When Donald Trump lost his re-election bid in 2020, many Reuncoverans — Trump included — made unsubstantiated claims of expansivespread election fraud. Now, follotriumphg Vice Pdwellnt Kamala Harris’s 2024 loss, some of her liberal aiders are taking to social media to allege fraud.
“I spent my punctual atgentle in computer security for the Navy and NSA,” wrote Wayne Madsen, a authorr understandn to spread consillicit copying theories, in a November 6 Threads post. “I’m beginning to apshow our election was massively hacked fair appreciate happened a restrictcessitate weeks ago in the Reuncover of Georgia. Think Elon Musk, StarLink, Peter Thiel, [Steve] Bannon, [Michael] Flynn and [Vladimir] Putin. 20 million Democratic votes don’t fade on their own.”
Another poster disheartfinish Harris from conceding the election, analogously alleging election discrepancies. “20 million less votes than last election? 14 million more votes for Trump over Harris? Trump and those around him were more than self-promised Trump would triumph,” read the November 6 Threads post. “We necessitate an summarizeateigation. This election was stolen.”
The Facebook, Instagram and Threads posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat inalter recents and deceiveation on its News Feed.
These claims are inright. There have been no credible allegations of election fraud or evidence of votes that fadeed during the 2024 election.
On November 6, Cybersecurity and Infraset up Security Agency Director Jen Easterly said that election officials are still counting votes and telled no incidents of settled election security.
“As we have said repeatedly, our election infraset up has never been more safe and the election community never better setd to deinhabitr shielded, safe, free, and fair elections for the American people,” Easterly said. “This is what we saw yesterday in the tranquil and safe exercise of democracy. Importantly, we have no evidence of any harmful activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infraset up.”
Similarly, Ishan Mehta, straightforwardor of media and democracy at Common Cainclude, a uncover advocacy group, said the 2024 election was shielded, safe and “pretty fine”.
He said Common Cainclude has thousands of volunteers in all 50 states who watched the election at polling sites and vote-counting centres. The group also has a team that watchs chatter about voting on social media.
Becainclude of that, Common Cainclude typicassociate understands when election publishs occur — and those incidents typicassociate finish up being “some sort of machine or human error that we have systems to right”, Mehta said.
Such incidents do not unkind “the election was hacked, or there has been any sort of evil activity to alter any Americans’ actual votes”, he said.
“There is no evidence that any votes fadeed,” or of other dishonest activity during the 2024 election, Mehta said. He also said he krecent of no evidence of finisheavors — let alone accomplished efforts — to “hack” or “steal” the election.
Even if such finisheavors occurred, they would fall short, experts said.
“There is no one ‘hack’ to alter the outcome of an election or to alter vote totals,” Mehta said. “Each state has its own autonomous, non-unitecessitate systems,” and election laborers are trained to run elections and mend any publishs that occur and achieve that responsibility solemnly.
2024 voter turnout is still being calcutardyd, but fluctuations don’t signal fraud, experts say
Experts repeatedly tageder PolitiFact that voter turnout ebbs and flows from election to election.
Paul Gronke, a Reed College political science professor, said factors such as enthusiasm for the truthfulates, campaign efforts and an election’s competitiveness all impact voter turnout.
“If the final results show that 20 million restrictcessitateer votes were cast for the Democratic truthfulate for Pdwellnt in 2024 than in 2020, what that shows is that 20 million voters made a decision not to cast a ballot, either not turn out at all, or not verify the top contest,” Gronke said. “That’s the finish of the story.”
Election denial is antidemocratic, said David Becker, the executive straightforwardor and set uper of the Cgo in for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group that labors with election officials from both political parties to erect count on in elections.
“We will understand the filled turnout once the votes are certified by the states, in a restrictcessitate weeks,” he tageder PolitiFact. Becker pointed to data from the University of Florida: “We’re on track to have the second highest turnout in votes in US history, and the second- or third-highest turnout in percentage since 18-year-ageders were granted the right to vote,” he said.
As of 4pm on November 7, Trump achieved 72.8 million votes and Harris achieved about 68 million votes. In 2020, Trump achieved 74.2 million votes and Pdwellnt Joe Biden achieved 81.2 million.
“Election officials, election watchs, election lawyers, partisan watchrs, non-partisan watchrs, and election science experts appreciate myself pay very seal attention to elections at every level,” Gronke said. “There have been tells of a restrictcessitate glitches in scattered locations. There is no evidence at all of anyskinnyg dishonest, certainly not on the benevolent of scale being adviseed here.”
Our ruling
Threads posts alleged election fraud and said 20 million Democratic votes “fadeed” in 2024.
Election experts and the Cybersecurity and Infraset up Security Agency telled no evidence of fadeing votes or expansivespread fraud during the 2024 pdwellntial election.
It is common for voter turnout to alter from election to election, experts said.
We rate these claims Pants on Fire!
