LAUSR

Significance After the 2020 election, Republican officials, including then-President Trump, publicized conspiracy theories claiming the election was “stolen,” and Republican voters reported reduced faith in electoral institutions in surveys. We test whether public stances on these conspiracy theories online were associated with a behavioral indicator of faith in elections—voting—in Georgia’s subsequent Senate runoffs. Engagement with election conspiracy theories carried small, but detectable, associations with turnout: positive among those opposing such claims and negative among promoters. These observational findings among social media users document the 2020 election-theft claims’ correspondence with real-world, offline behavior. Those promoting conspiracy theories questioning the legitimacy of the US electoral process were, at the same time, somewhat less likely than defenders to participate in it.