More Polarization, More Election Distrust: Why We Must Avoid Temptations to Call Lost Elections “Rigged”

Shortly before the 2020 presidential election, a survey found that many Americans — including many Republicans and Democrats — were prepared to view the election as “rigged” if their candidate lost. One of the survey creators said the results were “in a word, extreme.”

The stability of a democratic republic like America depends on widespread trust in and acceptance of election results. Without this, things start to fall apart. Political dysfunction can give way to chaos, constitutional crises, and even significant political violence. 

We must see that when we call elections “illegitimate” without very strong reasons, we hurt America. 

Addressing common objections

At this point, you might have an objection like, “This is only a problem on the ‘other side’; you’re making a false equivalency” or maybe, “My reasons for distrusting elections make more sense than theirs.”

We aim to encourage everyone, regardless of their political views and their concerns about the “other side,” to reflect on how these tendencies might apply to them. 

Put another way: Whether you’re more upset about Trump saying the 2020 election was stolen or by Democrats calling Trump’s 2016 win illegitimate due to Russian interference, we hope you’ll consider these ideas. 

Hostility and fear can lead to election distrust 

When we dislike and fear the “other side,” it’s easy to believe they’re up to something dishonest, including election-related tricks, even when we don’t have good evidence for that.

Among people who said they believed the 2020 election was stolen, a study found that about half of them weren’t fully convinced of that. This helps us see how negative emotions can lead to expressions of election distrust even in the absence of certainty.

The winner-loser gap refers to the tendency for a group that has lost a political contest to have many people who see the results as illegitimate. The worse a country’s divides grow, the more this becomes a problem. There has been significant election distrust in several recent presidential elections. 

In Election Meltdown, Richard Hasen examines instances of Donald Trump making false and misleading statements promoting the idea the 2020 election was stolen. Hasen also examines examples on the left; for example, Hillary Clinton blaming her 2016 loss in Wisconsin on Republicans passing voter ID legislation, despite a lack of clear evidence to support that claim. 

Concerns about media influence

Some people may have election distrust due to believing bad or biased actors have influenced votes. For example, some Republicans count biased liberal-leaning media among reasons for seeing the 2020 election as illegitimate. 

Leading up to the 2016 election, there were many fake pro-Trump news sites, domestic and foreign, which many saw as unfairly shifting the election. Republicans presumably would dislike it if Democrats used such instances as reasons to call an election illegitimate. The truth is it will always be possible for people to perceive wrong and biased media shifting people’s views, making this a weak reason to call an election “rigged.”

In fact, America has always had news media viewed by many as unfairly biased. A Smithsonian Magazine article explored the “age old problem of fake news” and how there’ve been charges of news unfairly influencing political outcomes as long as there’s been a free press.

Russia and other foreign influence

Some people saw Trump’s 2016 win as illegitimate due to thinking Russia influenced the election — but there’s no strong evidence Russia succeeded at that. Various analysts have made the case that Russia’s efforts were minor compared to other political activity. Also, a 2023 study found no evidence that exposure to the Russian campaign had led to “changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior.” 

Foreign powers who meddle in our elections are trying to foster discord and chaos. In fact, considering the difficulty of shifting an election, creating discord is likely their main goal. We should avoid playing into our enemies’ hands by too readily calling elections illegitimate. 

Election mistakes, issues, and fraud 

America is a big country with a distributed and complex system for elections. In any given election, there’ll be various mistakes, technical issues, and biased decisions — and even some genuine fraud. This means it’s easy for people to seize on irregularities as reasons to distrust the outcomes of an election. 

In Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections, Mollie Hemingway argues the 2020 election was stolen. A Wall Street Journal review criticized her for conflating minor and expected election issues and mistakes with purposeful fraud. (The reviewer also notes that some of the issues mentioned in her book may have even helped Trump.)

In Election Meltdown, Hasen writes that in close elections, “attention immediately focuses on the weakest link in the system.” We can be drawn to overstating the significance of small and inevitable issues with large, complex elections.

Changes to election policy

One reason some Democrats have viewed elections as illegitimate is because they think Republicans have suppressed votes in undemocratic ways. One prominent example of this was the 2018 Georgia Governor’s race where Democrats saw Republicans making it harder to vote as causing a Democratic loss. 

In “Why Democrats Should Not Call the Georgia Governor’s Race ‘Stolen’,” Richard Hasen argued that a political group that loses an election should accept the results even when they think an election was not conducted perfectly, and that distinguishing between legal actions from illegal activity (like fraud) is important. 

In America, there’s a tension between the demand for easy voting and concerns about election integrity. We can see how this tension makes it easy for changes to election policy to produce distrust and suspicion. But even if we have distrust, calling an election “illegitimate” without strong reasons raises the partisan temperature and harms the democratic institutions that make America tick. 

Working against pessimistic instincts

If you believe a recent election was illegitimate, we almost certainly didn’t address all your concerns in this short piece. We only hope we helped you see why it’s hugely important to question and examine such beliefs. 

If our divides continue to grow, it will become more common for people to view major elections as stolen. If we care about this country, we must work against overly pessimistic views — both in ourselves and among our political peers. 

Want to learn more about election distrust? We recommend the book Election Meltdown, which discusses the rarity of election fraud in America and the importance of improving election systems.

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