The Florida Election Conspiracy Theories: Hoaxes, Specks of Evidence, Mistrust

Conspiracy theorists are popping up with election conspiracy theories. They complain that officials in heavily-populated areas of Florida were rigging the vote for the Democrats. They have no shred of evidence, which is typical. They are very angry, which is also typical. They are not looking at Georgia, where there seems to be at least some real evidence of official misconduct. 

All conspiracy theories start with some shred of evidence or truth. This one has less than usual, but it has some. From a few specks of real but shadowy and misleading information, conspiracy theorists project a massive but fictional picture. Here we go:

The Specks of Truth Behind the Conspiracy Theory

1. Somebody photographed a truck full of gray boxes marked “ballots” getting loaded onto a truck. Some poll workers loading ballot boxes into their personal cars, which, it turns out, is entirely legal. Fox News, always good for a good conspiracy theory, reported that: “Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio has highlighted a range of possible problems in the county—including a suspected mystery truck delivery of ballots.” This was all nonsense; completed ballots were marked in orange and the ballots in the truck were in gray boxes, indicating that they were blank supplies.

2.  Mail-in ballots are also being counted slowly, which is not a big surprise, since there are many of them and they need to be processed individually. This led President Trump himself to complain: “The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible – ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!” Florida Governor Rick Scott and Senator Marco Rubio, both of whom should know better, said similar things. There was, of course no shred of evidence for any of it. Florida Judge Jack Tuter noted that there was no evidence of electoral wrongdoing in Broward County.

3. All conspiracy theories start with deep suspicion. There had been past misconduct in Broward County, although none of it was on a big scale, and this makes many Republicans apprehensive.

Now, the facts are still coming out and the election, which looks close, will probably be litigated for weeks. Still, the conspiracy theories seem to be unusually groundless. 

Two Steps of Conspiracy-Mongering

Like many conspiracy theories, this one takes two steps. In step one, unscrupulous people propose hoaxes to help their selfish causes. In this case, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio probably know perfectly well that their accusations lacked merit. Scott promised to order state law enforcement to investigate the ballots in Broward County. So far, this doesn’t seem to have happened, since Scott never actually filed a criminal complaint. (An interesting point here: politicians conjure up wild accusations with impunity, while filing a false police report is serious business.) Election observers have found no evidence of misconduct. Scott’s team filed lawsuits. Time will tell what the judges think about them. Democrats responded with typically overheated rhetoric about Scott wanting to be a third-world dictator.

In step two, people who are motivated to mistrust Democrats or who fear government can pick up the conspiracy theory, spread it, and amplify it. My social media feed is packed with people talking about Democrats stealing elections. Gateway Pundit, which is an even better source of conspiracy theories than Fox News, quoted South Carolina’s once-reasonable Senator Lindsey Graham: “There’s nothing Democrats won't to do to win.” The once-reasonable but now-inane National Review published an editorial calling for Broward County’s election supervisor, Brenda Snipes, to be fired for incompetence. One anonymous social media user posted, “Meet Brenda Snipes. She is the Broward County Supervisor Of Elections & also as corrupt as they come. Hmm. A truck load of ballots showed up in Broward on election night. Really?” Well, no, not really. Another posted, “This is out of control. Gillum and Nelson are insisting and trying to count illegal alien votes to surpass DeSantis and Scott. Illegal aliens are the biggest influencers in our elections, PERIOD. Foreign nationals will determine who our senator is going to be?! I DON’T THINK SO.” (What apparently started this was that Democratic lawyers protested that one ballot from someone who might be a citizen was being excluded.)

Rubio, Scott, and Trump spread some pretty wild accusations. Once they had the thing cranked up, however, the conspiracy theory became wilder and wilder. 

Anyway, the election conspiracy theory started with tiny, tiny snippets of information. There really were trucks, although the trucks were not doing anything illegal. There really are a lot of ballots, and it’s taking too long to count them. True enough, but not evidence of misconduct.

But let us suppose that you are a voter, and that your index of suspicion is at hair-trigger level. Let us suppose that hundreds of Russian bots swamping over social media are reinforcing your suspicions. Let us suppose that popular talk radio hosts, few of them seem to have much information on any subject, are spewing out versions of the conspiracy theory. The bandwagon effect takes hold, and many people become convinced to believe something for which there is no evidence at all. Indeed, many people become convinced of something that seems to have been refuted.

So, the people who invent the conspiracy theories – in this case, Republican politicians – surely knew that they were speaking falsely. Unless we engage in critical thinking, however, we too easily convince ourselves to believe things that are unproven. We even convince ourselves of things that have been disproved. So, countless people who have good intentions, but poor analytical skills, come to believe absurdities. Mistrust spreads. Notice, of course, that mere suspicion that maybe something is wrong explodes into certainty that something is wrong - all without evidence.

Mistrust underlies all conspiracy theories. But when we believe an unproven conspiracy theory, we get angrier, and our mistrust grows. And grows. And grows! Where will it end?

As George Lakoff said, people make political decisions on the basis of emotion, not logic.