It was an explosive allegation of possible voter fraud — exactly the kind of thing former President Donald Trump and conservative pundits have spent years warning Republican voters to fear: More than 50 voters registered at a single address in Erie, Pennsylvania.

“No one lives there,” he claimed Cliff Maloneya republican canvasser who discovered the alleged fraud, in a post on X which went viral and garnered over 2.8 million views. “We will not let the Democrats count on illegal votes,” he added.

Only one problem: a lot of people live there. The address in question is a convent belonging to the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, a group of “nearly 70” nuns. who have been based in Erie since the 1850s. The the names of the mothers who live there they match many of those listed as “illegal votes” by Maloney. In a statement Responding to Maloney’s post, the group called the claim “patently false” and encouraged everyone to be more careful about what they see and read before the election.

“A free republic depends on free and fair elections,” Sister Stephanie Schmidt said in the statement. “It depends equally on a discerning and conscientious citizenry who doesn’t take anyone’s word for it with a social media platform.”

Good advice. Actual and proven instances of mass voter fraud on the scale necessary to change the outcome of an election—even in a super competitive state like Pennsylvania—are practically non-existentdespite apparently relentlessly argues the opposite.

Electoral fraud is a reality in any democracy, but it is usually the result of carelessness on the part of single voters or ballots there too there are extensive processes in place TO identify and correct these mistakes when they appear. After the 2020 election, the Associated Press found 475 possible voter cases fraud in six states where 25 million votes were cast. Major claims of voter fraud in Arizona, Georgiaand everywhere Rudy Giuliani looked it evaporated on closer inspection.

At some point, the lack of evidence for widespread voter fraud should make Americans more skeptical of these claims. Instead, it seems the opposite may be happening.

Only 39 percent among respondents to a recent University of Massachusetts Amherst POLL said they were “very confident” that their voters would be counted accurately in this year’s election. That includes just 26 percent of Republicans and 16 percent of independents. Even when including those who say they are “somewhat confident” that the votes will be tabulated correctly, only about two-thirds of the country trusts that the election result will reflect the votes cast.

A similar partisan divide emerged in a recent Pew Research Center study who asked if “it will be clear who won the election” after all the votes have been counted. Only 58 percent of Trump voters are “very” or “somewhat” confident that those final counts will be clear, compared to 81 percent of Vice President Kamala Harris voters who are prepared to trust the process.

This is a potentially worrisome issue because much of the legitimacy of any democratic system is tied to the public. perception of the electoral system. Even if voter fraud or other electoral messes i am extremely rarethe belief that they are rampant undermines that essential trust — on which the entire edifice of government “of the people, by the people, for the people” is built.

A cynic might think that Republican partisans — from Maloney to Tucker Carlson to Trump himself — are deliberately spreading lies and exaggerating claims of voter fraud to sow doubts that could metastasize into total chaos later this month.

But, as in those rare cases of actual voter fraud, it is always better to admit your incompetence (or at least willful ignorance) rather than malice. Perhaps more important is the point made by Sister Schmidt: Don’t believe everything you see on social media.