What Belief in Extraterrestrials Reveals About Trust in Elections

Article by Martin La Monica                                           February 18, 2021                                          (theconversation.com)

• On January 19, 2021, the day before Biden’s inauguration, researchers at the University of New Orleans Survey Research Center conducted a state-wide poll of 633 registered voters in Louisiana. (see here for the Louisiana survey) The survey labeled those who believe that extraterrestrial beings visit Earth as ‘conspiracy oriented’. These conspiracy oriented people also tend to believe that Joe Biden was not the legitimate winner of the 2020 Presidential election due to election fraud, according to the poll.

• Researchers asked a series of questions about the participant’s religious beliefs, their beliefs in extraterrestrial life, and whether Joe Biden was the rightful winner of the 2020 US Presidential election. Recent surveys have shown that both Republicans and Democrats include a significant number of so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’, ie: the belief that hidden causes are behind real-world events. But it was always the Democrats and Independent voters who were more inclined to believe in conspiracy theories than the Republicans.

• With the evolution of social media networks, where people encounter only those who agree with them to create an ‘echo chamber’, conspiracy theories regarding the pandemic and election cycle have circulated broadly. The QAnon movement in particular, which holds the election was fraudulent, has developed from periphery to a growing mainstream group. QAnon believers see the fact that Trump has lost all the legal challenges to be just more evidence that powerful and secretive forces are at work to steal the election and hide the truth from the public.

• Most of the survey’s respondents – 59.7% – believe that life exists elsewhere in the universe than just on Earth. And nearly one-third – 32.3% – of the respondents believe that aliens have actually visited Earth, in spite of governments continuing to deny any such thing. Third-party and Independent voters are more likely to believe this than Democrats or Republicans.

• Just over half of the survey respondents do not believe Biden was rightfully elected President, with a clear partisan split. 74% of Democrats trusted the election results while only 12% of Republicans believe the election outcome. Third-party and Independent voters were more evenly divided. Of the respondents who believe aliens have visited Earth, 57.6% also believe Biden was not rightfully elected president.

• The poll reveals that a statistically significant percentage of the Louisiana population who believe that our government leaders are covering up alien visitation also believe that these government officials are misleading the public about the Presidential election results. As conspiracy theory beliefs continue to grow in the U.S., researchers expect a corresponding increase in mistrust of government officials and a drop in the public’s trust in future elections.

Partisanship is not enough to explain why so many Americans – mostly Republicans – distrust the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

As scholars in political behavior and methods, we are aware of another factor in voters’ thinking that has increased right alongside electoral distrust: Americans’ beliefs in conspiracy theories, especially those that express mistrust of government officials.

Our research, which has not yet been published, finds that these two beliefs are linked – to the extent that Americans who believe aliens have visited Earth are more likely than disbelievers to say that Joe Biden is not the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election. As conspiracy theory beliefs grow in the U.S., we expect a corresponding drop in public trust in elections.

Polling voters

Drawing on academic literature focused on trust in electoral processes, we decided to look specifically at voters’ conspiratorial beliefs. On Jan. 19, 2021, the eve of President Joe Biden’s inauguration, we conducted a survey of 633 Louisiana registered voters, selected at random. We asked a series of questions about their religious beliefs, their beliefs in extraterrestrial life and whether Joe Biden had been the rightful winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

The key questions we asked were:
• Do you believe that there is life in the universe other than on Earth?
• Do you believe that extraterrestrials have visited the Earth?
• Do you believe that Joe Biden is the rightful winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election?
We weighted the answers to reflect the statewide population balance of gender, age and race.

Aliens and electoral trust

We found that Democrats and third-party and independent voters were somewhat more inclined to believe conspiracy theories than Republicans. That fits with other recent surveys indicating that both parties do indeed have conspiratorial leanings, though the partisan divide may influence which particular conspiracies a person believes.

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