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i'm seeing a lot of people posting - wait, how is it only fraudulent when democrats win? 
on conservative media/information seeking for those interested.... 1/
on conservative media/information seeking for those interested.... 1/
the central logic of a "stolen" election has been in the works for awhile and is rooted in the idea that mail-in voting a fraudulent (despite the fact that this is how military overseas are able to vote). 2/
trump and his supporters galvanized around this idea for months leading up to the election. Pushing keywords like "ballot harvesting" (see this episode of Trump Team Online http://www.wnycstudios.org/story/trump-inc-campaign-media/ via @wnycstudios) 3/
it's also supported by laws that prevent mail-in votes from being counted before election day (in some states even before polls close) 4/ https://ballotpedia.org/When_states_can_begin_processing_and_counting_absentee/mail-in_ballots,_2020
Since Trump/conservatives downplayed the threat of COVID-19 and encouraged voters to only vote in person the "early returns" made people closely following the election seem like Trump had one. 5/
Count all "LEGAL" votes - allowed Trump to still support military mail-in voting ("legal") while supporting the unsubstantiated claim that other mail-in votes were fraudulent 6/
To be clear, this is rooted in systemic racism. The purposeful disenfranchisement of historically underrepresented groups who are more likely to vote by mail by politicians who are already in power. 7/
but I would argue most Trump supporters don't understand gerrymandering or how Black votes have been purposefully suppressed. my research suggest that they actively sought out information about "ballot harvesting" or "dominion voting" a "fraudulent election" 8/
before MSM caught on, these returns existed in a "data void" ( @zephoria / Golebiewski) - so when people were trying to seek out more info on these claims, returns supported the allegations. 9/
now that there is lots of better information available most of the general returns for something like ballot harvesting will debunk accusations of election fraud, but my research demonstrates that searches are ideologically driven and that specificity matters. 10/
for example, @Google something like "ballot harvesting unconstitutional" today, and the top returns insinuates it will threaten the integrity of the 2020 election ... 11/
anyway, it's more complicated than "just my side lost so I think it's a fraud." the logic that undermines our democratic process is the result of months and months of media manipulation on the part of high-ranking conservative politicians and the right-wing media ecosystem (end)
