How our views on the pandemic shape our takes on election fraud

When reports began going around of Republican election monitors complaining that they were required to stay at least six feet away from the poll workers counting votes in close races, my initial passing thought was that perhaps the observers were new to volunteering and didn't realize the rules. A six-foot distance could be standard practice to prevent intimidation or general personal discomfort over proximity to a stranger.

The actual answer, of course, is that the distance is a COVID-19 mitigation measure, because vote tallying takes place indoors and poll workers don't want to catch the coronavirus. That explanation is glaringly obvious to me now — but apparently it doesn't feel obvious to everyone. For many of President Trump's supporters, it's proof of fraud.

The distance, predictably, made it more difficult for observers to see ballots as they were processed, so much so that observers in Philly at one point broke out binoculars. If you start with the assumption that the pandemic is overhyped or a hoax entirely, that looks extremely suspicious.

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A similar case of pandemic views shaping takes on election fraud appears in GOP skepticism about this year's high rate of mail-in balloting. Representative-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican QAnon supporter from Georgia, expressed this skepticism in a viral tweet Tuesday evening:

To Greene and her fans — who probably never considered voting by mail because they saw no public health hazard in voting in person — this disparity is proof Democrats stole the election. In reality, it's the predictable result of Democrats promoting absentee voting as a good pandemic precaution while Trump spent months disparaging it.

Each side's voters largely did as they were told, and now their priors about the pandemic are shaping their assessment of the election results.