In the months before an election, the air fills with promises, accusations, and rumors — some true, some half-true, and some deliberately designed to deceive. In central and northern Pennsylvania, where communities are tightly knit and trust is often personal, the impact of misinformation can ripple far beyond a single post or a forwarded text. That’s where Annelise Hanson’s work begins. As WPSU’s election misinformation reporter, Annelise has a unique and increasingly vital job: sifting through the noise to help voters figure out what’s real and what’s not. Her position is part of a collaborative effort with the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Media Engagement, a partnership that recognizes a simple but urgent truth — democracy depends on people being able to make informed choices. Over the past several months, she has been tracking claims, following leads, and talking to officials and voters across the region. What she’s found isn’t always sinister, but it is often confusing, and in a democracy, confusion can be just as dangerous as deliberate deceit. With the 2026 elections on the horizon, her work is not just about fact-checking; it’s about helping people feel grounded enough to participate with confidence.
The heart of her reporting process is a public dashboard — a kind of digital suggestion box, but for anything that feels off about election-related information. Anyone in the WPSU listening area can submit something they’ve encountered: a suspicious social media post, a campaign ad that seems misleading, a piece of mail that feels official but isn’t, a text message urging them to vote in a way that doesn’t feel right, or even a website that seems to be hiding its true source. Annelise takes those reports and dives in. She looks at where the information came from, whether an author is named, whether the story is being told by a credible source or by someone trying to look like one. It’s painstaking work, but it’s also deeply collaborative. The public isn’t just a consumer of her reporting; they’re her eyes and ears. The idea is that anyone, from a first-time voter to a longtime poll worker, can raise a hand and say, “Wait, is this right?” And instead of that question being ignored or shamed, it becomes the start of an investigation. That sense of shared responsibility is what makes the project feel human. She’s not standing on a high pedestal pointing fingers; she’s standing alongside neighbors, trying to get the story straight together.
When Annelise talks about the kinds of misinformation she’s encountered, she’s careful not to paint everything with the same brush. There’s a meaningful difference between something crafted with malice and something that spreads because of misunderstanding or carelessness. The most obvious and concerning examples she’s found so far are in campaign advertising, especially with the rise of AI-generated content. She points to a recent story by her colleague Sydney Roach about an AI-generated campaign ad in the gubernatorial race. That ad wasn’t just quirky or creative — it had the power to shape how people perceived a candidate, based on imagery and audio that were convincingly fake. The technology is new, but the intention behind it is as old as politics itself: to sway opinion, to plant doubt, to make voters feel something that isn’t rooted in reality. But not everything falls into that category. Annelise also found instances where local House race campaigns were trading accusations, and while those accusations might be harsh or wrong, they were more about attacking an opponent than about undermining the electoral process itself. It’s a useful distinction. Some misinformation is aimed at convincing you to vote a certain way; another, more dangerous kind is aimed at convincing you that voting doesn’t matter or that the system is broken beyond repair. Both are harmful, but they require different responses, and Annelise’s approach reflects that nuance.
Her reporting has taken her beyond screens and into the community, where the real-world consequences of misinformation play out. One of the stories she’s most excited about involved a voting van — a mobile unit operated by the Centre County Elections Office that brings voting services directly to places where people might have a hard time getting to the elections office. She admits she hadn’t known about it before, and that’s part of the point. There are resources and processes in place that are meant to make voting easier, but if people don’t know about them, or if they hear false rumors that those resources are unreliable, they might not use them. The van allows voters to check their registration, get a ballot printed on the spot, and vote right there, with the ballot counting as a mail-in ballot. For someone without transportation, a demanding job, or childcare, that can be a lifesaver. But it only works if people trust it and know it exists. Annelise also talked to groups like PSU Votes, which helps students register and get reminders. She stressed how important it is for people to be careful about where they enter their personal information — not every website or text message asking for your details is legitimate. The goal is to direct people to official election websites and trusted sources, so they can participate without putting their data or their vote at risk.
Beyond the specific stories, Annelise’s broader mission is translation. Elections are complicated, and they become even more so when federal-level debates trickle down to local conversations. Polling location changes, new rules around mail-in ballots, deadlines, registration requirements — all of these can feel like moving parts in a machine that was never properly explained to most people. When something feels complicated, people tend to disengage, or worse, they get angry and suspicious. Annelise sees her role as a kind of interpreter between the election system and the people it serves. She wants to explain not just what the rules are, but why they matter, and how they actually work in practice. If a polling place has moved, she wants to make sure people know where to go. If a mail-in ballot process has changed, she wants to walk them through it step by step. Her hope is that by making the process clearer, voters can feel less anxious and more empowered. The 2026 elections will bring their own challenges and confusions, but the groundwork being laid now — the relationships, the trust, the shared understanding — is what will help communities weather the storm when the next wave of misinformation arrives.
At the end of the conversation, Annelise’s invitation to the public is simple and direct: if you see something that doesn’t seem right, send it to her at [email protected]. It’s a small thing, but it’s also a profound gesture. She’s not asking people to become professional fact-checkers. She’s asking them to pay attention, to trust their instincts, and to care enough to say something. In a time when information moves faster than ever and confidence in institutions can feel fragile, that kind of ordinary, human participation is exactly what keeps democracy alive. Annelise Hanson’s work is a reminder that the fight against misinformation isn’t fought only in newsrooms or academic centers; it’s fought in the small moments when someone pauses before sharing a post, when someone asks a question instead of assuming the worst, when someone decides that the truth is worth the effort of finding it. As central and northern Pennsylvania prepare for the next election cycle, they’re lucky to have someone like Annelise in their corner — not with a megaphone, but with a notebook, a dashboard, and an open ear. The future of voting may be complicated, but the human need behind it is not. People want to know that their voice counts, that their vote matters, and that the system, with all its flaws, is still theirs. Ensuring that they can believe that is what this work is all about.