By influencing beliefs about electoral quality, international election observation missions (EOMs) play an important role in shaping post-election contention. As the number and variety of international organizations (IOs) involved in election observation has grown, many elections host multiple missions and disagreement among them is common. This phenomenon of competing judgments is particularly prevalent in electoral authoritarian regimes, as leaders seek to invite ‘friendly’ IOs to counteract possible criticism from more established EOMs. Drawing from research about the varying domestic credibility of EOMs and the demobilizing effects of disinformation, we argue that compared to unified criticism, competing judgments among EOMs increase uncertainty about electoral quality, which in turn dampens post-election contention. Using newly available data on EOM statements as reported in the international media, we show that competing judgments reduce post-election contention in a sample of 115 countries from 1990–2012. A survey experiment in Turkey solidifies the micro-foundations of our argument: individuals exposed to competing judgments have more positive perceptions of election quality and less support for post-election mobilization, compared to those receiving information only about EOM criticism. Our findings provide systematic evidence that governments holding flawed elections have incentives to invite multiple election observation missions to hedge against the political risks of criticism.

通过影响人们对选举质量的看法，国际选举观察团 (EOM) 在塑造选举后的争论中发挥着重要作用。随着参与选举观察的国际组织（IO）的数量和种类不断增加，许多选举都有多个任务，而且它们之间的分歧很常见。这种相互竞争判断的现象在选举独裁政权中尤为普遍，因为领导人寻求邀请“友好”的国际组织来抵消来自更成熟的欧洲组织可能的批评。根据有关 EOM 国内信誉差异和虚假信息的散兵影响的研究，我们认为，与统一批评相比，EOM 之间相互竞争的判断增加了选举质量的不确定性，从而抑制了选举后的争论。利用国际媒体报道的关于 EOM 声明的最新数据，我们发现，在 1990 年至 2012 年 115 个国家的样本中，竞争性判断减少了选举后的争论。土耳其的一项调查实验巩固了我们论点的微观基础：与那些仅收到有关 EOM 批评信息的人相比，接触到竞争性判断的个人对选举质量有更积极的看法，对选举后动员的支持更少。我们的研究结果提供了系统的证据，表明举行有缺陷的选举的政府有动机邀请多个选举观察团来对冲批评的政治风险。