In another early-morning tweet-rage, Donald Trump on Monday claimed widespread voter fraud was taking place before Election Day, ramping up his charges that the presidential election is being rigged.
Trump also criticized Republicans who have not backed up his claims. A number of GOP officials, including Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.), have said they are confident in the state election processes and safeguards.
(h/t The Hill, Washington Post)
Reality
The Trump campaign pointed to a 2012 Pew Center on the States study of ways to make the election system more accurate, cost-effective and efficient. At an Oct. 17 rally, Trump cited the three main findings of the speech to back up his claim that voter fraud is common across the country:
- About 24 million (1 in every 8) voter registrations were significantly inaccurate or no longer valid because people moved, had died or were inactive voters.
- More than 1.8 million records for people who are deceased, but whose registrations were still on voter rolls.
- About 2.75 million people were registered to vote in more than one state. This could happen if voters move to a new state and register to vote without notifying their former state.
- Outdated technology, shrinking government budgets and paper-based registration systems contributed to inaccuracies and inefficiencies.
But the study does not say that these problems indicated signs of isolated or widespread voter fraud. Yet Trump used the 1.8 million figure to inaccurately claim at the rally: “More than 1.8 million deceased individuals right now are listed as voters. Oh, that’s wonderful. Well, if they’re going to vote for me, we’ll think about it, right? But I have a feeling they’re not going to vote for me. Of the 1.8 million, 1.8 million is voting for somebody else.”
The campaign pointed to three instances of voting irregularities — in Pennsylvania, Colorado and Virginia. But they were isolated instances that do not amount to widespread voter fraud — and do not show they are as common as he says they are.
Trump’s campaign then sent lists of nearly 300 instances of voting irregularities between 2004 and 2016. Some of the cases involved indictments and guilty pleas of actual voter fraud, where someone illegally mailed an early ballot or cast a ballot at a polling place to defraud the system.
But the lists also included unsupported allegations of fraud, investigations into potential fraud and reports of less nefarious activities, such as people voting incorrectly and voting machines malfunctioning.
Even if all 300 instances were confirmed cases of actual voter fraud, they would make up such a small portion of total ballots cast in that 12-year period that it would be preposterous to call voter fraud a widespread or a “big, big” problem.
More than 1 billion ballots were cast from 2000 through 2014. There were 31 incidents of specific, credible allegations of voter impersonation at the polls, according to research by Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt, who has been tracking such data for years. So the problem that Trump is warning his voters to watch for at the polls — to make sure things are “on the up and up” — happens at the rate of 31 out of 1 billion ballots cast.
But it would be certainly nearly impossible to do something like that to tip a presidential election. We’re talking about a nationwide effort of local, state and federal election officials colluding to commit a felony. Politicians and lawyers for both major parties and every poll watcher would have to be in on it. A conspiracy so large and full of holes, only the most oblivious and illogical would think it exists.
