We only have one more election with clear and verifiable winners, overseen by hundreds of thousands of election officials. Civil servants have been suffering for years annoyanceand despite his success, he is still accused of taking part in a massive and impossible conspiracy – a conspiracy led by the party out of power to steal the election and cover up all the evidence.
Despite all the evidence, many still believe that the opposition Democrats are secretly defeating the power of the Trump administration 2020 to steal the election with 7 million popular votes and 70 electoral votes. And he believes that the Biden administration will suddenly lose its mythical election-stealing power when it takes control of the executive branch in 2024.
Within hours of President-elect Donald Trump’s predicted victory in the 2024 election, conspiracy theories began to spread among those who opposed him. On the left, there are claims that “the math just doesn’t add up,” that 20 million ballots were “lost” or that Elon Musk’s Starlink uploaded fake votes to help Trump. There is a mischaracterization of why voters might split their vote between Trump and the Democrats.
On the right, from those who support Trump, they say that the “20 million lost ballots” are actually proof that the 2020 election has been stolen and that there is no way that President Biden can receive 81 million votes that year.
To those who work in elections, and especially election officials across the country — public servants of both parties — the statement is familiar, and tired. And to be clear, this claim is false on its face.
Millions of ballots are not lost – they are being counted, and when the election is officially certified, we will confirm that the 2024 election just got a lower number than the all-time record of 2020. For those who ask about “lost votes,” the 2024 election will appear to be the second-largest turnout in an American election, and the second-highest turnout in any election in more than 100 years, second only to the record-breaking 2020.
As for split votes, that happens all the time. Sometimes, like in 2020, there are many voters who don’t like a presidential candidate and choose to leave the race blank on the ballot. Sometimes, like in 2024, many people just vote for the president, and the rest of the ballots remain blank. This is normal. Republicans in Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin did not game the system to give Trump a win this year while allowing Democratic senators to win in each of those states. Democrats in 2020 did not create a system to defeat Trump that year, only to give up key seats in the state legislature before redistricting that would decide control of Congress. And we have paper ballots that confirm this.
And paper ballots are the key. Trump won in 2024 in an election that has been verified and confirmed with more than 95% of paper ballots, including all ballots in all swing states. A hand audit of the ballots is almost complete and will confirm the results.
In addition, Mr. Biden won in 2020 in an election that has been verified and confirmed with more than 95% of audited paper ballots, including all ballots in all swing states. Math adds up because ballots are added, and election officials have shown their work.
We know who won the last two presidential elections, because of more paper ballots, audits, and election litigation and judicial review than any election in the history of the world. In dozens of court cases, the losing candidate was unable to produce a single piece of evidence that called into question the outcome of the 2020 election.
When Rudy Giuliani and Kari Lake were sued for defamation over false claims, they were able to defend themselves with evidence that they were telling the truth. However, he admitted responsibility (Giuliani’s assets have since been seized, and Lake only settled the case last weekend). Fox News settled a defamation case with Dominion Voting Systems for nearly $800 million, instead of trying to prove the claims were true. A respected group of conservative legal scholars further confirms the 2020 election is “Lost, Not Stolen.”
But whether it comes from the right or the left, the conspiracy continues, and our nation’s election officials are concerned about its lasting damage. Gabriel Sterling, the head of operations of the office of the Secretary of State of Georgia told me, “The idea that Starlink Musk or the black box vote can change the votes of the plant seeds that will germinate into deep conspiracy theories, and then further destroy faith in elections and institutions.”
Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates asserted, “People who push baseless conspiracy theories that tabulation machines have been hacked or that dead people have voted for thousands are destroying our democracy, regardless of whether the accusations are from the right, left or center of the political spectrum. .”
Our elections are incredibly decentralized, with nearly 10,000 different election jurisdictions across the country, varying in technology and process. Our process is carried out by hundreds of thousands of election officials across the country, from both parties. Every voter registration requires ID under federal law, and our voter records are as accurate as ever. In the rare cases that fraud is attempted, it is caught and prosecuted. It is impossible to steal a primary election in the United States.
But foreign enemies and domestic grifters know how to exploit concerns about the security of American elections. They used a more effective strategy, to convince us against all the evidence that our election was stolen. He has become a master of using the disappointment of the losing party in the results to create a fantasy world of electoral denial and to incite fear, anger and hatred directed at our citizens, including public servants. We saw on January 6, 2021, how this anger can lead to violence.
Entertaining that illusion can threaten our agency as voters. Worse, our vulnerability to these false claims helps US adversaries, and puts public officials at risk. If we become a nation where both parties can only accept the integrity of the electoral system when they win, we have truly lost as a democracy.
David Becker is the executive director and founder of the non-partisan Center for Election Innovation & Research. He is a former trial attorney in the voting section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. He is also a CBS election law contributor.
