Why the GOP’s voter fraud messaging may backfire

Filed 43m ago · Via The Conversation · The Buffoon Desk

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Goblin Tinker Soldier Spy

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Roland zh · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A political scientist argues that Republican messaging emphasizing supposed rampant voter fraud, including Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin's claim of nearly 16,000 noncitizens on Nevada's voter rolls (a number that shrank to 185 under scrutiny and to zero after investigation), could backfire by discouraging the party's own less-engaged voters from turning out. Studies cited show voting fraud by noncitizens occurs at statistically insignificant levels nationwide.

The analysis, drawing on research into German voters and MIT Election Lab data, suggests passive voters who distrust elections tend to stay home, while more skeptical voters sometimes turn out specifically to correct a system they see as rigged. Fifty percent of surveyed Republicans distrust mail-in voting and 51% fear noncitizen voting, numbers the author says could suppress GOP turnout while energizing Democratic voters instead.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Telling your own voters the whole system is crooked is a strange way to get them excited to use it. It's a bit like warning everyone the church potluck food might be poisoned and then wondering why the casserole table is empty. A number that goes from sixteen thousand to a hundred eighty-five to zero isn't a rounding error, it's a tell about what the claim was for in the first place.

Source: Read the original at The Conversation → Scored: Goblin Tinker Soldier Spy · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0