The Human Cost of the Digital Mud-Slinging: Inside the War of Bots Imagine, if you will, a dimly lit office block in St. Petersburg, where the hum of air conditioning mixes with the frantic clatter of thousands of keyboards. It is three in the morning, but the lights never truly go out here. On the cheap monitors, a dozen tabs are open, each one spilling a different strain of outrage into the digital bloodstream of the West. The people sitting there look less like masterminds of chaos and more like exhausted, underpaid shift workers—young men and women refreshing news feeds,…

With the general election approaching, many Wisconsinites are trying to make sense of contradictory messages about voting. Some say the system is secure and reliable. Others claim that elections are rigged, that ballots are lost, or that results cannot be trusted. In that environment, it is easy to feel anxious. Marge Bostelmann and Danielle Van Egtern are in a unique position to respond to that anxiety. Bostelmann was appointed to the Wisconsin Elections Commission by Governor Tony Evers, and Van Egtern serves as the Dodge County clerk. Both have spent years inside the complicated machinery of elections—the registration lists, the…