To vote or not to vote? Fake news, voter fraud, and support for postponing the 2020 U.S. presidential election

Prior to the 2020 election President Trump suggested the election should be postponed “until the country can make sure that only eligible American citizens can vote.” With the COVID-19 pandemic leading many states to take steps that made it easier for citizens to vote safely, the president and his allies made numerous false claims about voter fraud; others argued that voter fraud is not common and is unlikely to appreciably increase with greater reliance on mail balloting. We rely on a national Internet-based survey experiment conducted prior to the 2020 election to assess the effectiveness of both messages on citizens' support for a hypothetical proposal to postpone the presidential election. The results suggest that respondents were more likely to support postponement if they received a fake news message that fraud is common. The results also suggest that these effects are conditional; both political party and knowledge moderate the relationship.

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