What’s split ticket voting? How does it impact election outcomes?

And: The left gets in on election conspiracy theories

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Why are Kari Lake supporters claiming election interference?

Last week, news outlets called Arizona’s U.S. Senate race for Democrat Ruben Gallego as his opponent, Republican Kari Lake, lagged behind him by more than 70,000 votes. However, during this highly-watched Senate contest, unfounded rumors insinuated wrongdoing had occurred. These rumors asked how Lake could earn a greater number of votes than Vice President Kamala Harris received, though still lose her race.

According to NPR, Donald Trump won the state with 1,770,242 votes compared with Harris’s 1,582,860. Ruben Gallego won the state with 1,676,335 votes, whereas Lake received 1,595,761 votes. Notably, Gallego was the only Democrat to win in Arizona this election. 

How do we end up with an outcome like that?

While the data behind the Arizona winners are interesting, it does not point to evidence of election fraud. These rumors ignore the impact of split-ticket voters. Ticket splitting is when, instead of voting for all candidates from one party, voters choose some candidates from one party and others from a different party. 

In 1977, 30% of voters split their ballot between parties for president and members of Congress — the height of split-ticket voting. In that election, many voters still elected senators from the opposite party, including 17 senators who were from a different party than the one they backed for president. 

Ticking splitting has been on the decline in recent decades, reaching its lowest point in 2020 when only 7.1% of voters chose candidates from different parties. In 2016, no state elected senators from a different party than their presidential choice. In 2020, Republican Susan Collins was the only senator to win while her state supported Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. 

Though it has become rarer, Kari Lake lost the Arizona Senate race despite receiving more votes than Kamala Harris in the presidential race due to the influence of ticket-splitting and voter preferences across different demographic groups. 

While many Trump supporters backed Lake, a significant number of voters who supported Trump for president opted to vote for Democrat Ruben Gallego in the Senate race, reflecting a pattern of ticket-splitting seen in other states. Conversely, Lake struggled to attract crossover support from Harris voters, with only a small number choosing her over Gallego. Additionally, Gallego was viewed more favorably than Lake by key voter groups, including Hispanic men and college-educated non-white men, which helped him secure a broader base of support. Lake’s performance is not the result of election fraud, but rather a reminder to not underestimate the power of split-ticket voters. 

How was Starlink used in the 2024 election? 

There remains a steady drumbeat of unfounded election rigging narratives. Specifically, these rumors suggest the Trump campaign used Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service to meddle with results. Some conspiracy theories claim that Musk manipulated election results using Starlink satellites to tamper with ballot-counting equipment, such as vote tabulators. While Starlink was used by some rural counties to access electronic poll books, election officials have firmly stated that there is no evidence supporting these claims. 

Moreover, election authorities from several states – including North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania – have refuted these allegations, emphasizing that their voting systems are air-gapped, meaning they are completely isolated from the internet to prevent any remote tampering. Furthermore, security measures like paper ballots and audits are in place to verify the accuracy of vote counts. 

Even in Arizona, where Starlink helped improve connectivity for electronic poll books in rural areas, election officials highlighted that the system had no involvement in vote tallying. Experts and cybersecurity agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), have reported no issues or malicious activity affecting the integrity of the election. Despite the lack of evidence, the disinformation continues to spread on social media, but election security experts have emphatically rejected the notion that Starlink or any similar technology could alter election results. 

Unlike “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theories that emerged in 2020 after Pres. Biden’s win, these rumors pushed by “BlueAnon” accounts have not gained the support of Democratic leaders. Nevertheless, the fact still remains that our elections have been and continue to be fair and free of widespread fraud no matter which side of the aisle alleges otherwise.