The false narrative from Donald Trump that he won the 2020 election in a “sacred landslide,” and that the election was “stolen” from him, is back in the spotlight again, as the Senate considers whether to convict Trump after his impeachment by the House.
Rep. Liz Cheney, the Chair of the House Republican Conference, summarized the problem at hand on Fox Newsthis past Sunday: “People have been lied to. The extent to which the president, President Trump, for months leading up to Jan. 6 spread the notion that the election had been stolen or that the election was rigged was a lie. And people need to understand that.”
We are told by Trump’s impeachment lawyers that he still maintains that there is no conclusive proof that Biden legitimately won the election, so there may be greater focus on this issue during the ongoing impeachment trial.
Unfortunately, because this false narrative has been repeated so often by Trump and amplified by national news media friendly to him and by his supporters on social media, significant numbers of Trump voters still believe it. This is a cancer in our body politic, and the resulting sense of grievance will be detrimental to our democracy in both the short-term and the long-term, if we do not convincingly address it. This is directly important to CLC’s work this year, as we combat attempts to roll back access to voting across the country, which are using the false “Stop the Steal” narrative as a justification.
In conversations over the past months, I've found that Americans continue to benefit when they have trustworthy information available. It helps address people’s doubts, for those who are open to listening to it.
As such, we can continue to do a great deal of service by continuing to share truths about the 2020 election, and about our election systems in general, when we can.
This can come through our everyday work. For example, CLC, through its legal work, research, letters, communications with the media and comments on state bills, shares our knowledge every day. Media outlets and civil society organizations have been fact-checking diligently for months, and it makes a difference (PolitiFact has published a good list of fact-checks as well as a new fact-check of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s stolen election documentary).
Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro has compiled a number of these stolen election claims, and the sheer volume of them would wear down a reader (reporters have published rebuttals and counterarguments to the initial Navarro report). This narrative is hard to neutralize in part because it’s so voluminous. The “firehose of falsehood”—the intentional deluge of made-up clickbait meant to sow distrust and disorient people—has produced so many claims that I could not begin to refute them all in one email. And they keep coming.
I’ll do my part today by sharing some truths as I know them:
The various claims of evidence alleging a stolen 2020 election have been exhaustively investigated and litigated. Allegations that our legal institutions refused to hear the evidence or somehow covered it up are unfounded. This was the most scrutinized election in my lifetime. In fact, summaries like the Navarro report provide plenty of proof that the myriad of claims were heard in court or otherwise investigated. Judges heard claims of illegal voting and found they were without merit. Some good examples include U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Brann’s order dismissing a Trump case in Pennsylvania—where he wrote of the effort to overturn election results: “One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption… That has not happened.” In another good example, Judge James T. Russell of the Nevada District Court in Carson City issued a detailed 35-page decision that “vetted each claim of fraud and wrongdoing made by the Trump campaign in the state and found that none was supported by convincing proof.”
Was there any evidence of widespread voter fraud? Absolutely not. For the most part (outside of those types of examples above), the Trump legal team did not even dare bring fraud cases in court, for lack of evidence. Raising unproven assertions and then claiming they represent a widespread problem is a familiar playbook for those who want to dispute elections or take away access to voting. Don’t buy it. Even Trump-appointed judges and attorneys, like William Barr, the former U.S. Attorney General, and Trump’s Acting U.S. Attorney in Northern Georgia, who was appointed as part of a Trump effort to more aggressively investigate allegations in that state, ended up concluding that there were no election irregularities sufficient to change the outcome. Counting was done transparently across the country, with legitimate poll watchers from both major parties witnessing tallies, and with recounts and hand counts of ballots in closely contested states.
What about supposed details of some of the alleged grand schemes of voter fraud? The Navarro report, for example, alleges a laundry list of alleged outright voter fraud, which would constitute huge crimes if true. However, these allegations appear imaginary. Here’s an example: in his report, Navarro alleges “destruction of legally cast real ballots” in Arizona. The support for the entirety of this assertion? He cites one legal brief filed by Trump conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell in Arizona. This case was dismissed on Dec. 9, 2020 (before the publication of the Navarro report, I should add). The judge wrote of the brief that its “allegations are sorely wanting of relevant or reliable evidence” and “Plaintiffs failed to provide the Court with factual support for their extraordinary claims”. This fate has been routine for these types of grand allegations.
“Planned” ballot drops didn’t change the vote totals to Biden. A common refrain in pro-Trump circles is how Trump appeared to be leading the vote count on Election Night (when he wrongfully claimed victory), but by the following morning, Biden was gaining and pulling ahead in close states. This is readily explained by the fact that states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—following procedures insisted on by their Republican-led state legislatures—prohibited the processing of absentee ballots when received ahead of Nov. 3, so that they instead had to be processed in the days following Election Day. Meanwhile, in-person Election Day votes were largely counted on election night—and those favored Trump in most states, as he had attempted to scare Republicans out of casting absentee ballots and urged his supporters to go to the polls in person. Thus, Trump’s election night false “victory” claim was made in the full knowledge that more Trump votes than Biden votes had been counted across the country at that point, and that many Biden votes would be counted in the days ahead.
Voting machines did not steal the election, either.Election infrastructure experts have found no evidence that voting machines were compromised or that they changed or deleted votes. A remarkable full statewide hand count of ballots in Georgia, confirming that there was no significant difference between voting machine totals and paper ballots, did the most to throw cold water on this conspiracy. Dominion Voting Systems and recently Smartmatic have filed defamation suits, and conservative media outlets, such as Newsmax, have already been issuing retractions and rebutting guests on air, such as MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who continue to promote these falsehoods. The Washington Post has an informative article about Lou Dobbs' departure in the aftermath of false voting machine claims.
Audits have disproved allegations, including those involving signature match. Georgia, for example, under huge pressure from Trump to find “fraud” in mail voting, conducted an unprecedented audit of absentee ballot signatures in Cobb County—the “first of its kind in Georgia”—and affirmed that there were no fraudulent ballots or signatures. Audits of election systems help to reassure the public, and more are on the way in states like Arizona. CLC and the democracy community have long been advocates for both better signature match policies and risk-limiting audits.
But the crowds show Trump should have won—so the election must have been stolen? The obvious answer is that crowds can indicate voter enthusiasm—but in the midst of COVID, Trump conducted rallies and Biden did not, and Election Day tells us who actually voted. What we know is that 2020 saw the highest number of voters in US history, and the highest percentage of eligible voter turnout since 1900. It is clear that Trump, and his performance as President, resulted in highly motivated voters on both sides. The result was that Trump got 11 million more votes than he did in 2016—but Biden exceeded Clinton’s total by more than 15 million and won the Electoral College. A post-election report by the Trump campaign’s OWN polling team, which reviewed Trump’s vote totals in 2016 and 2020, found that a vital element in Trump’s loss was the switch in allegiance of a crucial number of Republican and Independent suburban voters unhappy with Trump.
These are just a few truths, but I hope they’re helpful when listening to impeachment arguments and conversations over the coming days. There’s still so much else out there, and it will take a lot of effort to counter, and many organizations are already doing great work. What’s more, it could take years to change what people wrongly now believe is true—no matter how many lies we fact check. But CLC will soon be putting up this information, and more, on its website, and making it available to journalists, legislators and election officials who need a good summary of the difference between facts and fiction.
Democracy is worth it. Let’s continue to share what we know, with the goal of protecting free and fair elections and advancing a better democracy for everyone.
The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center advances democracy through law at the federal, state and local levels, fighting for every American’s rights to responsive government and a fair opportunity to participate in and affect the democratic process.
