Why Do Citizens Perceive Free and Fair Elections as Fraudulent? The Role of Elite and Media Information Cues

In this article, we investigate why citizens perceive elections with high integrity as fraudulent. We propose an information seeking and processing model to explain variations in citizens’ perceptions of election integrity. We expect the impact of information about election integrity on citizens’ perceptions to vary, first, by the accuracy of sources reporting on the electoral process, and second, by differences in citizens’ seeking and processing information. We test our arguments with National Election Studies data on the Dutch 2021 national parliamentary elections, held under COVID regulations that made concerns about election integrity quite widespread. We find that traditional news media use is associated with more positive perceptions of election integrity, while social media use and exposure to elite cues about election integrity lead to more negative perceptions. We also find that while traditional media use appears to mitigate the winner–loser gap in perceived electoral integrity, social media use exacerbates it.