Doubts about electoral integrity, whether justified or groundless, can undermine faith in the legitimacy of the democratic process. Jeffrey Karp discusses the reasons for such doubts in the case of the 2016 Federal elections in Australia. A three-wave panel survey of the electorate established that one third of Australians believed (falsely) that the outcome was fraudulent – a remarkable level of scepticism in an established democracy with a long history of clean and well-run contests.
Image courtesy of interviewee
