As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles<\/strong> to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.<\/p>\n By <\/span>Stuart A. Thompson<\/span><\/p>\n Stuart Thompson writes about online information flows.<\/p>\n To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, <\/em>download Audm for iPhone or Android<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n November\u2019s midterm elections are still months away, but to many conservative commentators, the fix is already in. Democrats have cheated before, they say, and they will cheat again.<\/p>\n Never mind that the claims are false.<\/p>\n In Lafayette, La., Carol Ross, host of \u201cThe Ross Report,\u201d questioned how Democrats could win a presidential election again after a tumultuous few years in power. \u201cThey\u2019re going to have to cheat again,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know that. There will be rampant cheating.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n In Greenville, S.C., Charlie James, a host on 106.3 WORD, read from a blog post arguing that \u201cthe Democrats are going to lose a majority during the midterm elections unless they\u2019re able to cheat in a massive wide-scale way.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n And on WJFN in Virginia, Stephen K. Bannon, the erstwhile adviser to former President Donald J. Trump who was indicted for refusing to comply with subpoenas issued by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, summed it up this way: \u201cIf Democrats don\u2019t cheat, they don\u2019t win.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Mr. Trump introduced the nation to a flurry of false claims about widespread voter fraud after his electoral loss in 2020. The extent of his efforts has been outlined extensively in the past couple of weeks during the hearings on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot \u2014 including a speech that day in which he falsely said Democrats changed voting laws \u201cbecause they want to cheat.\u201d<\/p>\n Republican politicians and cable outlets like Fox News have carried the torch for Mr. Trump\u2019s conspiracy theories ever since. But the loudest and most consistent booster of these unfounded claims has been talk radio, where conservative hosts reduce the jumble of false voter fraud theories into a two-word mantra: \u201cDemocrats cheat.\u201d<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2022\/07\/04\/business\/21disinfo-cheat\/21disinfo-cheat-articleLarge.jpg\")
\n![](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2022\/01\/03\/business\/author-stuart-thompson\/author-stuart-thompson-thumbLarge-v2.png\")
<\/p>\nListen to This Article<\/h3>\n