Political campaigns pour millions of dollars into shaping how voters see their candidates. They run television ads, test slogans and send out mailers. But in an election, a change to a widely used online reference page can reach voters just as effectively, and perhaps with less notice.
The recent election of Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan has drawn attention to how information about a candidate can shift before voters go to the polls. In the weeks before the election, a prolific Wikipedia editor using the name CopyleftEverything made 17 changes to El-Sayed’s page between October 10 and November 1. The edits added more than 15,000 bytes of material, as the page received about 1.64 million views.
The changes went well beyond routine corrections. The editor removed a section of about 1,642 bytes on El-Sayed’s effort to hire Lenore Goldman as a Jewish community liaison and on reported tensions between his team and Michigan’s Jewish community. The page’s description of El-Sayed ally Hasan Piker, who has said the United States deserved the September 11 attacks, was changed from “controversial left-wing streamer” to the more neutral “political commentator.” The editor also added favorable references to endorsements from Barack Obama and Kamala Harris.
The wording about El-Sayed’s medical credentials changed as well. The earlier version said he had never held a medical license; the revised version said he had not pursued one.
After analyst Ashley Rindsberg reported on the edits, Katie Miller, wife of White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, replied on X: “This is how you rig elections.”
Deep cover
There is a meaningful difference between never obtaining a medical license and choosing not to pursue one. One describes an administrative fact; the other leaves more room for interpretation.
When a candidate has a complicated record, voters may turn to search engines and encyclopedia entries for background. Removing material about relationships with local faith communities or changing descriptions of a candidate’s credentials can make a reference page look more like a campaign tool than a neutral summary.
Public records show that El-Sayed’s father, Mohamed El-Sayed, served on the board of the Islamic charity Life for Relief and Development. In 2014, the charity agreed to a $780,000 federal settlement over unauthorized financial transfers to Iraq in 2002 and 2003. Reports introduced as evidence in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial also linked some of the organization’s early leaders to Muslim Brotherhood networks in North America.
El-Sayed’s father-in-law, Tayeb Jukaku, served on the Michigan board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. In light of El-Sayed’s election and his relationship with the organization, the article argues, voters have a right to ask questions and expect clear answers. If online reference material is changed shortly before an election, voters may have a harder time evaluating a candidate’s record.
Wikipedia restricted edits to El-Sayed’s page to certain user groups, while the page for his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, remained open to edits. On November 1, the same active account added information to Rogers’ page about campaign-funding allegations.
The future of fudging
These disputes could matter even more as people increasingly use AI tools to look up candidates. AI systems can invent information, though that problem has become less common. They also draw on online material, including Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation has said the site is increasingly valuable in the AI era.
If information about a candidate is removed from a widely used source, AI tools may repeat the revised account without indicating what was left out. That makes reputation management less dependent on buying ads: changing a few prominent online pages could shape what voters encounter before an election.
The concern, then, is not simply that one page was edited. It is that a candidate’s public record may have been changed without readers being made aware of the omissions. Voters who relied on the page before casting a ballot may feel they were given an incomplete picture.
When reference sites present themselves as impartial but become vehicles for pre-election messaging, the quality of public debate suffers. Critics on the right have long accused media institutions of treating conservatives unfairly; episodes like this, the article argues, lend weight to that complaint.
If an anonymous editor can revise descriptions of medical credentials, remove material about community disputes and add favorable campaign details, political groups may increasingly focus on editing online histories rather than buying traditional ads. The result could be that voters see the version of a candidate’s past that a campaign prefers.
Democratic accountability depends on voters having access to relevant facts, including uncomfortable ones, before they make a choice. When information on a major reference platform is altered, voters may be less able to judge candidates by their records.
Those who shape the account of the past can influence what people believe about the future. In the digital information landscape, the article concludes, the left currently has an advantage.
