Fact check: How we know the 2020 election results were legitimate, not 'rigged' as Donald Trump claims
The claim: The 2020 presidential election was 'rigged'
As the nation marks a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Donald Trump continued to promote a falsehood that he and his supporters have peddled for more than a year: that the 2020 election was rigged against him.
"Why is it that the Unselect Committee of totally partisan political hacks, whose judgment has long ago been made, (sic) not discussing the rigged Presidential Election of 2020?" the former president said in a Jan. 6 statement, which spokesperson Liz Harrington tweeted. "It's because they don't have the answers or justifications for what happened.
"They got away with something, and it is leading to our Country's destruction."
The statement, which has also been widely shared on Facebook, came after President Joe Biden delivered a speech in the Capitol's Statuary Hall in which he criticized Trump and his distortion of the 2020 election results. Biden said Trump and his supporters "held a dagger at the throat of America."
"You can’t love your country only when you win,” Biden said. “You can’t obey the law only when it’s convenient. You can’t be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies."
More: Biden accuses Trump of holding 'dagger at the throat of democracy' in Jan. 6 speech
On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, pushing through police barricades and smashing windows in an attempt to disrupt Congress' certification of the presidential election results. The events of that day led to five deaths, hundreds of arrests and Trump's second impeachment, as well as the creation of a bipartisan House select committee to investigate the attack. That committee's work is ongoing.
The violent insurrection was predicated on the misguided belief that widespread voter fraud swayed the election in Biden's favor. This was a baseless claim when Trump first made it in late 2020, and the year that passed since has only added to the evidence of the election's legitimacy.
USA TODAY reached out to Harrington for comment.
Ample evidence fraud did not affect election outcome
In the immediate aftermath of Biden's win, election officials insisted the results were legitimate.
"The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history," the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and its partners said in a November 2020 statement. "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised."
Trump's own attorney general, William Barr, said in early December 2020 that the Justice Department had "not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election." Biden won the presidency with 306 electoral votes, which Congress certified in January 2021 after the Capitol riot.
Fact check roundup: Debunking false narratives about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot
At the time, some Republican lawmakers also pushed back on claims of widespread fraud.
"Nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale, the massive scale that would have tipped the entire election – nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when the doubt itself was incited without any evidence," Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate's top Republican said in his address to the chamber before it was evacuated during the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Since then, a mountain of evidence – including lawsuits, recounts, forensic audits and even partisan reviews – has affirmed those results.
Dozens of lawsuits by Trump and his allies aimed at overturning the election, some of which inspired misinformation about results in contested states like Nevada, failed. The Supreme Court refused to take up several cases challenging results in battleground states that played a key role in the outcome of the election.
In those battleground states, numerous audits and recounts have affirmed Biden's win:
In Arizona, a six-month audit of election results in Maricopa County, home of Phoenix, confirmed the state's election results. The audit was conducted by Cyber Ninjas, a firm hired by the Republican-dominated state Senate and whose founder had previously promoted unfounded claims of voter fraud. Multiple hand recounts, as well as a forensic audit of voting machines, have also confirmed Maricopa County's results.
In Georgia, three separate audits found no evidence of wrongdoing affecting the state's election outcome. Georgia's Republican secretary of state has repeatedly quashed claims of widespread voter fraud.
In Michigan, an audit of ballots, voting machines and election procedures affirmed Biden's win. The bipartisan effort was the most comprehensive post-election audit in the state's history.
In Pennsylvania, a statewide risk-limiting audit found "strong evidence of the accuracy of the count of votes cast in the November 2020 presidential election. " The audit examined ballots in 63 out of 67 counties.
In Wisconsin, a recount in the state's two largest counties found no evidence of widespread voter fraud. An audit of voting machines by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau, commissioned by Republican lawmakers, and an investigation by a conservative law firm also upheld the election results.
Fact check: What's true about the 2020 election, vote counting, Electoral College
Many claims of fraud stemmed from a misunderstanding of how vote counting and reporting processes work in different states.
In Wisconsin, for example, some claimed late-night vote dumps for Biden were proof of fraud. That's wrong – the state can't count absentee ballots until Election Day, so tallies for the largest counties can take all day to complete, or even into the night. On election night, that resulted in a late addition of absentee votes, which trended heavily Democratic in 2020.
Similar narratives targeted other contested states.
In Michigan, an election-night typo resulted in the addition of more than 100,000 votes to Biden's tally. Although the clerical error was quickly corrected, some falsely claimed it was evidence of voter fraud. In Georgia, footage of poll workers placing ballots in their proper storage containers was also misconstrued as evidence of fraud.
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Other pervasive election conspiracy theories haven't panned out, either.
Claims from conservative pundits that voting machines deleted Trump votes and changed them to Biden are false.
Companies like Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic have filed defamation lawsuits against Trump allies and conservative news outlets for promoting baseless claims about their voting technology.
Our rating: False
Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that the 2020 presidential election was "rigged." Lawsuits, recounts, forensic audits and partisan reviews have all affirmed the election results. Officials from both parties have repeatedly debunked claims of widespread voter fraud. With 306 electoral votes, Biden beat Trump in the election.
Our fact-check sources:
USA TODAY, Jan. 5, ‘This is insane.’ Lawmakers relive Jan. 6 horror alongside fresh trauma of effort to rewrite history
USA TODAY, Jan. 6, A year ago, Americans stormed the US Capitol. How a horrific day unfolded.
USA TODAY, Dec. 8, 2020, Fact check: Trump lost the 2020 presidential election
USA TODAY, Jan. 13, 2021, Live impeachment updates: Donald Trump impeached for ‘incitement’ of mob attack on US Capitol
USA TODAY, April 7, 2021, Cause of death released for 4 of 5 people at Capitol riot – but not Officer Brian Sicknick
USA TODAY, Jan. 6, Capitol riot arrests: See who's been charged across the U.S.
USA TODAY, June 30, 2021, House creates Capitol riot committee to investigate Jan. 6. GOP Reps. Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger vote with Democrats
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Nov. 12, 2020, JOINT STATEMENT FROM ELECTIONS INFRASTRUCTURE GOVERNMENT COORDINATING COUNCIL & THE ELECTION INFRASTRUCTURE SECTOR COORDINATING EXECUTIVE COMMITTEES
USA TODAY, Jan. 26, 2021, 2020 Election Results & Maps
USA TODAY, Sept. 28, 2021, Fact check: Arizona audit affirmed Biden's win, didn't prove voter fraud, contrary to Trump claim
USA TODAY, April 28, 2021, Fact check: No evidence election audit in Maricopa County has found widespread election fraud
USA TODAY, June 1, 2021, Fact check: No evidence of fraud in Georgia election results
USA TODAY, July 29, 2021, Fact check: Arizona audit hasn't found 275,000 fraudulent votes
Business Insider, Dec. 7, 2021, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says 'misinformation and disinformation campaigns' are biggest threat to US elections
USA TODAY, Nov. 30, 2020, 'Fantastic claims, half-truths, misinformation': Georgia official says Trump supporters misled
USA TODAY, Dec. 17, 2021, Fact check: No proof of widespread fraud in conservative group's investigation of Wisconsin election
Detroit Free Press, March 2, 2021, Michigan completes most comprehensive post-election audit in state history: What it showed
Michigan Secretary of State, April 22, 2021, Post-election audit report confirms accuracy and integrity of Michigan's election
Pennsylvania Secretary of State, Feb. 5, 2021, Risk-Limiting Audit Pilot Of November 2020 Presidential Election Finds Strong Evidence Of Accurate Count
Associated Press, Dec. 1, 2020, Disputing Trump, Barr says no widespread election fraud
National Archives, accessed Jan. 6, 2020 Electoral College Results
USA TODAY, Nov. 7, 2020, Biden wins: Democrat who vowed return to 'normalcy' defeats Trump in cliffhanger election
USA TODAY, Jan. 7, 2021, Watch VP Pence confirm 2020 election win for Joe Biden hours after mob breaches Capitol
USA TODAY, Jan. 6, 2021, By the numbers: President Donald Trump's failed efforts to overturn the election
USA TODAY, March 8, 2021, Supreme Court refuses to take up Trump suit about Wisconsin election results
USA TODAY, Feb. 22, 2021, Supreme Court won't hear 2020 election case that questioned some Pennsylvania ballots
USA TODAY, Dec. 8, 2020, Supreme Court dismisses Trump allies' challenge to Pennsylvania election
USA TODAY, Dec. 11, 2020, Supreme Court denies effort to block election results in 4 key states that sealed Trump's fate
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 29, 2021, What to know about Pennsylvania Republicans’ investigation of the 2020 election
USA TODAY, Nov. 14, 2020, Fact check: Dominion voting machines didn't delete votes from Trump, switch them to Biden
The New York Times, Feb. 4, 2021, Fox News Is Sued by Election Technology Company for Over $2.7 Billion
USA TODAY, Nov. 23, 2021, Fact check: Dominion Voting Systems did not lose its lawsuits against Giuliani and Powell
USA TODAY, Feb. 4, 2021, What is QAnon? What to know about the baseless, far-right conspiracy theory connected to Marjorie Taylor Greene
USA TODAY, Nov. 2, 2021, QAnon supporters gather over theory that JFK Jr. will emerge, announce Trump to be reinstated
USA TODAY, July 23, 2021, Fact check: False claim persists online that Trump will be reinstated as president in August
Newsweek, Jan. 6, 2021, Full Text of Mitch McConnell's Speech Before 'Most Important' Vote of His Career
PolitiFact, Jan. 6, 2021, Here’s how we know Trump’s repeated claim of a landslide victory is wrong
USA TODAY, Aug. 10, 2021, Fact check: No evidence of 8 million 'excess' Biden votes from 2020 election
USA TODAY, Feb. 5, 2021, Fact check: Voter fraud claims in Nevada based on failed lawsuit
USA TODAY, Nov. 4, 2020, Fact check: That spike in the Wisconsin vote tally was expected and legitimate, not fraud
MIT Election Data and Science Lab, Dec. 15, 2020, How We Voted in 2020: A First Look at the Survey of the Performance of American Elections.
USA TODAY, Nov. 4, 2020, Fact check: Typo led to false post about Michigan votes showing up 'magically' for Biden
USA TODAY, Dec. 14, 2020, Fact check: Georgia 'suitcase' video is missing context
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Donald Trump persists with false claim about 2020 results
