Winners, Losers, and Perceptions of Vote (Mis)Counting

• In Event: Information Processing and Motivated Reasoning

Abstract

Previous research has found that individuals interpret political information through a partisan ‘perceptual screen.’ While this work examines individual-level moderators extensively, less research is devoted to identifying broader political conditions that accentuate or attenuate these partisan differences. This article forwards our understanding of partisan motivated reasoning by systematically varying political contexts in a nationally representative survey experiment focused on an increasingly salient issue: vote miscounting. We find that partisans’ views of election counting are significantly moderated by whether or not their preferred party won or lost an election. In addition, nonpartisan cues are found to play as significant a role as partisan messages in shaping assessments of election counting. Finally, the study explores whether Independents have a ‘screen’ of their own, and if partisan differences extend to explanations of vote miscounting evaluations.

Author

• Georgia Kernell, U of California - Los Angeles