Research note: Examining false beliefs about voter fraud in the wake of the 2020 Presidential Election

<jats:p>The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election saw an unprecedented number of false claims alleging election fraud and arguing that Donald Trump was the actual winner of the election. Here we report a sur-vey exploring belief in these false claims that was conducted three days after Biden was dec...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pennycook, Gordon, Rand, David G
Other Authors: Sloan School of Management
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Public Policy 2022
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144267
Description
Summary:<jats:p>The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election saw an unprecedented number of false claims alleging election fraud and arguing that Donald Trump was the actual winner of the election. Here we report a sur-vey exploring belief in these false claims that was conducted three days after Biden was declared the winner. We find that a majority of Trump voters in our sample – particularly those who were more politically knowledgeable and more closely following election news – falsely believed that election fraud was widespread and that Trump won the election. Thus, false beliefs about the elec-tion are not merely a fringe phenomenon. We also find that Trump conceding or losing his legal challenges would likely lead a majority of Trump voters to accept Biden’s victory as legitimate, alt-hough 40% said they would continue to view Biden as illegitimate regardless. Finally, we found that levels of partisan spite and endorsement of violence were equivalent between Trump and Biden voters.</jats:p>