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Lawrence Norden, an American attorney and vice president of the Elections & Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, discusses the security and integrity of US elections. He identifies cyberthreats, physical threats, and disinformation as the main threats, with both foreign governments and domestic actors posing a risk. Norden emphasizes the progress made in securing election infrastructure, such as the use of paper ballots and post-election audits. He also stresses the importance of information sharing and public education to combat disinformation. Norden mentions the potential impact of artificial intelligence on elections, particularly in spreading misinformation. He concludes by highlighting the need for ongoing investment and updating of election infrastructure to address evolving threats. The article also explores the benefits and challenges of the decentralized election system in the United States, emphasizing the need for minimum security standards across all jurisdictions. The author expresses concern about Project 2025, which proposes to limit the role of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in assessing cyber hygiene. The article also emphasizes the importance of effective communication between government agencies and social media companies to address foreign interference in elections. Lastly, the author discusses threats to American democracy, including harassment and abuse faced by election officials and the potential weaponization of the Department of Justice against them. Despite these challenges, the article highlights the resilience of democratic institutions and the efforts of individuals to protect democracy and civil society. [Extracted from the article]

Are partisans more likely to endorse political violence when politicians accuse their rivals of election improprieties? I theorize that for Republican partisans in the United States, the answer to this question is yes. Republican partisans are primed to believe allegations of cheating by Democrats and view election improprieties through the lens of racial and xenophobic resentments. Allegations of Democratic election fraud prompt them to eschew nonviolent norms of political behavior and endorse political violence. I test these propositions using an original, online survey experiment involving 140 self-identified Republican subjects. I find that exposure to allegations by politicians that Democrats engage in election fraud prompts Republican partisans to increase their support for political violence. Furthermore, using mediation tests, I find that exposing Republicans to allegations of electoral fraud by Democrats reduces their trust of people of different races and religions which, in turn, increases their support for political violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is the first to examine US news coverage of voter ID laws. Voter ID requirements are central to ongoing political debates about voting procedures. Despite rare cases of voter fraud by impersonation and the strong polarization over voter ID among partisan elites, there is a surprising broad bipartisan support for voter ID among the American public. Using a range of inductive computational content analysis methods, we analyse news coverage of voter ID requirements from 2013 to 2023. We find coverage differs by outlets political leaning and demonstrate a link between news media discourse and elite framing on the issue. Donald Trump’s voter fraud allegations, however, appear to have substantially shaped left-leaning media coverage from 2016, raising concerns around whether this might have helped amplify electoral conspiracies, instead of offering the public alternative ways of thinking about voter ID laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The special issue of the Journal of Political Marketing focuses on the 2022 United States congressional midterm elections, which defied expectations by resulting in Republicans winning control of the House by a narrow margin and losing a Senate seat. Factors such as former President Donald Trump's influence, the Dobbs v. Jackson decision on abortion policy, and economic conditions played significant roles in shaping the election outcomes. The issue includes articles by scholars exploring various aspects of the 2022 midterms, such as the impact of candidate experience, redistricting effects, and social media networks on voting behavior. [Extracted from the article]

The 2020 US election witnessed a surge of false claims on social media platforms asserting electoral fraud. Consequently, we ask the question, would greater online political engagement reduce perceived electoral integrity? We also explore whether the effects of online political participation on electoral integrity are contingent upon partisanship and news literacy. We use responses from a two-wave online panel survey conducted in the US before the November 2020 Presidential elections. Autoregressive regression models are employed to test the hypotheses. First, the findings suggest that those who engaged in greater online political engagement were more likely to doubt electoral integrity. Next, Republicans and those with lower levels of news literacy were also more skeptical of the electoral process. Further, moderation analyses suggest that the adverse effects of online political participation on perceived electoral integrity were more significant for Democrats and Independents than Republicans (perhaps because of ceiling effects). Finally, the relationship between online political participation and evaluations of electoral integrity is not contingent upon news literacy. Overall, the findings offer insight into how online political participation may erode electoral integrity for online users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the failures of democratization in Afghanistan (2001–2021) after the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001. Over the last two decades, the Afghan state has experienced major setbacks in its journey of democratic development and statebuilding. This article, therefore, analyzes the pressures facing the state from the crisis of performative legitimacy, fraudulent election processes, political centralization, and state failure and corruption. More specifically, it argues that from the above-mentioned factors when considered, the lack of performative legitimacy played a significant role in the failure of democracy and statebuilding efforts. Towards that goal, each of these areas has been defined through an emphasis on how they relate to the broader challenges of legitimacy building, statebuilding and democratization in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: We investigate potential determinants of voter fraud perceptions and support for voter photo identification laws among British voters. Methods: Using data from an original nationally representative survey of British voters, we analyze how respondents' partisanship, ideology, immigration views, and demographic factors influence perceptions of voter fraud and support for voter identification. Findings: The analysis shows that respondents' partisanship and immigration views are the primary factors in explaining voter fraud perceptions. Ideologically conservative respondents exhibit greater support for voter photo identification laws, irrespective of partisanship. Additionally, our results show that while men and women hold similar beliefs about the prevalence and impact of voter fraud, women are significantly less supportive of voter photo identification laws than men. Conclusion: The study demonstrates that political partisanship and immigration views play a crucial role in shaping perceptions of voter fraud and support for voter photo identification laws in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, gender differences also significantly influence support for these laws, with women being less supportive than men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some voters believe that there is electoral fraud when this belief contradicts the best available evidence? While the literature on public opinion has explored misperceptions’ pervasiveness and the factors that contribute to them in advanced industrial democracies, the present study analyzes motivated reasoning among voters in a young democracy, Mexico. This study highlights the important role that partisanship plays in voters’ likelihood to believe the allegations of electoral fraud in the 2006 presidential election in Mexico, which continues polarizing both political elites and the electorate even today. To understand the mechanisms at work, this research finds that it is not voters lacking information but rather voters with high levels of affective polarization and conspiratorial thinking who are more likely to believe that there was electoral fraud. The study also includes a survey experiment that fact-checked the belief in the alleged electoral fraud. Consistent with motivated reasoning theory, MORENA partisans resisted efforts to reduce their misperception. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of the conditions that make some voters hold misperceptions in young democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an overview of the recent elections in Pakistan, focusing on the military's dominance in the country's politics. It discusses the military's efforts to protect its interests and preferred candidates, as well as signs that its power may be challenged. The elections shed light on issues such as inflation, unemployment, and stagnant wages that were not adequately addressed by political parties. The article also explores the historical influence of the military in Pakistan, its control over the economy and political elites, and the rise and fall of Imran Khan's PTI party. Ultimately, a coalition government consisting of the PML and PPP parties, under the influence of the military, took power. The article concludes by emphasizing the limitations of the military's power and the importance of the left in Pakistan focusing on revival and building alliances with key constituencies. [Extracted from the article]

"The Ties that Bind: Immigration and the Global Political Economy" by David Leblang and Benjamin Helms challenges the widely held belief that migration for work or education is the main driver of people moving to other countries. The authors argue that political participation, such as voting and qualifying for citizenship, is the primary motivation for migration. They also discuss the role of co-ethnic networks and political institutions in facilitating investment in home countries. The book explores how governments can encourage migrants to contribute to their home communities and promote democratic ideals through remittances and dual citizenship. While the book primarily focuses on the American political environment, it offers valuable insights applicable to migration patterns globally. [Extracted from the article]

Social media technology not only affords opportunities for digital activism and global liberation, but it also poses threats to the freewheeling of democracy. The emergence and prevalence of conspiracy theories on social media stem from communal processes of online political debate or social movements that degenerate into conspiracy beliefs. This study views the online formation of conspiracy theories as a socially emergent process. Subscribing to a social constructionist lens and synthesizing extant literature on social movements and social media affordances, we conducted discourse analysis on discursive data collected from Twitter for the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Fraud Conspiracy Theory. Through the analysis, we delineate the formation of conspiracy theory into four stages and characterize each stage according to its mobilizing structure, participants, mode of interaction, content created, and discernible collective action. We also identify social media affordances facilitating the formation of conspiracy theories within and across stages. Findings of this study advance contemporary knowledge on conspiracy theories by not only extending our understanding of the role of social media in conspiracy theory formation, but they also aid practitioners in comprehending the formation process of conspiracy theory formation, the latter of which constitutes the foundation for devising appropriate prevention and mitigation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the European Union (EU) strategies to combat Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated misinformation in the 2024 election year. Topics discussed include recent examples of AI-driven disinformation in global elections, the EU's legal framework for managing deep fakes, and the role of public awareness initiatives in preserving electoral integrity.

Fog's basic distributed nature and ability to process data in transit—that is, to make decisions in real time—make it a good fit for scenarios involving several distributed devices that need to communicate, provide real‐time data analysis, and carry out storage functions. The majority of fog computing applications are driven by the user's demands and/or their desire for functioning services, either neglecting or giving security considerations second attention. Fog computing security issues have not received enough attention. Fog computing could be exploitable due to the security difficulties associated with cloud computing. Due to its flexibility to function near the end user and independence from a centralized design, fog computing provides the dependability required by time‐sensitive smart healthcare systems. There is a need for enhanced security and privacy solutions for fog computing, where trust is essential, due to the importance of healthcare data. This research aims to develop a context‐based adaptive trust solution for the smart healthcare environment utilizing Bayesian approaches and similarity measures against bad mouthing and ballot stuffing, while context‐dependent trust solutions for fogs remain an unexplored area of study. The proposed trust model has been simulated in Contiki‐Cooja to evaluate our findings. In contrast to static weighting, adaptive weights are provided to direct and indirect trust using entropy values that ensure the least degree of trust bias, and context similarity calculations eliminate recommender nodes with malicious intent by leveraging server, colleague, and service similarities. The proposed model protects smart healthcare systems from attacks using similarity metrics, incorporates context, and also uses adaptive weighting for trust calculation. By eliminating trust bias and also detecting attacks, this solution enhances the trust calculation by 10% as compared to the previous solution. This paradigm is efficient due to its small trust computation overhead and linear complexity O(n). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decision-making process in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks heavily relies on the information provided by smart sensors. Ensuring the trustworthiness of these sensors is essential to prolong the lifetime of the network. Additionally, dependable data transmission by sensor nodes is crucial for effective decision-making. Trust management approaches play a vital role in safeguarding industrial sensor networks from internal threats, enhancing security, dependability, and network resilience. However, existing trust management schemes often focus solely on communication behaviour to calculate trust values, potentially leading to incorrect decisions amidst prevalent malicious attacks. Moreover, these schemes often fail to meet the resource and dependability requirements of IWSNs. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a novel hybrid Trust Management Scheme called the Multi-layered Assessment System for Trustworthiness Enhancement and Reliability (MASTER). The MASTER scheme employs a clustering approach within a hybrid architecture to reduce communication overhead, effectively detecting and mitigating various adversarial attacks such as Sybil, Blackhole, Ballot stuffing, and On–off attacks with minimal overheads. This multifactor trust scheme integrates both communication-based trust and data-based trust during trust estimation, aiming to improve the lifetime of industrial sensor networks. Furthermore, the proposed MASTER scheme utilizes a flexible weighting scheme that assigns more weight to recent interactions during both direct and recommendation (indirect) trust evaluation. This approach ensures robust and precise trust values tailored to the specific network scenario. To efficiently process and glean insights from dispersed data, machine learning algorithms are employed, offering a suitable solution. Experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of the MASTER scheme in several key metrics compared to recent trust models. For instance, when 30% of malicious Sensor Nodes (SNs) exist in a network comprising 500 sensor nodes, the MASTER scheme achieves a malicious behaviour detection rate of 97%, surpassing the rates of other models. Even after the occurrence of malicious SNs exceeding 30%, the False Negative Rate (FNR) in the MASTER scheme remains lower than other models due to adaptive trust functions employed at each level. With 50% malicious SNs in the network, the MASTER scheme achieves a malicious behaviour detection accuracy of 91%, outperforming alternative models. Moreover, the average energy consumption of SNs in the MASTER scheme is significantly lower compared to other schemes, owing to its elimination of unnecessary transactions through clustered topology utilization. Specifically, with 30% and 50% malicious SNs in the network, the MASTER scheme achieves throughput rates of 150 kbps and 108 kbps, respectively, demonstrating its efficiency in challenging network scenarios. Overall, the proposed MASTER scheme offers a comprehensive solution for enhancing security, trustworthiness, and collaboration among sensor nodes in IWSNs, while achieving superior performance in various metrics compared to existing trust models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subtext of this extended commentary for the 2024 Policy Studies Yearbook in Politics & Policy is the crucial role that liberalism and civil rights must play in U.S. foreign policy if America is to be on the right side of history. Our explicit subject is the conflux of elite and populist forces that constantly work against such liberal‐democratic engagement. It is no secret that today's MAGAism ("Make America Great Again") wears many of the same antiliberal stripes as did postwar McCarthyism, which was its direct progenitor. Thanks largely to the center‐right resistance of President Eisenhower, McCarthyism was ultimately held in check domestically. Unfortunately, that was not the case on the side of U.S. foreign policy, where tenacious strains of antiliberalism had a very long shelf life. Thus, McCarthyism ended up having its most durable impact in the developing world, where cozy relations with highly reactionary regimes were considered necessary in the face of communist inroads. At a time when liberalism was hitting its full stride on American soil, U.S. foreign policy was exporting a very different America abroad, and especially in Asia. Even domestically, the waspish virulence of McCarthyism was never eradicated. It simply hibernated, and in 2016, it came back with a vengeance in the even more truculent form of Trumpism. Once again, xenophobic populism is laying claim to U.S. foreign policy and savaging liberal internationalism. The entrenched progressivism that stood its ground against McCarthyism has long since eroded. MAGAism faces no obstacle comparable to the dynamic liberalism of the 1950s or the counterculture of the 1960s. Seen from the perspective of January 6, 2021, the old McCarthyism looks tame by comparison. Related Articles: Craig, Stephen C., and Jason Gainous. 2024. "To Vote or Not to Vote? Fake News, Voter Fraud, and Support for Postponing the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election." Politics & Policy 52(1): 33–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12577. Haar, Roberta N., and Lutz F. Krebs. 2021. "The Failure of Foreign Policy Entrepreneurs in the Trump Administration." Politics & Policy 49(2): 446–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12399. Skidmore, Max J. 2023. "Abortion—Reactionary Theocracy Rises in America, While Declining Elsewhere." Politics & Policy 51(3): 437–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12534. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Politics in Latin America is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objective/context: This article has three objectives: to differentiate the theoretical arguments on the empty chair policy in Latin America, to analyze the process of institutional change that culminated with its implementation in Colombia, and to describe how it has been carried out between 2010 and 2024. Methodology: The methodological approach has three components: a theoretical part, a documentary component, and an empirically based analysis. The first describes the contrast between two approaches to the autonomy, control, and accountability of political parties and parliamentarians. The second reviews how these approaches are reflected in the rules on seat ownership (of parties or congresspersons/deputies), accountability, and sanctions for parties and congresspersons when they violate the law. The third consists of identifying cases of loss of seats, their analysis, and the determination of their effects. The principal sources of the study are constitutional reforms, Supreme Court rulings, and decisions of the Attorney General's Office on convictions of congressmen. The information is complemented with journalistic reports and electoral data. Conclusions: The empty chair policy is established in two Latin American countries (Colombia and Peru). It is an effective legal norm to sanction political parties and legislators convicted for their links with criminal groups, corruption, electoral fraud, and other crimes. It has been applied in eighteen cases due to links to paramilitarism, drug trafficking, and corruption. The affected parties have decreased their electoral performance and their seats in Congress. Originality: This is the first empirical study on the subject in Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan's 2024 elections delivered a shocking surprise. Imran Khan's PTI won the largest number of seats amid heavy state repression. With this result, well-worn political patterns—whereby military favor virtually guaranteed a party's electoral success—were upended. This essay argues that Pakistan's 2024 election is not a "black swan" event but instead signals a coming crisis of governability that grows out of three structural changes: the rise of an aspirational middle class, the erosion of traditional authority patterns, and an intensifying economic and climate crisis. Consequently, a historic loss of military legitimacy is unlikely to abate in years ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Extinction de vote?" by Tristan Haute and Vincent Tiberj analyzes the growing abstention in elections in France and raises the question of whether the vote is in danger of extinction. The authors examine the inequalities that arise due to high abstention, highlighting the overvaluation of the voice of property owners and the elderly, and the undervaluation of the voice of young people and workers. They also explore the history and materiality of the electoral act to understand the relationships with voting. Several experts present different approaches to voting in France, emphasizing the importance of restoring importance to the vote and to the voters themselves. [Extracted from the article]

Courts prosecuting corruption serve a critical horizontal accountability function, but they can also play a role in moments of vertical accountability when voters can sanction corrupt candidates. This article documents the strategic use of corruption lawsuits, demonstrating the presence of an electoral cycle in filing new corruption accusations against politicians. Using an original dataset of daily corruption complaints filed in federal courts against members of Argentina's main political coalitions between 2013 and 2021, we document increased corruption accusations against and by politicians in the periods immediately preceding an election. A second dataset of daily media coverage of corruption accusations in two leading newspapers suggests that corruption is more salient before elections, offering politicians a temporal focal point to prepare and launch especially impactful lawsuits. Our findings shed new light on using courts for accountability and debates about the so-called 'lawfare' in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vote buying remains one of the main flaws of elections in many parts of the world. As most other forms of corruption, it is sticky and unlikely to vanish in the short and medium run. In this article, we look at the demand side of vote buying using the case of the Edo State governorship elections in Nigeria. Through original survey research using the in-person interview format, we try to detect how widespread this practice is, as well as establish the profile of the voter, who morally condones vote buying, and accepts such bribes on Election Day. Generally, we find that vote buying has high acceptance and most voters who receive an offer accept it. We further detect that party members, politically interested people, as well as young citizens are more likely to condone the practice; these groups are also more likely to accept such a bribe. The two main motifs for accepting bribes are (1) citizens feel a sense of reciprocity, or the need to reciprocate the favor that parties bestow upon them through the payment of the election money, (2) our respondents also feel entitled to receive some money on Election Day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral registers provide the definitive record of who can participate in an election, but there is often thought to be considerable variations in their quality cross-nationally. This leads to concerns about eligible voters being de facto disenfranchised on election day; but also ineligible voters or fictitious names appearing on the roll which can enable electoral fraud. In either case, the legitimacy of the election can be questioned. The electoral register is also used for other purposes such as drawing electoral boundaries. This article introduces some common international terminology for electoral register quality and a conceptualisation of the different ways in which an electoral register can be compiled. It then introduces a new global dataset on registration procedures (n = 159). The article hypotheses that automatic voter registration, as well as organisational and structural factors, strongly affects accuracy and completeness. The results show that automatic voter registration increases the completeness of the electoral register and also has a positive impact on accuracy. The organisational performance of the electoral management body was also shown to have positive effects on completeness and accuracy, suggesting an additional means of improving electoral registers beyond the registration model, which also rest in the hands of policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of GWP: Gesellschaft Wirtschaft Politik is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In Matter of Giuliani, the New York Appellate Division held that Rudy Giuliani's knowingly false statements of fact during the period after the 2020 presidential election violated the Rules of Professional Conduct and warranted interim suspension of his license. This paper argues that the court reached the right result but did not use the best rule and the best rationale. Instead of focusing on Giuliani's conduct as a series of false statements in support of a "narrative," the better approach would have been to call it what it was: fraud. Although the fraud was not "transactional" fraud, Giuliani's false statements to state legislatures to convince them to not certify or undo the certification of presidential electors for Joe Biden was a kind of "procedural" fraud akin to fraud on a court. All of Giuliani's false statements can be viewed as supporting that scheme. Focusing on the disciplinary rule prohibiting lawyers from engaging in conduct involving fraud would have avoided doctrinal and constitutional difficulties and better captured the real nature of the harm caused by Giuliani's conduct. The voting fraud that Giuliani claimed others engaged in to steal the 2020 presidential election for President Biden did not happen. The fraud on state legislatures that Giuliani himself engaged in to steal the election for President Trump did happen. It is time that we recognize the real fraud of the 2020 election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature provides four basic theories to explain regional election results and how they differ from national patterns: authority of regional governments, ethnic or linguistic cleavages, congruence of national and regional electoral systems, and second-order election effects. The second-order national election theory explains why regional elections exhibit lower turnout levels, why government parties lose voter support, and why opposition, minor, and new parties gain support. While second-order election theory provides the dominant explanation for countries with low regional power, we argue in favour of an additional explanation based on incumbency effects on parties' electoral support. We test the explanations on Czech regional and national election data for the years 2000–2020. The results attest to a strong effect of regional governorship, with a bonus of 5 percentage points for parties whose governors run for re-election. Parties also receive another bonus when national-level MPs and local mayors are present on the ballot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An electronic democratic framework can also fulfill all the rules and regulations of any governing body. The election is one of the important events for a robust democratic system in a country, but still, many people are not thinking of it as major concern for democracy. There are several issues of vote fraud, hacking of EVM (Electronic Voting Machine), election manipulation, and booth capturing within the current electoral system. In this paper, we proposed a framework for E-voting (Electronic Voting) which might resolve these issues. This framework uses Blockchain technology as a service along with an E-Voting system that addresses all restrictions. Blockchain advancements proposed a wide scope of different applications to reduce the sharing of monetary economies. The proposed framework uses proof of voter's identity (PoVI) consensus algorithm that makes the proposed system more secure and differentiates this model from other models of E-voting systems. The objective of this paper is to clarify the utilization of Blockchain innovation as assistance for an authentic electronic democratic framework. The proposed framework evaluates the capability of distributed record advances with the assistance of illustrative contextual analysis, specifically the cycle of a political decision that improves security and minimizes the expense of facilitating a cross-country casting a ballot framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do surveys measure sincere belief in Donald Trump's "big lie" that fraud decided the 2020 election? We apply a comprehensive approach to detecting expressive responding: three honesty encouragements, a list experiment, two opportunities to express related sentiments, and two opportunities to bet on related predictions about the future. We find that nearly all respondents who endorse the big lie appear to genuinely believe it. These "believers" are evenly split between those who confidently accept the big lie and those who find it plausible but are not deeply convinced. Similarly, those who predicted that evidence of fraud would enable Trump to retain power in January 2021 or be reinstated in August 2021 were overwhelmingly sincere. Our findings indicate that Trump's big lie is unique in terms of the size and veracity of belief differences between Democrats and Republicans. We discuss implications for democratic stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A consensus seems to exist around physically attractive candidates winning elections more often. Unfortunately, we have limited understanding of how voters assess candidates with socioeconomically (dis)advantageous physical appearances. To bridge this gap, we studied the electoral consequences of candidates looking upper class, middle class, or working class. Using official electoral data for the 2017 Finnish municipal elections and a novel data set based on a representative sample of the Finnish population (N = 7,920), we found that Finnish citizens systematically vote for candidates who look like they have (and do have) upper‐class occupations. Furthermore, the data strongly suggest that a systematic electoral penalty exists, particularly for female candidates who look like they have (and do have) working‐class occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experimental investigation explores the influence of election fraud fact-checking and cognitive processing styles on participants' confidence in the 2020 U.S. presidential election's legitimacy and characterizations of the January Sixth Capitol Hill Attack. The results indicate fact-checking, accuracy motivated reasoning, and systematic processing exerted positive effects on participants' legitimacy levels, especially among Republicans. We also found that participants' systematic processing, affiliation with the Democratic Party, and negative attitudes toward Donald Trump were associated with their characterizations of the January Sixth Capitol Hill Attack as violent and extreme. Overall, these results support both motivated reasoning and dual process models, but partisan motivated reasoning exerted the greatest effects. Further, these findings suggest Republican and pro-Trump participants who rely on heuristic processing may find violent, extra-political actions acceptable means of attempting to achieve their goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Crawford v. Marion County (2008), the Supreme Court ruled that voter identification requirements are lawful on the grounds that, even if they do not prevent fraud, they can instill confidence in voting. However, this reasoning ignores the historical and contemporary racial biases in the enactment and administration of restrictive voting policies in the United States. This legacy likely colors the extent to which Black and white voters see reforms as deterring fraud versus increasing suppression, and as such, how confident they are in election outcomes. We examine how increasing voter restrictions affects voter fraud beliefs and voter confidence among Black and white voters. We find that the enactment of restrictive policies decreases fraud beliefs among white voters but has no effect on fraud beliefs for Black voters; however, Black voters are less confident in elections when conducted with more restrictive policies while white voters are not. Finally, we find suggestive evidence that the racial gap in the effects of restrictive voting policies on voter confidence is partially undergirded by racial elite signaling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proponents of restrictive voting policies argue that they are necessary to reduce fraud beliefs and instill confidence in elections. However, recent scholarship examining this dynamic in the United States finds that the effects of voting restrictions on fraud beliefs and voter confidence differ by party, suggesting the extent to which fraud beliefs undergird this relationship may also differ by party. Whether voter fraud beliefs tie voter restrictions to voter confidence is inherently important given the assumed role of voter fraud beliefs and voter restrictions in increasing voter confidence, an issue well highlighted in the 2020 election. This study contributes to this literature by measuring the extent to which voter fraud beliefs undergird the relationship between restrictive election policies and voter confidence among Republicans and Democrats. Findings suggest that voter fraud beliefs play a significant and substantive mediating role for Republicans but not Democrats, in line with prominent theories arguing that partisan elite signaling colors electoral reform perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can academic research on election fraud undermine public confidence in elections? As election results become instantaneously accessible all over the world, academic research can increasingly influence perceptions of election integrity. To examine how electoral fraud information from academic research can affect voters' beliefs about the legitimacy of election results, we conducted a survey experiment following the 2020 general election in South Korea. Using a nationally representative sample of Korean voters and exploiting a unique real-world situation featuring foreign academics considered relatively impartial, we found that exposure to hypothetical election fraud claims undermined confidence in electoral outcomes, measured via both self-reports and behavioral measures. Moreover, the claims' impact was conditional on voters' partisan attachments—strongest among supporters of the losing party—which is in line with the logic of motivated reasoning. Our work contributes to the literature on election integrity, using a relatively new yet stable democracy as its test case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2020 election and its aftermath present an opportunity to understand how audiences' changing news consumption patterns within an expanded, digitized, and polarized media environment shape electoral judgments. This paper introduces measures that capture individuals' partisan slant, partisan extremity, and overall diversity of news media use to understand how people interact with the contemporary news ecology. The measures combine self-reported media use with the partisan slant of news outlets along the ideological spectrum. Using these measures, we analyze a two-wave panel survey conducted before and after the 2020 US election to investigate how slant, diversity, and extremity are related to post-election beliefs, including public confidence in the election and the acceptance of fraud claims. Our findings show that Republicans have more insulated news use behaviors in terms of slant and diversity. The analysis also reveals that the slant of people's news use is associated with post-election fraud beliefs, with right-wing news consumers more likely to believe such claims. However, a diverse news consumption style can moderate misinformation beliefs. Panel analysis points to the role of extreme-right news use in decreasing confidence in the legitimacy of the election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do electoral turnovers shape citizen perceptions of election quality in competitive authoritarian regimes? We argue that electoral outcomes are crucial for determining perceptions of electoral quality. While detailed evaluation of electoral trust is complex in competitive autocracies with institutional uncertainty and polarized electoral environments, turnovers send strong and unequivocal signals about election quality. Previous literature has noted a strong partisan divide in electoral trust in competitive authoritarian regimes, but turnovers can boost trust among both incumbent and opposition supporters. We test this argument in the case of Zambia's 2021 election, a case where a ruling party lost despite electoral manipulation and strong control over the Election Management Body (EMB). Empirically, we leverage the first-ever panel survey carried out during Zambian elections. Comparing trust in elections before and after the election, we find that perceived election quality increased after the 2021 electoral turnover among both losers and winners. We find that trust in elections increased the most among winning opposition supporters. Moreover, despite the outgoing president's attempt to portray the election as fraudulent, losing ruling-party supporters also increased their trust in elections after the turnover. The study has important implications for the literature on democratic consolidation and institutional trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public concerns about voter fraud are widespread and are frequently cited to justify new voting restrictions and harsh punishment for violators. But to what extent do beliefs about a perpetrator's identity shape public support for efforts to prevent and punish voter fraud? Antipathy toward racial and ethnic groups is a strong predictor of public beliefs about voter fraud. Yet, prior studies have only been able to approximate beliefs about deviant behavior, and not specifically casting an illegal ballot. Drawing from sociology and criminology, we use a "typification" strategy that more directly measures which people are perceived as typical perpetrators of casting illegal ballots. We utilize nationally representative surveys of US voters in the 2017–2020 modules of the Cooperative Election Study to apply and empirically test the typification theory. Among white respondents, we find that the typification of racially minoritized groups such as Blacks, Latinos, Arabs, and immigrants as illegal voters is widespread and is strongly associated with beliefs about voter fraud, support for restrictive election policies, and harsh punishment of illegal voting. The pictures of likely criminals that white voters carry in their heads shape their preferences for crime policies, and this extends to the domain of voter fraud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the dynamic relationship between electoral manipulation and popular trust in political institutions. Governments often manipulate election results by resorting to electoral fraud. They also tilt the electoral field by opportunistically deciding when to hold elections, in other words, election timing maneuvering. How do these two different types of electoral manipulation affect citizens' trust in the government, legislature, and election management bodies (EMBs)? We suggest that although the short-term effects of election timing manipulation are unclear due to its ambiguous nature as an electioneering strategy, substantial electoral margins created by timing maneuvering facilitate smooth decision-making, leading to boosting trust in the government and legislature over the long run. In contrast, as electoral fraud is an unambiguous form of manipulation, it may undermine trust in the government and parliament, although such effects may not last. By combining an original dataset of election timing with existing survey data comprising 335,000 citizens from fifty-eight democratic countries, we find evidence in support of our theoretical expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]