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 laptop safety for the Navy and NSA,” wrote Wayne Madsen, a author identified to unfold conspiracy theories, in a November 6 Threads post. “I’m starting to consider 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 have been greater than assured Trump would win,” learn the November 6 Threads post. “We want an investigation. This election was stolen.”
The Fb, Instagram and Threads posts have 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 through 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 group by no means higher ready to ship secure, safe, free, and truthful elections for the American folks,” Easterly said. “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 affect on the safety or integrity of our election infrastructure.”
Equally, Ishan Mehta, director of media and democracy at Widespread Trigger, a public advocacy group, mentioned the 2024 election was secure, safe and “fairly clean”.
He mentioned Widespread 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 crew that displays chatter about voting on social media.
Due to that, Widespread Trigger usually is aware of when election points come up — and people incidents usually find yourself being “some type of machine or human error that we now have programs to right”, Mehta mentioned.
Such incidents don’t imply “the election was hacked, or there was any type of nefarious exercise to alter any People’ precise votes”, he mentioned.
“There isn’t any proof that any votes disappeared,” or of different fraudulent exercise through 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 might fail, specialists mentioned.
“There isn’t any 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 programs,” and election staff are educated to run elections and repair any points that come up and take that accountability severely.
2024 voter turnout remains to be being calculated, however fluctuations don’t sign fraud, specialists say
Consultants repeatedly advised PolitiFact that voter turnout ebbs and flows from election to election.
Paul Gronke, a Reed School political science professor, mentioned components reminiscent of 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 have been forged for the Democratic candidate for President in 2024 than in 2020, what that signifies is that 20 million voters decided to not forged a poll, both not prove in any respect, or not examine the highest contest,” Gronke mentioned. “That’s the top of the story.”
Election denial is antidemocratic, said David Becker, the manager 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 are going to know the complete turnout as soon as the votes are licensed by the states, in just a few weeks,” he advised PolitiFact. Becker pointed to data 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 have been granted the fitting 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 legal professionals, partisan observers, non-partisan observers, and election science specialists like myself pay very shut consideration to elections at each degree,” Gronke mentioned. “There have been stories of some glitches in scattered places. There isn’t any proof in any respect of something fraudulent, definitely not on the type of scale being prompt right here.”
Our ruling
Threads posts alleged election fraud and mentioned 20 million Democratic votes “disappeared” in 2024.
Election specialists and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company reported no proof of disappearing votes or widespread fraud through the 2024 presidential election.
It’s regular for voter turnout to fluctuate from election to election, specialists mentioned.
We fee these claims Pants on Hearth!
