Donald Trump’s Post Election Voter Fraud
Name
Course
Institution
Summary
Donald John Trump is the 45th and the current sitting president of the USA. He was born on 14th June 1946 in New York. Before joining politics, Trump was a renowned business mogul and a television personality. Against all odds, Trump won the Republican sit to get into the race to become the President of the USA where he competed with the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Trump eventually won the race to become the 45th president of the USA. The election fraud allegations by Trump started during the 2016 elections campaign where he maintained that the American electoral process was subject to widespread fraud. As the polls pointed to a victory for Clinton, Trump was intensifying the ‘rigged elections’ claims and asserting that he wouldn’t commit to accepting the results if Hillary won. Even after winning the elections that year, Trump has maintained that there were election malpractices in the states where he lost the elections.
Central to his allegation was the claim that there were millions of illegal votes cast; it’s worth saying that a commission appointed to look into this claim did not come up with anything. Similarly, these allegations were quite rife during the 2018 mid-term gubernatorial and senate elections in Florida State. The election was a very close race which was narrowly won by the Republicans. Before the election results had been declared, the Republican candidate had claimed there was voter fraud, especially in the Democrats stronghold areas. The President quickly jumped into this case supporting the Republican gubernatorial candidate’s claims and he even stated that there was a big corruption scandal concerning elections in Florida. These allegations were proven to be baseless after an investigation into the claims was carried out. The problem with these claims from the president and his allies, which remain largely unsubstantiated, stands the risk of undermining the faith of American people in the election system especially those that support Donald Trump. It can also be dangerous if people do not do some fact-checking concerning the allegations being perpetuated. Confidence once lost in electoral processes and by extension, the democracy in a nation will be quite difficult to rebuild.
Cognitive Bias in Action
The three types of cognitive biases that have been highlighted by President Trump’s post-election voter fraud accusations include mail-in voting system biases, in-person challenges and the Republican’s unfoundational loss trust in the coming elections. This type of biases led to the President and his supporters making poor decisions and cultivating wrong stereotypes about the United States general elections.
Firstly, Donald Trump’s inclination on the weaknesses of the mail voting system has led him to judge that it is a conduit of voters’ fraud during the election. The mail voting system has in many occasions given President Trump ground to allege that this system can be marred with fraud and other irregularities. Trump’s larger plot was to discredit the mail-in balloting which he wants to convince people that it is risky. He has even claimed that ballot boxes can be robbed, can be forged, and fraudsters can even print and sign ballot boxes. A more recent allegation points at the fact that foreign countries are likely to print millions of mail-in ballots and send them to voters and this is allowed to happen can influence the election results. Yet no evidence has ever proved these allegations. His bias against mail voting has is clearly based on distorted fact. The consequences of this are that it has led to discrediting this method voting, and has made many people believe that it can be manipulated to the disadvantage of their candidate. Yet mail voting by mail is the only option for voters, especially during the current pandemic. Another place in which mail voting is inevitable is among the military staff, who have always voted via mail. Ironically, as Trump continues to discredit the mail voting system the members of his administration are conveniently using it to cast their votes. One of the cases in point is the US Vice President Mike Pence in 2018 cast his vote via mail, he did the same this year during the Indiana primaries. While the voting via email method is safe and reliable as defended by experts, the general population reception of the Presidents allegation is worrying. Many people who support the president are choosing to believe his opinion and not what the experts are saying. Figures released at the beginning of July 2020 suggest that 72% of Trump’s supports are against voting by mail. Voters in Michigan are reported to have burnt their absentee ballot papers that had been mailed to them by the state. These actions are causing some states to back down on voter by mail expansion programs. Mail voting has been used for several years with every year being an enhancement of the other. The president does not focus on the strengths of the system. His anchor observer bias, that is, the tendency to blame others’ misfortunes on internal factors and blame yours on external factors is what is leading the president to blame the mail voting system’s legitimacy in delivering honest results.
Secondly, his bias against Democrats and immigrants has led him to blame them for rigging the elections. He claims that voters in Democratic candidates’ strongholds would vote several times in the same polling station. In Pennsylvania, for example, when he lost during the polls, he blamed the citizens for illegally voting. He accused them of voting more than once and also voting for dead people who were long erased in the system. Paradoxically, when he won the state in the general elections he went silent about his prior allegations. He even ordered his attorney to block the recounting that was to be done in Michigan because of suspected fraud. Moreover, his tendency has led him to accuse illegal migrants of falsely voting all of which have no substantial proof. President Trump’s self-serving bias is leading him to make irrational decisions about the future of the United States.
The Republicans are also subject to anchoring bias which has made them lose trust in the United States elections after Trump sowing doubt about the accuracy of the election. Most of the Republicans have become more doubtful of the legitimacy of the elections not because they have gotten to see the injustices in the elections, but because they support whatever President Trump says. They, therefore, discredit other pieces of information that speak against Trump’s allegations. Some the GOP supporters have even concluded that if Trump does not win the 2020 elections that the votes would have been rigged. This is called the winner effect, also subject to cognitive bias. The supporters of a certain candidate base their trust in the accuracy of the elections depending on whether they win or lose. In the previous 2016 elections, Trump attributed his loss in the polls to the fraud in the elections, but when he won the elections, and his supporters thought that the elections were well done. In the same way, the Republicans are already biased about the legitimacy of the elections because of the likelihood of Trump losing the elections.
Overcoming this biases
The biases against the unerring of the elections have still not be overcome. The president is still finding other external factors to blame his likelihood of losing the elections. It is however unlikely that the bias will be overcome because even if all the system failures in the electoral process are addressed and Trump gets to lose the elections, he will probably say that what was done wasn’t enough. If he wins then he might say that the loopholes were the sources of failure in the system. It is, however, clear to us how cognitive bias is affecting the decisions we make in our day to day life through the decisions made by President Trump, and his supporters.