Electoral Race Card: Voter Fraud, Racial Affective Polarization, and White American Election Confidence

Joseph A. Coll; Rachel S. Torres; Taylor Tokos

doi:10.17645/pag.11587

Back

Electoral Race Card: Voter Fraud, Racial Affective Polarization, and White American Election Confidence

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Electoral Race Card: Voter Fraud, Racial Affective Polarization, and White American Election Confidence

Joseph A. Coll, Rachel S. Torres and Taylor Tokos

Politics and governance, Vol.14, 11587

02/25/2026

DOI: 10.17645/pag.11587

Appears in UI Libraries Support Open Access

Files and links (1)

url

https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.11587View

Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

The 2020 US presidential election not only witnessed an onslaught of accusations that elections were fraudulent, but these accusations implicitly and explicitly utilized racial signals to cast non-White Americans as the perpetrators of voter fraud. Elite rhetoric during and after the 2020 election painted predominantly Black and Latino cities as the epicenters of voter fraud, while also suggesting non-citizens were illegally voting in elections. We argue these racially coded accusations resonated with racially polarized White Americans, decreasing their confidence in the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. Using individual-level panel data to measure change in voter confidence among White Americans from 2016-2020, we find that confidence decreased between 2016 and 2020, but that this effect was more pronounced among White Americans who harbored greater racial affective polarization, with effects substantively similar to those of political measures of affective polarization. These results suggest that the racialization of election integrity in the 2020 election decreased voter confidence among the racially polarized White electorate. This study adds to a growing literature demonstrating the extent to which election racialization has permeated American politics and perceptions of electoral integrity specifically.

racial affective polarization

voter confidence

voter fraud

White American public opinion

UIOWA OA Agreement

Details

Title: Subtitle: Electoral Race Card: Voter Fraud, Racial Affective Polarization, and White American Election Confidence
Creators: Joseph A. Coll - University of Iowa, Political Science
Rachel S. Torres - University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Taylor Tokos - University of Iowa
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Politics and governance, Vol.14, 11587
DOI: 10.17645/pag.11587
ISSN: 2183-2463
eISSN: 2183-2463
Publisher: Cogitatio Press
Number of pages: 18
Grant note: Cogitatio Press University of Iowa
Language: English
Date published: 02/25/2026
Academic Unit: Political Science
Record Identifier: 9985243879102771

Metrics

1 Record Views

1 Times Cited - Web of Science