Election Fraud, Scientific Objectivity and Conspiracy Theories

I've been thinking more about the way the media is covering the possibility of election fraud and with it question of how to identify paranoid conspiracy theories. As a philosopher of science, this is actually a part of what I do professionally.

A standard move in genuine pseudo science is to point to an anomaly for the existing theory and then shift the burden of proof. "Existing theories can't explain the similarities between Egyptian and Mayan pyramids, so they must have both been made by space aliens." "Darwinian theory can't explain the development of the cell wall, so intelligent design must be true." Very often the anomalies that are pointed to are genuine anomalies. This should not be surprising--all theories are awash in anomalies. The illegitimacy of the move comes when the burden of proof is shifted.

Ok, so the rumors on the internets are full of claims of possible anomalies in the voting. These are not just discrepancies in voting patterns, but anomalies for the theory that the elections were free and fair. Even if many of these anomalies are genuine, it would be paranoid to infer from this that the election must have been stolen. This does not mean, however, that that the anomalies should be left unexamined.

I use Ron Giere’s textbook on scientific reasoning in my intro level course--in fact I’m using it next semester. One of the things I like about it is the way it handles fringe science. Rather than attempting to come up with a rigorous line between science and pseudo science, it simply puts all fringe science into the category “unconfirmed hypothesis.” (This is easy if you accept the semantic view of theories [Rutledge, subscription required]) Of course, the world is full of unconfirmed hypotheses, and most can simply be ignored. If a hypothesis posits an ontology radically incompatible with what is currently accepted (e.g. parapsychology) or is incompatible with a coherent research methodology (intelligent design) there really isn’t any reason to think about it anymore.

The possibility of vote fraud is not like this. We know that vote fraud occurs, and yes it occurs even in the U.S. (I lived in Chicago for eight years.) Vote fraud in a national election would be surprising, but it is only different from past US history in scale. Furthermore, the issue we are dealing with is obviously important.

So here’s my conclusion: the possibility of a rigged presidential election is an unconfirmed hypothesis worth investigating. This means resolving as many of the anomalies out there as we possibly can, especially the gap between the exit polls and the vote tally.