Fanning the flames of a partisan divide: debate viewing, vote choice, and perceptions of vote count accuracy

Elections should serve to reaffirm a citizenry's belief in the legitimacy of its political processes and outcomes. This study focuses on perceptions of vote count accuracy as a criterion variable. An argument is offered that voters' personal perceptions of post-election vote count accuracy are predicted by vote choice, with those citizens who did not vote for the winning candidate having to deal with the cognitive dissonance created by the election outcome. The model offered in this work focuses on an interaction between partisan strength and debate viewing as predictor of vote choice. In addition, an indirect effect of partisanship on vote choice through debate viewing is explored. Debate viewing is shown to promote partisan voting, and vote choice serves as a strong predictor of perceptions of vote count accuracy. A subset of the 2004 National Annenberg general election panel data (N = 5,660) was used for this secondary analysis. Keywords: U.S. presidential elections; cognitive dissonance; debate viewing; partisanship; vote accuracy