Claim: ’20 million fewer votes’ shows 2024 election was stolen

A post in threads from November 6 (direct link, archive link) claims that vote totals indicate electoral fraud in the 2024 presidential election.

“Harris should not give in,” the post read. “20 million votes less than the last election? 14 million more votes for Trump than Harris? Trump and those around him were more than confident that Trump would win. How did they know? We need an investigation. These elections were stolen.”

Other social media users have echoed the statementstating that Vice President Kamala Harris received 20 million fewer votes than President Joe Biden received in 2020.

The Threads post was liked 1,000 times in a week.

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Our Rating: False

The post’s erroneous claim of a “stolen” election was based on early and incomplete results from the November 5th election. The votes haven’t all been counted as of Nov. 6 – and still haven’t – but tallies as of Nov. 13 show a 20 million vote gap and margin between Vice President Kamala Harris and President-elect Donald Trump. Trump is much closer to 14 million.

Votes are still being counted in the 2024 presidential election

The Associated Press called the presidential race for Trump early on Nov. 6, the same day the Threads post was shared. However, the results of the November 5 election were not finalized at that time. Votes are still being counted across the country as of Nov. 13, meaning the post vote differences were based on incomplete information and do not indicate electoral malpractice.

The post doesn’t specify what the 20 million vote gap is compared to, but it’s wrong either way.

About 158.4 million votes were voted in the 2020 presidential election, according to figures from the Federal Election Commission. The post, on November 6, claimed that the 2024 total was well below that, but that is a meaningless claim at the time because many votes had not yet been counted at that time.

Choice analysts expected a total of 156 million votes in the 2024 presidential election on November 13. As of Nov. 6, only 141.9 million votes had been counted, or about 91 percent, according to a archived version of election results reported by NBC News. By November 13, approximately 150.2 million votes had been counted The New York Times reported.

In other words, the difference between 2020 and 2024 was about 16 million votes on November 6, but once the count is complete, the gap is expected to be about 2 million.

Also, there is no 20 million vote difference between Democrat totals in the last two elections, if that is the point the post was trying to make. Biden received about 81.3 million votes in the 2020 presidential election, according to results released by Federal Election Commission. As of Nov. 13, Harris had counted about 72.5 million votes, according to the tally A?a difference of about 8.8 million votes. Harris had about 67.4 million votes from November 6.

The post is also wrong that Trump leads Harris by more than 14 million votes. By AP numberTrump’s lead over Harris was about 3.1 million votes on November 13. Trump led Harris by about 4.8 million votes on November 6.

Votes are still being counted fish THE countryincluding in the West, where postal voting is common and can take longer for election workers to process and tabulate ballots; Gowri Ramachandrandirector of elections and security at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice The Faculty of Law said in an email.

In the Democratic stronghold of California, for example, Estimated AP that 84% of the votes have been counted as of November 13. Harris led Trump by about 21 percentage points there, suggesting he could make up more ground against Biden’s 2020 performance and Trump’s 2024 lead in the national popular vote as the state continues to count. . California election officials are working on it December deadlines to report official results to the California Secretary of State’s Office, which will certify the results on December 13.

Fact checking: Donald Trump won the elections in 2016 and 2024, not 2020

The Post says the vote count points to fraud, but there have also been no credible reports of widespread voter fraud in the 2024 presidential election. reputed news organizations reported that Election Day went off without a hitch outside of a few notable disruptions, such as fake bomb threats in several swing states.

“Thanks to the tireless preparation and work of thousands of election workers across the country, the 2024 elections were free and fair,” Ramachandran said.

Jen Easterlydirector of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said in a Statement of November 6 that the agency had “no evidence of any malicious activity that would materially impact the security or integrity of our election infrastructure.”

And in it November 6 concession speechHarris said, “When we lose an election, we accept the results.”

USA TODAY reached out to the Threads user who shared the post for comment, but did not immediately hear back.

PolitiFact also debunked the claim.

Our fact-checking sources:

• Gowri RamachandranNovember 12, Email exchange with USA TODAY

• Jen Easterly, November 6 Statement by CISA Director Easterly on 2024 Election Security

• Federal Election Commission, October 2022, Federal Election 2020: Election Results for US President, US Senate and US House of Representatives

• The Associated Press, accessed November 13, 2024 presidential election results

• The Cook Political Report, 2024 National Popular Vote Tracker

• The Associated Press, November 5, Bomb threats in swing states disrupt a mostly smooth election day

• NPR, November 6 Bomb threats disrupted what was otherwise a relatively smooth election day vote

• CNN, November 6 Battleground states quickly counted ballots after a mostly uneventful Election Day vote

• The New York Times, accessed November 13, Presidential election results: Trump wins

• NBC News (Internet Archive), November 6, Results President 2024: Trump wins

• Nate Silver November 13, X post

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This story has been updated to add new information.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The claim of 20 million votes difference compared to 2020 is false | Fact checking