Election fraud? Claims disappear after Trump victory
The steady drumbeat from the GOP pushing false claims of widespread election fraud has largely gone silent in the wake of President-elect Trump’s victory.
Trump has never acknowledged his loss in the 2020 contest and appeared to be gearing up to make stolen election claims about 2024 if he lost the race to Vice President Harris.
Even in the hours before polls closed, Trump complained he had heard “a lot of talk about massive CHEATING in Philadelphia,” later suggesting the same was happening in Detroit.
But after Trump’s early morning victory speech Wednesday, few in the GOP have raised the topic — one that over the past four years has spurred reforms across the country, numerous lawsuits from the Republican National Committee (RNC) and GOP-affiliated groups, and even legislation to ban noncitizens from voting, something that is already illegal.
“I think that the immediate evaporation of any concerns or claims by Donald Trump and his campaign and his Republican allies in Congress of fraud or countless noncitizens on the rolls or electoral misconduct just reflects the reality that this was never about legitimate concerns with the electoral system,” said Jonathan Diaz, a director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan legal group.
Trump won the Electoral College and is on track to win the popular vote as well, which would make him the first Republican to do so since 2004.
Throughout his campaign to win back the White House, he repeatedly cast doubt on the process, often saying the only way he could lose an election is if it was “rigged.”
“The voter fraud charges were never serious. They were a way to delegitimize Democratic victories and to provide a pretext for possibly seeking to contest or overturn the results in a close election in which a Democrat won,” said Rick Hasen, an election law expert and a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“I expect the claims will be revived again when they might serve a political purpose. And in the meantime they prove to be a useful boogeyman.”
Reached for comment by The Hill, the Trump campaign repeated a line the president-elect would use in his stump speeches to drum up support.
“The American people listened to President trump and swamped the polls making the election too big to rig,” they said in a statement.
The RNC, which led numerous lawsuits ahead of the election, including many pushing officials to purge voter rolls, credited Trump with driving a push to address “real issues.”
“President Trump brought attention to real issues in our election system on and before Election Day, and we are continuing to be vigilant and responsive on the ground. That's exactly why the RNC and Trump Campaign built an unprecedented election integrity program - so we could fix the problems before the election, and be ready to act as votes were being cast and counted,” said Claire Zunk, the RNC’s election integrity communications director, when asked if they had any concerns about the 2024 contest.
While Zunk said the program “stopped threats to our election,” none of the examples cited included instances of fraud but rather standard issues faced by voters each election that both parties assemble teams to aid.
“It can't be that, ‘Well, Donald Trump lost in 2020 and so that election was illegitimate because of fraud, but he won in 2024 and so then that was fine.’ Because it's the same election, it's the same system, it's the same laws,” Diaz said.
“He won fair and square. And it's not that he overcame a rigged system or fraud or Democratic cheating – he just won straight up.”
Democrats were gearing up for Trump to falsely claim he won the election, only to see a sharp pivot.
“I noticed that, especially in regard to Pennsylvania, throughout the campaign --- and especially over the last 90 days --- [Republicans said] 'Oh, this is the most crooked and corrupt [election] --- until he won Pennsylvania, and then it became, 'Oh, they really did a good job there. They're the ideal state,’” Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) told The Hill.
“I think with Trump, hypocrisy goes hand and hand. He feels very strongly both ways, and whichever way helps him is the way he ultimately will land."
That dynamic also spurred a joke from late night host Jimmy Kimmel.
“I guess this election wasn't rigged. It's weird though, right? I mean, he said it would be rigged. He said it was being rigged while people were in line voting. Isn't it remarkable that this time, the fix wasn't in?” Kimmel said.
“Last time the Democrats cheated. This time we chose not to, I guess.”
The Washington Post noted that activity on an X community dedicated to election integrity got quiet on election night as Trump’s victory came into view.
But in recent days, users have shared conspiracy theories about votes still being counted in races in Arizona and other battleground states.
Some nonetheless hope Trump’s victory will help squelch years of undermining trust in the election system.
“I also hope we can lay to rest the question about the integrity of the American electoral system,” President Biden said in a Thursday address.
“It is honest, it is fair, and it is transparent. And it can be trusted, win or lose.”
Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, said that in the midst of a “predictable silence,” she’s hopeful some faith in the system has been restored.
“It was always a tactic to try to manipulate the public to build a case for potentially trying to overturn legitimate election outcomes,” she said.
“This might help to take some of the air out of those conspiracy theories and bring people back down to ground and with a more realistic appraisal of our election system and how it functions. So that is certainly my hope,” Weiser said, even as she added “I don't think this is the end of it.”
Mike Lillis contributed.