Fact check: 20 million Democratic votes ‘lost’ in US election? | US Election 2024 News

When Donald Trump lost his re-election bid in 2020, many Republicans, including Trump, made baseless claims of widespread election fraud. Now, in the wake of Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss in 2024, some of her liberal supporters are claiming fraud on social media.

“I spent the early years of my career in computer security for the Navy and NSA,” wrote author Wayne Madsen, known for spreading conspiracy theories. November 6 Topic post. “I’m starting to believe our election has been hacked on a massive scale, just like the Republic of Georgia a few weeks ago. Think Elon Musk, StarLink, Peter Thiel, (Steve) Bannon, (Michael) Flynn and (Vladimir) Putin. “The votes of 20 million Democrats will not disappear automatically.”

Another poster similarly dissuaded Harris from conceding, claiming electoral differences. “20 million fewer votes than last election? Will 14 million more votes be cast for Trump instead of Harris? “Trump and those around him were very confident that Trump would win.” November 6 Topic post. “We need an investigation. This election was stolen.”

Facebook, Instagram and Threads posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat fake news and misinformation on its News Feed.

These claims are unfounded. There are no credible allegations of election fraud or votes missing during the 2024 election.

On Nov. 6, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly said election officials were still counting votes and that no incidents of election security being compromised had been reported.

“As we have said repeatedly, our election infrastructure has never been more secure, and the election community has never been more prepared to deliver safe, secure, free and fair elections to the American people.” Easter said. “We saw this yesterday in the peaceful and safe implementation of democracy. “More importantly, we have no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure.”

Similarly, Ishan Mehta, director of media and democracy at the public advocacy group Common Cause, said the 2024 elections are safe, secure and “pretty seamless.”

He said Common Cause has thousands of volunteers in all 50 states monitoring elections at polling places and vote counting centers. The group also has a team that monitors conversations about voting on social media.

That’s why Common Cause usually knows when election problems arise, Mehta said, and those incidents usually end up being “some kind of machine or human error that we have systems in place to fix.”

He said such incidents do not mean “the election was hacked or that there was any nefarious activity to alter the actual votes of any American.”

Mehta said there is “no evidence of any missing votes” or other fraudulent activity during the 2024 election. He also said he knew of no evidence of any attempt to “hack” or “steal” the election, let alone successful efforts.

Even if such attempts were made, they would fail, experts said.

“There is no ‘hacking’ by anyone who would change the outcome of the election or change the vote totals,” Mehta said. “Each state has its own independent, unconnected systems,” and election workers are trained to run elections, resolve any issues that arise, and take that responsibility seriously.

2024 voter turnout still being calculated, but fluctuations do not indicate fraud, experts say

Experts have repeatedly told PolitiFact that voter turnout ebbs and flows from election to election.

Paul Gronke, a political science professor at Reed University, said factors such as enthusiasm for candidates, campaign efforts and electoral competitiveness influence voter turnout.

“If the final results show that there were 20 million fewer votes cast for the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2024 than in 2020, that means 20 million voters decided not to vote, either did not show up at all, or did not vote.” “Don’t control the top competition,” Gronke said. “That’s the end of the story.”

Denying the election is anti-democratic in question David Becker is the founder and director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group that works with election officials from both political parties to build confidence in elections.

“We will know the full turnout in a few weeks once the votes are certified by the states,” he told PolitiFact. Becker points out data From the University of Florida: “We are on track to have the highest voter turnout in U.S. history, and the second or third highest turnout in percentage terms since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote.” in question.

as of 7 November at 16.00Trump received 72.8 million votes and Harris approximately 68 million. Inside 2020Trump received 74.2 million votes and President Joe Biden received 81.2 million votes.

“Election officials, election observers, election lawyers, partisan observers, nonpartisan observers and election science experts like myself are looking at elections very closely at all levels,” Gronke said. “There have been reports of a few glitches in scattered locations. There is no evidence of fraud, especially not on the scale suggested here.”

Our decision

Threads shared claims of election fraud and said 20 million Democratic votes were “lost” in 2024.

Election experts and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have reported no evidence of lost ballots or widespread fraud during the 2024 presidential election.

Experts said it is normal for voter turnout to fluctuate from election to election.

We evaluate these claims Hot Pants!