Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory is fueling allegations of fraud on both sides of the political divide. His right-wing supporters say the result vindicates them claims denied that the 2020 election was stolen from him. To a lesser extent, those on the left are circulating their own baseless claims, casting doubt on this year’s results.

The election denial movement Trump inspired has spent the last four years building an infrastructure and community around false claims that 2020 was rigged. This year, he invested heavily in similar collections ALARMS that the vote would again be compromised – only for those claims to a evaporate as the returns came.

The narrative twist that emerged in the wake of Election Day shows how the movement continues looks like doubt about the voting process even after their favorite candidate won. The new claims focus on comparing popular vote totals in 2020 and 2024: Four years ago, Joe Biden received about 81 million votes; as of friday afternoon, harris’ total was 69 million, according to Associated Press.

Election deniers have framed the difference as “missing” Democratic ballots, validating their suspicions of fraud in 2020. Some recirculated disproved theories on the late-ballot “dumps” that led to states with early results for Trump in 2020 move on to Biden as more votes were counted.

There are a few simple reasons for the gap between Harris and Biden’s totals. First, votes are still being counted, including in the most populous state, California.

“Most people just don’t understand how election administration and election tabulation actually work in this country,” said Kathy Boockvar, who oversaw Pennsylvania’s 2020 election as secretary of the commonwealth. “And that, of course, unfortunately leads to susceptibility to conspiracy theories and misinformation.”

The process for certifying votes varies from state to state. In many cases, it takes weeks to complete as officials process overseas and military ballots, review provisional ballots and conduct audits.

Jennifer Morrell, a former election official who now runs the consulting firm Elections Group, says that when looking at claims of “missing” ballots, it’s important “to recognize that there are these checks and balances, audits and tests that happen on throughout the elections”.

numeral investigations and audits, often light of republicanswere conducted after the 2020 election and no evidence of widespread fraud was discovered. These SCRUTINEERING will continue for the 2024 election in the coming weeks.

Turn out varies from choice to choice. In 2020, 160 million people voted – a record record. While turnout in 2024 is expected to be close to this, Trump has made gains across the country, even in Democratic states Harris won. That means he will almost certainly fall short of Biden’s vote total.

Boockvar said there are many times in US political history where “the country has gone in a drastically different direction” from one election to the next. “Where Democrats might vote for Republican candidates or Republicans vote for Democratic candidates, or people turn out more (or) people turn out less,” she said. “It’s normal.”

Posts about the gap first appeared on X, formerly Twitter, overnight on Election Day and in the early hours of Wednesday, Nov. 6, according to research by the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, which tracks election management rumors.

Soon, pro-Trump influencers began sharing them with their own large audiences. Their numbers varied — some said 20 million Democratic votes were missing, while some estimated it at 15 million, depending on how many votes were counted for Harris at the time they were posted. But the message was consistent.

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Getty Images

“Where did those 20 million Democratic voters go? The truth is they never existed. I think we can put the lie to Biden’s 80 million votes once and for all.” he wrote Dinesh D’Souza, who popularized conspiracy theories about ballot boxes after the 2020 election. His post has been viewed over 4 million times on X.

A similar one post FROM YouTuber Benny Johnson it has been viewed over 22 million times.

The narrative took visual form in a bar chart shared by the far-right site ZeroHedge One post which received 20 million views. Images are a powerful and easily shareable way to communicate ideas online, and the graphic comparing the 2024 incomplete count to the 2016 and 2020 totals was quickly picked up and shared by many other accounts.

D’Souza and ZeroHedge’s posts in particular accelerated the spread of the misleading narrative. “That made the conversation boom,” said Danielle Lee Tomson, director of research at the Center for an Informed Public.

On November 7, Cleta Mitchell, an influencer Republican electoral lawyer which was at the center of Trump’s failed attempts to a overturn the 2020 election and became an essential figure on the right “Election Integrity” movement, weighted by a post noting not only the difference between Biden and Harris’ vote totals, but also the change in Trump’s votes.

“Where did 20 million votes go between 2020 and 2024? 15 million for Biden, 5 million for Trump. Who thinks Trump got 5 million fewer votes in 2024?” she asked.

Kate Starbird, a UW professor and co-founder of the Center for an Informed Public, said the dynamic reflects how figures like Mitchell have built their brands on those claims.

“There are people making a living right now talking about voter fraud,” Starbird said. “2024 won’t give them much material for that, because it won’t advance their political goals.”

“So they may be going back to 2020 and trying to bring the events of Election Day 2024 and some of the results into those conspiracy theories about 2020,” Starbird said.

The “missing” theory of Democrat votes it also circulated among left-leaning social media users alongside accusations, without evidence, that Republicans committed fraud this year. Many of these posts were accompanied by the hashtags #DoNotConcedeKamala or #TrumpCheated.

Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

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AFP via Getty Images

Some of these posts received MILLION of views. But overall, fraud claims from left-wing accounts have not gained the level of prominence, virality or impact as the pro-Trump 2020 election denial movement, according to UW researchers.

“Simply put, there is no left-wing equivalent of the 2020 ‘Stop the Steal’ mobilization effort,” they he wrote.

That could be because the left doesn’t have the kind of online infrastructure that exists on the right to amplify claims of election fraud and generate “evidence” — often deceptively framed photos and videos — to back up those claims, UW’s Tomson said.

Moreover, Harris and other Democratic leaders did not encourage them. Use of the hashtag #DoNotConcedeKamala stopped after the vice president acknowledged the race, UW found.

“There’s not the same kind of networking or improvisation of big left influencers or candidates having and sharing the same kind of conversation to get that attention and virality,” Tomson said.

Boockvar, the former Pennsylvania election official, said the conspiracy theories on both sides show how much trust in elections has been eroded by sustained attacks on election integrity.

“I just want to say, ‘Stop it already,'” she said of the resurgence of fraud claims. “We have a democratic republic where all eligible voters can vote, and we have election systems where election officials follow defined rules, defined processes and standards, and security and integrity.”

Ultimately, she said, Americans must “separate their trust in the (election) process and the people (who run the election) from the disappointment of whether their candidate wins or loses.”

NPR’s Miles Parks contributed reporting.

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