their minds,” Olsen reflected. “I can’t say for sure that all of them did.”

Since Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, election disinformation has evolved from Russian interference to domestic campaigns falsely alleging widespread voter fraud. In 2024, a new narrative emerged: claims that noncitizens were voting en masse in federal elections, potentially setting up grounds to contest another Trump loss. This narrative took particular hold in Virginia.

In August 2024, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order formalizing a program to purge alleged noncitizens from voter rolls. The order claimed state officials had identified and removed more than 6,000 noncitizens illegally registered to vote. The U.S. Department of Justice and several organizations, including the Virginia chapter of the League of Women Voters, filed lawsuits alleging the program violated federal law and erroneously removed approximately 1,600 legitimate citizens from voter rolls.

“What we found is that a lot of those people were naturalized citizens,” said Joan Porte, president of the Virginia League of Women Voters. The case quickly escalated through the courts, with a federal judge initially blocking Youngkin’s program before the Supreme Court reinstated it days before the November election. Though Trump’s DOJ later dismissed the federal government’s case, private organizations continue litigation against the purge program.

Virginia holds a unique position in the American electoral landscape. Its off-year gubernatorial elections often serve as bellwethers for upcoming federal cycles. With Youngkin term-limited and unable to run for reelection in 2025, the contest between former Democratic Representative Abigail Spanberger and likely Republican nominee Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears will draw national attention.

Once solidly Democratic, Virginia has shifted in recent years. Youngkin’s 2021 victory ended Democratic trifecta control, and the 2024 presidential results showed further Republican gains. The 2025 gubernatorial race will test whether Virginia is truly becoming a purple state again.

Voting rights advocates and grassroots organizations are already preparing for what they believe will be an unprecedented disinformation campaign. Virginia’s notoriously lax campaign finance laws – described by Porte as “the Wild West” – allow unlimited contributions with minimal restrictions on campaign spending.

“I think you’re going to see untold amounts of unaccounted money in Virginia pouring in in this election. There are no boundaries, there are no rules,” Porte warned. “With our ridiculous campaign finance laws, I think we’re going to be playing whack-a-mole to try to stop disinformation.”

The money is already flowing. Spanberger has raised $9.5 million while Earle-Sears, the Republican frontrunner, has collected more than $2.5 million – including $250,000 from Elizabeth Uihlein, half of a billionaire couple with a history of funding election denial efforts and disinformation in local and state races.

Katherine White, co-founder of grassroots organizing group Network NOVA, expressed concern about targeting capabilities: “They can really hyper target people with more disinformation. And the disinformation is to get people to do certain things or distrust the system by pointing to a problem that doesn’t exist.”

Back in Prince William County, Olsen describes the current moment as “the calm before the storm.” Having annual elections gives Virginia officials some advantage in adapting to disinformation trends. “We’re kind of waiting for what the next big thing is right now,” he said. “Because we have elections every year, we tend to be a little ahead of the curve.”

The challenges Virginia faces reflect a national struggle against weaponized misinformation. For groups like the League of Women Voters, combating false narratives has required significant resources – Porte noted they spent nearly $10,000 last year just informing voters who might discover themselves unexpectedly removed from rolls.

“We have people who are prone to weaponize misinformation and that is happening across many states,” Porte concluded. “I don’t think Virginia is any different from some other states where this is happening. But I do think it’s going to be a full court press for us this November.”