What do Trump’s claims of voter fraud mean for democracy?
written by Sophie Pownall, European Horizons Bath
Published as part of European Horizons’ Spring 2020 policy priority series on Defending Democracy Against Cyber Threats and the Northern Chapters Publications Initiative on Interference in Elections.
The 2020 United States’ presidential elections triggered a surge in democratic participation unlike any other witnessed in modern times (Pilkington and Milman, 2020). The world waited anxiously as the votes were counted and then took a sigh of relief, as Donald Trump conceded and American citizens demonstrated that they were still interested in democracy. However, months before the results came in, Trump tactically started planting seeds of doubt in the American voting system claiming “the Democrats are trying to rig this election because that’s the only way they’re going to win” (Liptak, 2020). This reaction is unsurprising. Even following his 2016 win, Trump spread false claims about voter fraud, asserting that up to 5 million votes were illegal. In response, Trump created a panel made up of the country’s most prominent voter fraud conspiracy theorists, but the Commission was quickly dissolved due to an inability to find any evidence supporting Trump’s theories (Levine, 2020). The Republicans seem unconcerned about Trump’s claims as a senior official said “What is the downside for humouring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change” (Gardener et al., 2020) . But the concern is not whether the results will change, it is whether perceptions of electoral malpractice have an impact on democratic satisfaction.
Popular support for democratic regimes is linked to public trust and confidence in representative institutions that connect the citizens and the state, such as the courts and elections, political parties and legislative assemblies. In cases where legitimacy of these institutions regresses, democratic regimes are more open to backsliding under authoritarian leaders (Norris, 2019). This issue resonates largely with global trends of democratic dissatisfaction which has reached an all-time low and is led by the most populous democracies, such as the United States (Foa et al., 2020). Citizens are increasingly distrustful of politicians, national and global governance institutions and democratic processes and principles. This lack of confidence does not go without consequences and is believed to impact civic engagement, voter turnout and political participation, while also increasing protest politics. It is also thought to have the capacity to fuel mass support for authoritarian-populist leaders, who place emphasis on stolen votes, corrupt politicians and a rigged system (Norris, 2019). This is problematic because a core part of democracy is accepting the legitimacy of the election to signal a peaceful transfer of power (Levine, 2020).
Resilient democracies can survive particular shocks because they have a deep reservoir of popular legitimacy that has built up over several decades or centuries. However, in a case study of the 2016 US elections, which was based on World Values Survey Data, research already demonstrated that doubts about electoral integrity do in fact affect satisfaction with the functioning of democracy. The study also confirmed that those who voted for the winning party or candidate of the elections were more satisfied with democracy than those who had voted for the loser (Norris, 2019). Therefore, it is predicted that Trump’s claims of a stolen presidency will have a corrosive effect on democracy, especially considering that around 70 million people voted for him (Levine, 2020).
Evidence from the 2020 elections already suggests that this is true. According to a poll by POLITICO and Morning Consult, trust in the election system decreased, as 70 percent of Republicans said they believed that the election was not free and fair. This is a sharp increase from the 35 percent of Republican voters who held this belief before the election. Trust in the election increased among Democrats on the other hand, 90 percent claimed that the election was free and fair. Among those who did not believe the election was free and fair, many considered mail-in voting and ballot tampering to be the cause of voter fraud. These claims align with tweets which made constant appearances on Trump’s Twitter thread and have led many to be sceptical about the results of the election (Kim, 2020).
Even before Trump’s efforts to delegitimize the electoral system with his election fraud claims, the US’s democracy was ranked 33rd in the world among countries with populations larger than 1 million people according to Freedom House (Repucci, 2020). This places the US between Slovakia and Argentina (Repucci, 2020). But not all hope is lost, as successful democracies are more than just trust in a set of institutions. Another important aspect is that the state is seen to act in the interest of most of the citizens and demonstrate patriotism that goes beyond political, social and economic beliefs (Wolf, 2020). Many believe that Biden signifies this. However, whether this is enough to lift the US democracy out of the dark waters remains unclear.
Sophie Pownall studies Cotemporary European Studies at the University of Bath. She is currently completing an exchange at Humboldt University of Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin as part of her Euromasters. She has worked part time at the Hertie School for the Communications department since 2020 assisting with the organisation of research and public events. She earned her undergraduate degree in French, German and European studies. Her academic interests include feminism, democracy, social movements, memory politics and culture, comparative European politics and EU foreign policy.
Reference List:
Foa, R.S., A Klassen, M Slade, A Rand, and R Collins. 2020. “The Global Satisfaction With Democracy Report 2020”. Cam.Ac.Uk. https://www.cam.ac.uk/system/files/report2020_003.pdf.
Gardner, Amy, Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, and Emma Brown. 2020. “Top Republicans Back Trump’S Efforts To Challenge Election Results”. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-republicans-election-challenges/2020/11/09/49e2c238-22c4-11eb-952e-0c475972cfc0_story.html.
Kim, Catherine. 2020. “Poll: 70 Percent Of Republicans Don’T Think The Election Was Free And Fair”. POLITICO. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/09/republicans-free-fair-elections-435488?nname=politico-nightly&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=0000014e-f10a-dd93-ad7f-f90f318e0001&nlid=2670445.
Levine, Sam. 2020. “‘Corrosive To Democracy’: What Do Trump’s Baseless Claims Really Mean?”. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/13/trump-election-voter-fraud-claims-attack-democracy.
Liptak, Kevin. 2020. “A List Of The Times Trump Has Said He Won’t Accept The Election Results Or Leave Office If He Loses”. CNN Politics. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/24/politics/trump-election-warnings-leaving-office/index.html.
Norris, Pippa. 2018. “Do Public Perceptions Of Electoral Malpractice Undermine Democratic Satisfaction? The U.S. In Comparative Perspective”. SSRN Electronic Journal 40 (1): 5–22. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3231905.
Pilkington, Ed, and Oliver Milman. 2020. “Huge Turnout, Fraying Nerves: The Story Of Election Night”. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/04/election-story-so-far-voter-turnout-frayed-nerves.
Repucci, Sarah. 2020. “A Leaderless Struggle For Democracy”. Freedom House. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2020/leaderless-struggle-democracy.
Wolf, Martin. 2020. “Democracy In A Time Of Division”. Ft.Com. https://www.ft.com/content/95ef4589-e96f-46d7-95ee-24433ee58f73.
