When Donald Trump misplaced his re-election bid in 2020, many Republicans — Trump included — made unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud. Now, following Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 loss, a few of her liberal supporters are taking to social media to allege fraud.
“I spent my early profession in pc safety for the Navy and NSA,” wrote Wayne Madsen, a author recognized to unfold conspiracy theories, in a November 6 Threads publish. “I’m starting to imagine our election was massively hacked similar to occurred just a few weeks in the past within the Republic of Georgia. Suppose Elon Musk, StarLink, Peter Thiel, [Steve] Bannon, [Michael] Flynn and [Vladimir] Putin. 20 million Democratic votes don’t disappear on their very own.”
One other poster discouraged Harris from conceding the election, equally alleging election discrepancies. “20 million much less votes than final election? 14 million extra votes for Trump over Harris? Trump and people round him had been greater than assured Trump would win,” learn the November 6 Threads publish. “We’d like an investigation. This election was stolen.”
The Fb, Instagram and Threads posts had been flagged as a part of Meta’s efforts to fight false information and misinformation on its Information Feed.
These claims are inaccurate. There have been no credible allegations of election fraud or proof of votes that disappeared throughout the 2024 election.
On November 6, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company Director Jen Easterly mentioned that election officers are nonetheless counting votes and reported no incidents of compromised election safety.
“As we now have mentioned repeatedly, our election infrastructure has by no means been safer and the election neighborhood by no means higher ready to ship protected, safe, free, and truthful elections for the American individuals,” Easterly mentioned. “That is what we noticed yesterday within the peaceable and safe train of democracy. Importantly, we now have no proof of any malicious exercise that had a fabric impression on the safety or integrity of our election infrastructure.”
Equally, Ishan Mehta, director of media and democracy at Frequent Trigger, a public advocacy group, mentioned the 2024 election was protected, safe and “fairly easy”.
He mentioned Frequent Trigger has 1000’s of volunteers in all 50 states who monitored the election at polling websites and vote-counting centres. The group additionally has a staff that displays chatter about voting on social media.
Due to that, Frequent Trigger sometimes is aware of when election points come up — and people incidents sometimes find yourself being “some form of machine or human error that we now have techniques to right”, Mehta mentioned.
Such incidents don’t imply “the election was hacked, or there was any form of nefarious exercise to alter any People’ precise votes”, he mentioned.
“There is no such thing as a proof that any votes disappeared,” or of different fraudulent exercise throughout the 2024 election, Mehta mentioned. He additionally mentioned he knew of no proof of makes an attempt — not to mention profitable efforts — to “hack” or “steal” the election.
Even when such makes an attempt occurred, they’d fail, consultants mentioned.
“There is no such thing as a one ‘hack’ to alter the end result of an election or to alter vote totals,” Mehta mentioned. “Every state has its personal impartial, non-connected techniques,” and election staff are educated to run elections and repair any points that come up and take that accountability critically.
2024 voter turnout remains to be being calculated, however fluctuations don’t sign fraud, consultants say
Consultants repeatedly instructed PolitiFact that voter turnout ebbs and flows from election to election.
Paul Gronke, a Reed Faculty political science professor, mentioned elements comparable to enthusiasm for the candidates, marketing campaign efforts and an election’s competitiveness all have an effect on voter turnout.
“If the ultimate outcomes present that 20 million fewer votes had been solid for the Democratic candidate for President in 2024 than in 2020, what that signifies is that 20 million voters decided to not solid a poll, both not prove in any respect, or not test the highest contest,” Gronke mentioned. “That’s the top of the story.”
Election denial is antidemocratic, mentioned David Becker, the chief director and founding father of the Middle for Election Innovation and Analysis, a nonpartisan group that works with election officers from each political events to construct belief in elections.
“We’ll know the complete turnout as soon as the votes are licensed by the states, in just a few weeks,” he instructed PolitiFact. Becker pointed to knowledge from the College of Florida: “We’re on monitor to have the second highest turnout in votes in US historical past, and the second- or third-highest turnout in share since 18-year-olds had been granted the proper to vote,” he mentioned.
As of 4pm on November 7, Trump obtained 72.8 million votes and Harris obtained about 68 million votes. In 2020, Trump obtained 74.2 million votes and President Joe Biden obtained 81.2 million.
“Election officers, election displays, election attorneys, partisan observers, non-partisan observers, and election science consultants like myself pay very shut consideration to elections at each stage,” Gronke mentioned. “There have been stories of some glitches in scattered areas. There is no such thing as a proof in any respect of something fraudulent, actually not on the form of scale being prompt right here.”
Our ruling
Threads posts alleged election fraud and mentioned 20 million Democratic votes “disappeared” in 2024.
Election consultants and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company reported no proof of disappearing votes or widespread fraud throughout the 2024 presidential election.
It’s regular for voter turnout to fluctuate from election to election, consultants mentioned.
We price these claims Pants on Hearth!
