The PEN Pod: What to Expect on Election Day and Beyond with Nora Benavidez

For the past few weeks, we at PEN America have doubled down on our fight against disinformation this election season with our What to Expect When You’re Electing initiative. The brains behind the operation is Nora Benavidez, the director of U.S. Free Expression Programs here at PEN America. She joined us on The PEN Pod to discuss the expectations we should have for the days and weeks after the presidential election, the essential role each person’s vote plays in a democracy, and how to cope with all the negative feelings we may be experiencing. Listen below for our full conversation (our interview with Nora is up until the 6:40 mark).

It’s Election Day. What should we expect today, tonight, and into the next few days? How can we be on alert for disinformation and other free expression threats?
First, I think we need to be prepared for this election cycle feeling and looking so different from any other. That begins with knowing that we’re going to have—and we’ll be seeing—delays in the way results get reported. I don’t know about you, but I sit around on election night and wait to see as results trickle in. That’s not going to happen this year in the same way that it has in the past. So, we really need to be prepared. Amid a pandemic, for example, we have so many more mail-in ballots, and a lot of states can’t even begin counting those mail-in ballots until after polls have closed tonight. So, we’re going to be waiting for those mail-in ballots to be processed—it can be days, frankly. Some experts even think it can be weeks for our presidential election results to be known.

“We have to be prepared for whatever the unexpected is. I didn’t anticipate COVID—I don’t know if you did—I just think we have to be nimble. When we think about what might happen, if people are mobilizing in the street, we need to think about what our role is and how we can support peaceful protest. If we’re seeing weird headlines or images and videos on our social feeds, we need to be cautious. Whatever those things are that come out and play out over the next few weeks, we just need to be prepared for whatever may come our way.”

I think we have to be patient, and we also have to be sensitive to the misinformation. I know you mentioned that already: We have to know that even our favorite influencers, our friends, our family—who knows what people might be sharing. What I’m telling people is, fact-check everything you see. Take a beat, take a pause, take a sip of water, and think about what you’re sharing, what your friends are sharing, because it might be the stuff that isn’t actually helpful. It can be, maybe, a headline that’s super incendiary and gets your heart racing, or it could be completely false. Then, frankly, one more thing is really just that we have to be prepared for whatever the unexpected is. I didn’t anticipate COVID—I don’t know if you did—I just think we have to be nimble. When we think about what might happen, if people are mobilizing in the street, we need to think about what our role is and how we can support peaceful protest. If we’re seeing weird headlines or images and videos on our social feeds, we need to be cautious. Whatever those things are that come out and play out over the next few weeks, we just need to be prepared for whatever may come our way.

“We can’t feel somehow like this election season our voice doesn’t matter, that it might not be counted—that’s, frankly, disinformation working, if it makes you feel like our institutions don’t serve us. So, voting is essential to all the ways that we express ourselves and the way we, frankly, imagine what our future looks like together.”

I liked the staying calm guidance, because I think that’s the hardest thing to do sometimes, but it’s the best advice. You’ve said to me before that voting is an act of free expression. What does that mean exactly?
I’m not going to give you a history lesson, because no one has time for that today. But, I do think that it’s important to remember how our voices matter in a democracy. The idea that we can vote for the things we believe in—or the things that are the closest to what we believe in—means that we have the opportunity to weigh in as a starting point on what our democracy looks like. A lot of people are saying that this election season isn’t perfect, and I think that’s fine to talk about. But, in a democracy, when we think about our free expression rights, it’s so crucial to know what role we have. Nothing is more central to how we can express ourselves in a democracy than who we vote for, and that we’re voting in the first place. From the First Amendment perspective, I will die on the hill that always reminds people, our voice is our vote. We have to remember that; we can’t feel somehow like this election season our voice doesn’t matter, that it might not be counted—that’s, frankly, disinformation working, if it makes you feel like our institutions don’t serve us. So, voting is essential to all the ways that we express ourselves and the way we, frankly, imagine what our future looks like together.

We talked a little bit about staying calm in the context of disinformation, but you’ve been on the front line of civil rights fights as part of your career. How do we manage all of the things that we are feeling right now? What do you turn to in order to cope?
I wish I had a perfect answer. I wish I had the answer that’s tied up in a bow, because I think we all are feeling anxious. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. I think we’re all just in a Zoom fatigue and social media fatigue. It’s important to know that we can’t do things alone and know when our limits are at their breaking point. So, if you’re feeling anxious—or, frankly, depressed—about the state of things, that’s okay. It’s really important to take a beat, to have that centering moment. But, there’s also a really powerful value in knowing your network, using your network, talking with your friends and your allies. In all of the work we do—as an organization at PEN America—with our allies that are civil rights and voting rights organizations, we are so much stronger when we do work together. So, it’s important to know that in those moments when we’re exhausted, that’s okay, but let’s turn to the people that we’re closest with. Let’s turn to the voices that we know, that might be able to pick up where we aren’t able to, and vice versa.