Trump's Bogus Voter Fraud Claims
Posted on October 19, 2016
Donald Trump is citing unsubstantiated urban myths and a contested academic study to paint a false narrative about rampant voter fraud in the U.S. and the likelihood of a "rigged" election.
Trump claimed "people that have died 10 years ago are still voting," citing a report that found 1.8 million deceased people remain on voter registration rolls. But the report did not find evidence of wrongdoing, and numerous studies have found such voter fraud is virtually nonexistent.
Trump claimed there is a massive problem with "illegal immigrants [who] are voting," citing research by Old Dominion professors who say noncitizen voters may have benefited Democrats in 2008. But a Harvard professor who manages the data used in the Old Dominion study said the data was misused and the study's conclusions are wrong.
Finally, Trump broadly claimed that "voter fraud is very, very common," and he has called for poll watchers to look for people impersonating voters or voting numerous times. However, numerous academic studies and government inquiries have found in-person voter fraud to be rare.
For weeks, Trump has been warning about rigged elections. He urged his supporters in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 10 to monitor polls and "watch other communities, because we don't want this election stolen from us."
In a speech in Wisconsin on Oct. 17 [2016], Trump provided some detail and purported evidence to back up his claims about the prevalence of voter fraud, particularly by noncitizens and people casting ballots on behalf of deceased voters. But we found that his evidence is lacking.
Trump thought he was going to lose in 2016, so he started promoting the rigged election propaganda before the election. He did the same thing in 2020. The only difference is he placed greater emphasis on mail in ballots this year, because he knew so many more people, especially Democrats, were going to use them.