The boy who cried voter fraud

We all know how the old fable goes. The shepherd boy cries for the villagers, claiming his flock of sheep is under attack by a wolf. Each time, the villagers rush to defend his flock. And each time, it turns out the boy is lying about the wolf. When a wolf finally attacks the boy’s herd and he cries for help, the villagers assume he is lying. The sheep die a merciless death.

Now, this fable may not map plainly onto claims of election fraud, but the moral may help us understand the threat they pose.

The elections of 1876 and 2020 are frequently compared in discussions of contested election results. But comparing the two paints a misleading picture. In 1876, the election was undeniably rigged, as Shiela Blackford explains, in the form of stuffed ballot boxes, tricking voters, and blatant intimidation tactics. The use of these tactics led to a justified challenge of the results.

In 2020, no comparable corruption was found. Yet Donald Trump challenged the results anyways.

By most accounts, the 1876 election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden was a chaotic mess of genuine electoral fraud. Tilden won the popular vote, but only because of rampant voter manipulation in key Southern states, as Michael Fitzgerald and Mark Bohnhorst detail. Ballots were stuffed. Illiterate voters were deceived. Violence was used to keep Black voters away from the polls. The contested results in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana were far from hearsay — they were based on documented fraud. 

Hayes cried fraud, and as it turns out, he was telling the truth. The villagers, in the form of the Election Commission, stepped in to defend the country from the voter fraud, delivering Hayes his rightful victory.

Fast forward to 2020. Despite a pile of allegations, there was no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud. Every lawsuit alleging rigged voting machines or fake ballots was thrown out, often with judges — including Trump appointees — pointing to a clear lack of proof behind any of Trump’s claims. But the myth persists, and Trump and his supporters only double down on the claim.

This is where the real danger lies. In 1876, challenging the results was a legitimate response to a rigged election. In 2020, it was a reaction to unfounded conspiracy theories. 

Because the claims of voter fraud were real in 1876, it made Trump’s claims seem — at least to some — like they could have legitimacy. After all, we are told that history is bound to repeat itself. Why not in the form of another fraudulent election?

As it turns out, though, Trump was just a boy to cry wolf, alleging voter fraud and riling up voters against a contrived threat. But while Trump cried wolf and “villagers” swarmed to verify or disprove his claims, the real issue of voter suppression continues to be ignored. Voter suppression tactics continue to quietly disenfranchise voters across the country. Laws are restricting access to the polls for millions of Americans, disproportionately harming marginalized groups, yet the national conversation remains fixated on debunked fraud theories.

False claims of voter fraud aren’t just distractions — they’re dangerous. They erode the foundation of democratic participation, making it harder to address the real problems. If we want to strengthen our elections, we need to strengthen voting access. That’s the lesson we should take away from 2020, not that it was anything like 1876.