Voter Fraud and Elections

 

Elections within many systems of governments are important. Electing individuals who have c citizens and country’s interest as their main priority is key to winning a high official position and title. The United States is run by a democratic system and following the rules of the constitution, elections are to be fair and true. Every election year, you have individuals running for local and national level positions such as mayors, governors, and even the U.S Presidency. Two parties are constituted, the republican and democratic party. In recent years, the two parties have become more divided, creating a rift when election season comes around. What is strongly making the rift wider is the claims of voter fraud. Since the 2020 election, there have been various claims from the republican party. These claims include, (1) illegitimate ballots submitted by dead people and (2) voting machines conspiracy theories surrounding a late Venezuelan Leader (Miller 1995). Claims such as these have led to supporters thinking twice about who to vote for. Supporters have a hard time separating the truth from a misconception because of the party they follow. Supporters also have a hard time trusting news media outlets, who fact-check claims because they view these outlets as being biased.

In the Cambridge University Press Research Article, “The Effects of Unsubstantiated Claims of Voter Fraud on Confidence in Elections”, researchers examined how claims of voter fraud affects the public confidence in election results. They conducted this research study using experimental design methodology. Experimental design is used in many hard science and social science research (DeWitt 2024). This design is composed of independent and dependent variables. These variables are then subjected to study by following two steps: (1) taking action and (2) observing consequences (DeWitt 2024). The researchers were able to voluntarily survey 4,283 people by using an online forum monitored by YouGov (Miller 1995). In order to study the fraud claim effects, they needed willing test subjects to participate. Next, the participants were separated into four groups: placebo, low dose, high dose, and low dose plus fact check (Miller 1995). Each group had a series of tweets ranging from non-political, alleged voter fraud to fact checked (Miller 1995). The observing consequence, republican officials were still spreading voter fraud claims. Researchers were able to use these new tweets along with new fact checked tweets and subject them to the four focus groups. The only difference is the researchers used less mainstream news outlets fact checked tweets. Researchers were able to gather an individual's personal feelings and categorize them into either being republican or democrat/independent. Researchers were able to use experimental design methodology to explain the cause and effect of voter fraud claims on public confidence in election results by creating focus groups, various types of tweets, gathering individual responses and categorizing individuals based on their responses.

The most interesting find from this article is the result from the high and low dose groups
(four tweets of alleged voter fraud). Researchers were not able to find any difference between these two focus groups. Both groups saw a significant reduction in public confidence compared to the placebo focused group (non-political tweets) (Miller 1995). When compared with each other, there was no dramatic change in confidence. Another interesting finding was the non-changing effect fact checked tweets had on the low dose (alleged voter fraud) tweets. The fact checked tweets did not remove the harmful exposure of voter fraud (Miller 1995). Individuals who supported or affiliated with certain political parties were not persuaded, even when presented with the facts. As times change, politics seems to evolve from the betterment of the country to the betterment of a singular political party. One can hope that one day politics will be about the country and not about an image.

Berlinsko, Nicolas et al. 2023. “The Effects of Unsubstantiated Claims of Voter Fraud on   

              Confidence in Elections.” Journal of Experimental Political Science 10(1): 1-16

              .doi:10.1017/XPS.2021.18 

DeWitt, Jeff. “Chapter 8 : Experimental Design.” PowerPoint Lecture Presentation, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Accessed on July 12, 2024.