Voter fraud made news recently for two reasons: first, because Donald Trump suggested that the November presidential election might be rigged against him, and second, because federal courts struck down several states’ Republican-backed voter identification laws. …
Recent analyses show that out of billions of votes cast only a tiny percentage were fraudulent. … Despite this, belief in voter fraud is widespread. …
This raises the question: why do people believe in voter fraud despite a lack of evidence for it? In a working paper, my colleagues and I argue that one reason is an overarching tendency to believe in all kinds of conspiracy theories. CONT.
Joseph E. Uscinski (U. of Miami), Monkey Cage