Conservatives spread false claims on Twitter about electoral fraud as Iowans prepare to caucus

[gratuitous]

1. Doesn't matter if the claims are false

The claims just have to get out there. By the time they're debunked, the narrative is set, and with the conniving amplification from Fox, the public's mind is convinced that something fraudulent has just gone on.

Every election day, rumors fly about buses tooling around various locales where everyone piles off at a polling place, casts ballots, then hops back on to do it again at another polling place. It's preposterous, but the story circulates anyway. It gets debunked somewhere down the line by reputable news outlets, but it seeps along just below the surface until the next election day, where it springs up fully formed like Athena from Zeus' head. By that time, the media have forgotten all about the same story that breathlessly circulated two or four years ago, and they report it straight, as if it was news.