“Stop the steal”: misinformation correction and misperceptions about election fraud

Purpose: The two primary purposes of the current study are to further understand the impact of corrective messages on misperceptions about election fraud in the US and to test the effect of party affiliation of the accused politician on participants’ election misperceptions. Design/methodology/approach: To assess these relationships, we conducted a between-subjects randomized online experiment. Findings: Our results show that participants in the control condition held higher misperceptions than those who were exposed to a correction message. Findings also showed that liberal media use was negatively associated with election fraud misperceptions, while conservative media use, information from Donald Trump, authoritarianism and self-reported conservatives were positively associated with election fraud misperceptions. Originality/value: Experimental test to understand election fraud misperceptions, using our own original stimulus materials.