With genuinely undecided voters scarce — as little as 5% to 7% of the electorate, according to major polls — both Democrats and Republicans must look to mobilize their rank-and-file supporters. This cycle, the Republican Party has bet heavily on a strategy built on convincing Americans that voter fraud is rampant.

Christopher Miller, a scholar of U.S. politics and Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law (PPEL) at the University of Richmond, argues that this is a high-risk strategy for Republican candidates and for American democracy. That is because reduced trust in election integrity can reduce motivation to vote, even when it is based on flawed information — and it is not at all clear which Americans are most likely to stay home in November's midterm elections. Midterm elections have historically drawn substantially lower turnout than presidential contests, which makes each party's mobilization effort all the more consequential.

Voter Fraud vs. Reality

Voter fraud is not a real problem in the United States. Study after study, by public officials and think tanks, has shown that voting by noncitizens and other ineligible voters happens only at minuscule, statistically insignificant levels.

Nonetheless, rhetoric from the Trump administration about voter fraud has been pervasive. Miller points to a recent claim by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that Nevada had nearly 16,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls — a number reduced to 185 when state authorities pressed for details, and to zero when the state investigated the names provided.

There is comparable behavior in Congress. Miller's own research on political communication has shown that a substantial number of members of Congress, strongly skewing Republican, make frequent use of rhetoric that undermines democratic norms and delegitimizes political institutions.

The strategy ties readily into President Donald Trump's persistent false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election. It also ties into his administration's strongly anti-immigrant agenda, which spreads fear of noncitizens corrupting U.S. politics.

How Does This Uncertain Political Environment Influence Voters?

There is clear data showing that voter confidence in elections has fallen across party lines: only 65% of Republicans, 64% of Democrats, and 57% of independent voters are very or somewhat confident that the 2026 vote count will be reliable. Conventional wisdom suggests such discouraging numbers would depress turnout.

It is not that simple, however. Extensive research confirms the axiom that a sense of civic duty is the strongest predictor of whether someone will vote, superseding trust, partisanship, and policy preferences. Any campaign's quest to mobilize additional voters must therefore find them among citizens without a strong sense of civic duty. Among these people, diminished trust in democratic processes can play out in counterintuitive ways.

Recent research on German voters is relevant to the United States. It shows that among more passive voters — those following cues from political elites — reduced trust in elections can depress motivation to vote, because there is no trustworthy result that voters are seeking to affirm. Conversely, among voters with greater skepticism about elite messaging, reduced trust can motivate increased turnout as an attempted corrective for a flawed system.

A Strong Risk of Backlash for Republicans

Among Republicans, the party's strategy carries a strong risk of backlash. Findings from MIT's Election Lab, a university research group that studies U.S. election administration and voter behavior, confirm that cues from political elites are a powerful factor in voter behavior. Specifically, cues that set expectations of a disappointing or untrustworthy result reduce motivation — why vote if you don't expect it to help achieve the desired result?

The same study finds Republican voters broadly inclined to believe GOP leaders' cues about voter fraud and to frame their expectations accordingly. Once they have made that shift, they cling firmly to the belief, even in the face of contrary empirical evidence or messaging from within the party.

In the current election cycle, 50% of Republicans surveyed distrust mail-in voting, and 51% fear voting by noncitizens. They expect election results to be fraudulent. This likely will not mobilize them, as there is no positive result they can expect to affirm. The Republican Party's messaging, in short, has painted its own voters into a corner.

Democrats, meanwhile, are less inclined to believe claims of voter fraud. But they are more inclined to be concerned about attempts to undermine the midterms by political elites making such claims — examples include the Trump administration's efforts to sow doubt about voting by mail and about alleged noncitizen voting. These efforts increase motivation to vote among Democrats. Unlike GOP voters, they see the capacity to correct for the system's vulnerabilities — the potential and urgency to overwhelm attempts at voter suppression through higher turnout.

Truth and Trust

Opponents of Trump and the GOP may find these diverging effects encouraging. No matter the results this November, however, the country is left with a precarious dynamic: increasing numbers of voters lack trust in elections and make their decisions to vote — or not — based on limited or flawed information.

Fortunately, there are signs of hope. Although voters in general are poorly informed about how elections are conducted, they can and do respond to clear information familiarizing them with election processes. Miller has seen this firsthand over the years, working with nonpartisan efforts to register young adults and train them as poll watchers — observers who monitor voting procedures at polling places. In the current election cycle, there have already been widespread efforts to broaden public awareness that state officials, not federal ones, have authority over voter rolls and election security.\nMeanwhile, fewer Americans are expected to vote by mail this year — whether due to fear of fraud or fear of the Post Office. If they instead vote in person, a silver lining is that positive personal experiences with poll workers are also associated with increased voter trust.

Looking beyond November, what Americans can hope for is a cycle in which clear election outcomes provide an opportunity to inform voters of how and why the system works. That, Miller argues, is the way to motivate more political engagement and voter turnout in the future.

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This analysis by Christopher Miller, Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law (PPEL) at the University of Richmond, was published in The Conversation, a nonprofit news organization that carries analysis written by academic researchers, and republished by Alternet under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.