Primary Season Is Prime Time to Fight Election Misinformation
The fight against misinformation about U.S. election fraud starts now.
Posted March 17, 2026 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano
Midterm election have begun in the United States. with primaries in key states that might ultimately impact the political party that controls Congress. Meanwhile, the current administration continues to repeat claims of election fraud—claims that have long been debunked .
Unfortunately, belief in voter fraud has been widespread even before the rise in political division in the U.S. (Ansolabehere & Persily, 2008). Social science research has investigated what fuels belief in election misinformation and how setting expectations about elections can help reduce false beliefs in fraud.
Voter Expectations and Perception of Fraud
Research on U.S. elections from 1996 to 2020 investigated whether surprise outcomes affected perceptions of voter fraud (Mongrain, 2023). If an election had an unexpected winner, did that make voters suspicious about the electoral process? And did that questioning occur both for the losing side and for the winning side? Unexpected outcomes generally didn’t lead to dramatic changes in voter trust, the research found.
The exception was in 2020, when Joe Biden beat Donald Trump for the U.S. presidency. The change in voter trust was particularly true among Trump supporters, but it occurred even among independents and those who voted for Biden. The finding of decreased confidence in the vote-counting process suggests that the "rigged election" narrative polluted public trust broadly, not just among partisans.
What might be fueling such suspicion? The researcher cited the expectancy-disconfirmation model , which posits that we notice when an outcome disconfirms our expectation. And the larger the gap between what we expected and what happened, the more psychologically destabilizing the unexpected outcome becomes.
What made 2020 different, the researcher suspects, was the deliberate, sustained fraud narrative pushed before and after the election (Mongrain, 2023). Candidate Donald Trump simultaneously set two expectations: (1) he would win big, and (2) a victory by his competitor, candidate Joe Biden, would prove the system was rigged. The framing meant that nearly any outcome could confirm the conspiracy. This is precisely why we need to use social psychology proactively—to set accurate expectations before actual results are known.
Psychological science can explain why unexpected outcomes are disconcerting. Psychological science can also help us to set expectations and rebuild trust in the electoral process. Let’s look at one voting example that often defies expectations to see how.
Elections are often not over on election night . Nonetheless, many people expect that the election night outcome will hold. Social psychology offers lessons to combat misinformation about that often-false expectation.
We can use social norms and the expectations that arise from them, for instance, to bolster an understanding that this might not all be done on election night. In fact, many states will be slow to count votes because they’re not allowed to even start before that morning—and with the hordes of voters weighing in early, the counting will take time.
Several years ago, the nonprofit Center for Civic Design, which partners with a number of organizations including the National Science Foundation, outlined the importance of setting expectations about the fact that U.S. presidential election results are typically not finalized on election night. Just before the 2020 presidential election, they reported that just over half of voters expected a final outcome by the Friday after the election. The center offered policymakers, election officials, and community leaders advice on how to manage voter expectations including:
Social norms and expectations can be the enemies of democracy when they encourage conspiracy theories. But if we harness them to promote voting and to promote an understanding of how vote-counting will work in 2026, a psychological and scientific approach can help support our democracy.
In a previous post, we outlined the power of social norms, including those expressed through social media . We have also shared research that demonstrated that fact-checking is welcome —yes, you absolutely should fact-check when you sense misinformation!. And remember: Don't even name the misinformation you’re countering. Just share the facts. The repetition of false claims , even to debunk them, can backfire.
Resources You Can Use to Help Set Election Expectations
Several organizations have done the hard work of creating nonpartisan resources that you can promote through your social media to help manage election expectations. We want to share some resources that deserve to be elevated as primary season begins.
Click this link from 2020 for social-media-ready graphics from a coalition of nonpartisan organizations that can help set expectations. And this 2024 social media toolkit for election officials has great resources for all of us. We expect additional resources will be released as the 2026 midterm elections approach. Let’s set better and more accurate voter expectations this primary season.
Ansolabehere, S., & Persily, N. (2008). The Place of Perceptions in the Debate over Election Fraud and Voter Identification. Harvard Law Review, 121 (7), 1737-1774.
Mongrain, P. (2023). Suspicious minds: Unexpected election outcomes, perceived electoral integrity and satisfaction with democracy in American presidential elections. Political Research Quarterly , 76 (4), 1589–1603. https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231166679
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Susan A. Nolan, Ph.D. , is a professor of psychology at Seton Hall University and the author of textbooks on statistics and psychology.
Michael Kimball is the author of eight books, the host of an NBA podcast, and an editor of textbooks on statistics and psychology.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.