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Doubting the fairness of a disappointing decision is not a Republican or Democratic phenomenon – it’s a human one.
When a decision is made and people get the outcome they want, they often tend to see the outcome as fair. For example, when people apply for a promotion and get it, they are more than likely to believe they deserved it. But if they didn’t get the promotion, it is likely to drive a different reaction. At that point, the process used to make the decision becomes of utmost importance. Some might ask whether the process was free of bias. To investigate this perplexing phenomenon, it’s important to understand the psychology of fairness.
Fair procedures usually matter
RESEARCH consistently finds that when people get an unfavorable outcome but believe the process used to make the decision was fair, they react more positively.
They may be disappointed, but they tend to accept the decision and stay loyal to the institution that made the decision. This is known as the “fair process effect”: the tendency for fair procedures to mitigate negative reactions to an unfavorable decision.
Yet there are those — mostly Democrats and mainstream journalists — who continue to insist that voter fraud is a myth. The New York Times' Glenn Thrush once declared, for example, that "there is essentially no voter fraud in this country."
When shown concrete examples, the response is usually "well, it's not widespread."
But that reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of elections. You don't need "widespread" voter fraud to change election outcomes, just small-scale efforts targeted on tight or consequential elections.
Solutions Are Simple
The fact is that committing voter fraud isn't all that difficult, but minimizing it is easy. Cleaning up registration rolls, enacting voter ID requirements, using paper ballots, and implementing better controls on early and absentee voting would make non-citizen voting and other forms of fraud virtually impossible.
Critics of such efforts say that they will only serve to suppress the vote of minorities and the poor — that is, voters who tend to vote Democratic. They want to make it easier and easier to register and vote.
But there's no evidence that voter ID laws suppress turnout. In fact, of 11 states that adopted strict voter ID laws, nine either saw increased turnout in 2016, or had turnout rates higher than the national average. (Heritage Foundation)
Nor does cleaning up registration rolls, aggressively pursuing voter fraud cases, using paper ballots, or other measures to ensure the integrity of the ballot suppress legitimate voters.
Those who say voter fraud is no big deal should realize something. Every single vote cast fraudulently cancels out one legitimate vote. They need to ask themselves how they'd feel if it was their vote being canceled.
Resources:
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/voter-fraud-midterm-elections/