Winning cures everything? Beliefs about voter fraud, voter confidence, and the 2016 election
Winning cures everything? Beliefs about voter fraud, voter confidence, and the 2016 election
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DOI：
10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102156
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发表时间：
2021-11-18
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Levy, Morris
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Levy, Morris
关于“操纵”选举的言论引起了人们对公众对投票制度完整性的信任是否稳固的担忧。Sinclair等人（2019）对2016年美国总统竞选活动的研究表明，尽管存在旨在影响公民接受选举合法性的强烈党派信息，但选民信心仍存在强大的“赢家效应”。这表明，在竞争性民主国家，选举结果的定期波动限制了精英信息对选举机构信任的影响。一个关键的问题是，类似的动态是否适用于更明显的党派烙印和目标的选举信任方面，例如对非法投票普遍存在的信念。本文使用2016年选举日之前和之后进行的面板研究，比较选举对非法投票程度和选民信心的影响。强调民主竞争的承诺和局限性，作为对精英努力播种选举不信任的制衡，对两者都有显着的“赢家效应”，但对非法投票的信念的影响要小得多，这种差异在强大的共和党党派中尤其大。
Rhetoric about "rigged" elections has raised concerns about the solidity of public trust in the integrity of the voting system. Mitigating these concerns, research by Sinclair et al. (2019) on the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign documents a robust "winner's effect" on voter confidence despite intense partisan messaging aimed at influencing citizens' acceptance of the legitimacy of the election. This suggests that regularly fluctuating electoral outcomes in competitive democracies limit the impact of elite messages on trust in electoral institutions. A critical question is whether similar dynamics apply to dimensions of electoral trust that are more clearly partisanbranded and targeted, such as beliefs about the prevalence of illicit voting. This paper uses a panel study with waves conducted before and after Election Day 2016 to compare the effect of election on beliefs about the extent of illicit voting and voter confidence. Underlining both the promise and limitations of democratic competition as a counterweight to elite efforts to sow electoral distrust, there are significant "winner's effects" on both but substantially smaller impact on beliefs about illicit voting, a difference that is especially large among strong Republican partisans.