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Wikipedia

Election denial movement in the United States

January 01, 1970

The election denial movement in the United States is a widespread conservative belief that any United States election not resulting in a desired Republican victory has been rigged and stolen through voter fraud by Democrats. Adherents of the movement are referred to as election deniers. Voter fraud conspiracy theories have spread online and through conservative conferences, community events, and door-to-door canvassing. Since the 2020 United States presidential election, many Republican politicians have sought elective office or taken legislative steps to address what they assert is weak election integrity leading to widespread fraudulent elections, though no evidence of systemic voter fraud has come to light and voter fraud is extremely rare.

The movement came to prominence after Donald Trump was defeated in the 2020 United States presidential election. Trump had a history of questioning elections before he ran for office, notably the 2012 reelection of Barack Obama. He grew the movement among his supporters by making consistently false allegations of fraud during the 2016, and in particular the 2020 presidential election. With these false and unsubstantiated claims, Trump and his associates sought to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden; he and others have been indicted on federal and state charges involving election subversion. Trump's false allegations came to be known as his "big lie". Trump has since endorsed only Republican candidates who agree the 2020 election had been stolen from him, and he has not committed to accepting the results of the 2024 presidential election in which he is a candidate. By April 2024, Trump had embraced mail-in balloting and early voting, which he had for years vilified as corrupt and contributors to his 2020 election loss.

Context edit

Going back decades, some influential Republicans who have expressed concerns around election security have been accused of using the fear of voter fraud as a pretext for voter suppression.[1][2] A notable quote that has been used as evidence of bad faith efforts to address voter fraud comes from Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the conservative The Heritage Foundation, who said in a speech in 1980, "I don't want everybody to vote ... our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."[2]

Prevalence of voter fraud edit

Election experts have found that election fraud is vanishingly rare, not systemic, and not at levels that could have impacted a presidential election.[3][4][5] In response to Donald Trump's 2016 claims of millions of fraudulent votes, the Brennan Center in 2017 evaluated voter fraud data and arrived at a fraud rate of 0.0003%–0.0025%.[6] That year, the center also analyzed The Heritage Foundation's database of voter fraud as tiny, reaching back to 1948, and one in which the vast majority of cases would still occur under the Foundation's proposed election reforms.[7]

Origins of the movement edit

Professor Andrew Smolar and Dr. Geoffrey Kabaservice believe this election denial movement began with the Tea Party after Obama's election, citing the Birtherism conspiracy theory as helping to dissolve trust in institutions and objective truth.[8][9] Other dates that have been suggested for the start of this movement include 2012,[10] 2016[11] and 2020.[12]

Analyst Chris Sautter argues the movement is the latest stage of wrangling about election rules that began in the 1960s regarding severe restrictions to stop Blacks from voting in most of the South. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discrimination and enabled the federal government to block new restrictions. During the Reagan presidency in the 1980s, the Republican National Committee (RNC) launched "ballot security" and "voter integrity" campaigns to reduce what it alleged to be voter fraud. They focused on minority communities with large Democratic majorities. They stationed off-duty police officers in conspicuous locations near polling places; distributed leaflets suggesting voters could be subjected to prosecution; and made unsupported challenges of registered voters. Federal courts concluded the techniques were designed to frighten minority voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Republican party officials were forced to sign a consent decree agreeing to stop. However, in 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in its ruling on Shelby County v. Holder. This enabled Republican legislatures in at least 20 states to impose new obstacles for the 2018 elections.[13][14]

Disputed elections edit

President edit

2012 edit

After Barack Obama was declared the winner of the Electoral College while still trailing in the popular vote count early on election night 2012, Trump tweeted the election was a "total sham" because Obama "lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election," adding "the electoral college is a disaster for a democracy" and "We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty."[15] Final election results showed Obama won the popular vote by nearly five million ballots.[16] In the 2016 presidential election, Trump won the electoral college but lost the popular vote by nearly three million ballots.[17]

ABC News writer Terrence Smith described Trump's statements as the first example showing a broader playbook of election denial.[10]

Despite Trump's comments, unsuccessful Republican nominee Mitt Romney accepted the results and conceded defeat.

2016 edit

During the 2016 Republican primaries, Trump alleged, without evidence, that his opponent Senator Ted Cruz stole the Iowa presidential caucuses after he had won them.[10]

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump asserted that the only way he could lose was if there was election fraud.[18] Trump political advisor Roger Stone created a "Stop the Steal" organization in 2016 in the event Trump lost; it was revived after Trump's loss in 2020.[19]

Trump claimed, without evidence, that millions voted illegally for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, costing him the popular vote victory.[20] As a result, Trump established an election integrity commission in May 2017, but the commission was disbanded several months later, with member Matthew Dunlap, the Maine secretary of state, writing to commission chair Mike Pence and vice chair Kris Kobach that, contrary to public statements by Trump and Kobach, the commission did not find "substantial" voter fraud.[21] Dunlap alleged the true purpose of the commission was to create a pretext to pave the way for policy changes designed to undermine the right to vote. Critics said the commission's intent was to disenfranchise or deter legal voters.[22] Kobach, then the Kansas secretary of state, had a history of making false or unsubstantiated allegations of voting fraud to advocate for voting restrictions.[23][24]

2020 edit

Main article: Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election

Donald Trump complained of widespread voter fraud leading up to and following the 2020 U.S. presidential election, which was widely debunked. Having never conceded, Trump used this allegation of fraud as justification to try multiple times to subvert the election results and remain in office. Trump has demanded those seeking his endorsement to support his unfounded allegations of fraud. Many of those involved in the plots, including the riot on January 6, 2021, have been convicted, charged or are under investigation for crimes such as insurrection.

2024 edit

As of January 2024, Trump has not committed to accepting the results of the 2024 U.S. presidential election if he loses.[25] Trump's niece, Mary L. Trump, and retiring Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R) among others predict that he would once again deny the results of a loss and try to steal the election.[26][27] According to NPR, the continuation of election denial tactics by Trump for the 2024 election is 'likely.'[28]

Many Republicans, notably Trump, long criticized "ballot harvesting" and the early voting it enables as rife with fraud and cheating, encouraging their voters to vote only at polling places on election day. The 2022 Dinesh D'Souza film 2000 Mules was centered on false allegations of illegal ballot harvesting by unnamed nonprofit organizations supposedly associated with the Democratic Party to commit election fraud. After disappointing Republican results in the 2020 and 2022 elections, some Trump-aligned organizations such as Turning Point USA recognized they needed to adopt similar ballot collection methods for the 2024 elections, which they named "ballot chasing." Turning Point said it would raise money to create "the largest and most impactful ballot chasing operation the movement has ever seen." Kari Lake, who refused to concede her loss in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race, said she would launch "the largest ballot chasing operation in our nation's history." Media Matters reported in March 2024 that Lara Trump, the new co-chair of the Republican National Committee, had said on a recent podcast that the RNC would launch a "legal ballot harvesting" effort.[29][30][31]

Lara Trump said on the same podcast that "I'm gonna say 75 million-plus Americans who still are like, what the hell happened in 2020? They didn't get any answers." She baselessly claimed that the odds of mail-in ballots giving Biden swing state victories was "one in one quadrillion to the fourth power."[32] After insisting for several years that mail-in balloting is "totally corrupt" and contributed to his 2020 election loss, by April 2024 Donald Trump and the RNC were encouraging his supporters to adopt mail-in and early voting.[33][34][35][36]

During the campaign, Trump often referred to "election integrity" to allude to his continuing lie that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, as well as baseless predictions of future mass election fraud. As he did during the 2020 election cycle, without evidence Trump told supporters that Democrats might try to rig the 2024 election. By 2022, Republican politicians, conservative cable news outlets and talk radio echoed a narrative of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon that "if Democrats don't cheat, they don't win." Politico reported in June 2022 that the RNC sought to deploy an "army" of poll workers and attorneys in swing states who could refer what they deemed questionable ballots in Democratic voting precincts to a network of friendly district attorneys to challenge. Media Matters reported that in March 2024 Lara Trump said the party had the ability to train poll workers who could handle ballots, rather than merely observe polling places. Trump's political operation said in April 2024 that it planned to deploy more than 100,000 attorneys and volunteers to polling places across battleground states, with an "election integrity hotline" for poll watchers and voters to report alleged voting irregularities. Trump told a rally audience in December 2023 that they needed to "guard the vote" in Democratic-run cities. He had complained that his 2020 campaign was not adequately prepared to challenge his loss in courts; some critics said his 2024 election integrity effort is actually intended to gather allegations to overwhelm the election resolution process should he challenge the 2024 election results. Marc Elias, a Democratic election lawyer who defeated every Trump court challenge after the 2020 election, remarked, "I think they are going to have a massive voter suppression operation and it is going to involve very, very large numbers of people and very, very large numbers of lawyers."[37]

Days after the RNC voted Lara Trump and Michael Whatley to lead the organization, former OANN anchor Christina Bobb was named to head the RNC election integrity program which Lara Trump said occupied "an entire wing of the building." A staunch Trump advocate, Bobb was involved in attempts to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and promoted the false allegation that the election had been stolen from Trump by fraud.[38][39][40]

In April 2024 the RNC released a robocall script falsely alleging Democrats committed "massive fraud" in the 2020 election. The script added, "If Democrats have their way, your vote could be canceled out by someone who isn't even an American citizen."[41]

Statewide edit

2022 edit

In addition to making false claims about the previous election a centerpiece of her 2022 Arizona gubernatorial campaign, Kari Lake refused to concede her loss, traveling the country into 2023 to promote her election fraud allegations amid speculation she was considering a run for Senate or being named as Trump's running mate in 2024. Her several lawsuits challenging her loss were thrown out, as has a lawsuit to stop using electronic machines.[42][43] A July 2023 suit filed by Republican Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, alleging Lake defamed him by claiming he had rigged the election against her, was in December 2023 cleared to proceed to trial.[44]

Prevalence of election denialism edit

Elected officials edit

An October 2022 Washington Post analysis found that 51% of Republican nominees for House, Senate and key statewide offices in nearly every state that year denied or questioned the 2020 presidential election outcome.[45] Secretaries of state oversee elections in states. In 2022, nearly one in three Republican candidates for those offices supported overturning the 2020 presidential election results.[46][47] The America First Secretary of State Coalition, co-founded and led by Nevada Republican Jim Marchant, was created in 2021 to promote election deniers for secretary of state in the 2022 United States secretary of state elections.[48] All but one of nearly twenty candidates the group endorsed in 2022 lost in the general election.[49][50] According to analysis by the nonpartisan States United Action, election denialism cost Republican candidates from 2.3 to 3.7 percentage points of votes in the 2022 midterm elections.[51]

Trump made his election fraud claims a litmus test for Republican candidates and the heart of his platform.[52] After Mike Johnson won the October 2023 Speaker of the United States House election, David A. Graham posited that only members of the election denial movement had a chance to win the speakership with only Republican votes.[53]

Voters edit

As of August 2023, a large majority of Republican voters and Republican-leaning independents continued to believe Joe Biden was not legitimately elected in 2020.[54]

Analysis edit

Sarah Longwell, a Republican political strategist who strongly opposes Trumpism, wrote in April 2022 that she asked Trump voters in focus groups why they continue to believe the election was stolen from him. She perceived that for many it was a hard-to-explain tribal response to a message that is echoed throughout the participants' social and media environment.[55]

Analysis of polls by Charles Stewart, a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT, shows that there are deep ideological roots involving belief in conspiracies, racial tensions and religion as well as partisanship. He argues:

Among Republicans, conspiracism has a potent effect on embracing election denialism, followed by racial resentment. Among independents, the strongest influences on denialism are Christian nationalism and racial resentment. And, although election denialism is rare among Democrats, what variation does exist is mostly explained by levels of racial resentment.[56]

Some election experts and historians contend that, left unabated, election denial could further reduce concessions by losing candidates, disrupt the peaceful transfers of power and weaken or even dismantle American democracy.[57][58] Lisa Bryant, a political science professor at California State University, Fresno, warned of the erosion of trust in the democratic process and the institutions it produces, which might lead to a breakdown in the rule of law if the government (and by extension the laws they create) are not viewed as legitimate.[59][60]

Priorities and supporters of the movement edit

Following Trump's 2020 loss amid his false allegations of fraud, Republican lawmakers initiated a sweeping effort to make voting laws more restrictive in several states across the country and to take control of the administrative management of elections at the state and local level.[61][62][63][64] Some planned to deploy an "army" of poll workers and lawyers to challenge votes in Democratic districts.[65][66][67]

Notable supporters of the election denial movement edit

Dennis Montgomery promoted widely debunked 'evidence' for both the birther conspiracy theory movement and the 2020 election denial movement (among other far-right conspiracies), was frequently widely cited by supporters of President Trump's efforts to overturn the election.[68]

By 2022, My Pillow founder Mike Lindell had become a prominent figure in the movement, spending millions of his money for conferences, activist networks, a media platform, legal actions and research. Lindell asserts the 2020 election was stolen through a complex global scheme to hack into voting machines. Through his My Pillow advertising placements, he became a major financial backer of an expanding network of right-wing podcasters and influencers.[69] Lindell's legal firm said in an October 2023 court filing that Lindell was in arrears by millions of dollars in fees and that the firm could no longer afford to represent him, which Lindell confirmed.[70]

Organizations funded by dark money have met quietly with officials in Republican-controlled states to create an incubator of policies that would restrict ballot access and amplify false claims that fraud is rampant in elections. Led by The Heritage Foundation, the groups include the Honest Elections Project, which is among a network of conservative organizations associated with Leonard Leo, a longtime prominent figure in the Federalist Society.[71]

The Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) was founded in 2017 by former Republican senator and Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint. CPI employs Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark and has been described as the "nerve center" for the MAGA movement. CPI's funding increased from $1.7 million 2017 to $45 million in 2021. CPI includes the Election Integrity Network, led by Cleta Mitchell.[72][73][74][75] Mitchell was a Trump advisor after the 2020 election who participated in the Trump–Raffensperger phone call during which Trump pressured the Georgia secretary of state to "find" ballots that would secure him a victory in the state. Trump and 18 others, including Meadows and Clark, were indicted in the Georgia election racketeering prosecution for allegedly running a "criminal racketeering enterprise." Mitchell was one of 39 individuals a special grand jury recommended for indictment on multiple charges, though prosecutor Fani Willis declined to charge her.[76] By 2022, Mitchell said she was "taking the lessons we learned in 2020" as she held seminars around the country to recruit election deniers to monitor elections because "the only way [Democrats] win is to cheat."[77]

In 2022, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School identified several individuals or groups that together were spending tens of millions to support election deniers in that year's midterm elections. These included the billionaire couple Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein; Trump's Save America PAC; and Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus. Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne said he spent $20 million to convince people that the 2020 election was stolen; he was also a major funder of the 2021 Maricopa County presidential ballot audit that sought but failed to find election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Byrne has been the largest funder of The America Project, which pushes election denial narratives. That group was founded by former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn in 2021, with an agenda that includes undermining trust in elections.[78][79] Byrne, Flynn and others attended a December 2020 Oval Office meeting with Trump to discuss ways to overturn the president's election loss.[80]

Oracle Corporation founder Larry Ellison joined a November 2020 conference call with Sean Hannity and senator Lindsey Graham to discuss ways to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 election.[81] By October 2022, Ellison was donating millions of dollars to a SuperPAC to support four Senate candidates who had cast doubt on the 2020 election results.[82]

The 2022 Dinesh D'Souza film 2000 Mules film falsely alleges unnamed nonprofit organizations associated with the Democratic Party paid "mules" to illegally collect and deposit ballots into drop boxes in five swing states during the 2020 presidential election.[83][84][85][86]

Some analysts and politicians both Republican and Democrat have suggested that election denial may include an element of grifting to solicit donations from unwitting supporters.[87][88][89][90] With an email campaign, Trump raised about $250 million for what he told donors was an "official election defense fund" that did not actually exist.[91][92] By September 2022, a federal grand jury was investigating whether Trump and his allies were soliciting donations on the basis of claims they knew were false, which might violate federal wire fraud laws.[93][94] The Smith special counsel investigation was also examining the fundraising of former Trump attorney Sidney Powell by September 2023.[95]

References edit

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Further reading edit

  • Albertson, Bethany, and Kimberly Guiler. "Conspiracy theories, election rigging, and support for democratic norms." Research & Politics 7.3 (2020): online
  • Craig, Maureen A., and Jennifer A. Richeson. "On the Precipice of a ‘Majority-Minority’ America: Perceived Status Threat From the Racial Demographic Shift Affects White Americans’Political Ideology." Psychological Science (2014) 25(6): 1189–97.
  • Graham, Matthew H., and Milan W. Svolik. "Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States." American Political Science Review 2020. 114(2): 392–409. online
  • Sautter, Chris. "US Democracy Survives a Challenge." in Campaigns and Elections American Style: The changing landscape of political campaigns'ed by Candice J. Nelson, James A. Thurber, and David A. Dulio, (6th ed. Routledge, 2023) pp. 33–51. doi 10.4324/9781003166375-3
  • Wu, Jennifer, et al. "Are Dead People Voting By Mail? Evidence From Washington State Administrative Records" (Stanford Institute for Economic and Policy Research, 2020) summary; Examination of 4.5 million distinct votes in Washington state (2011 to 2018) found 14 cases of individuals whose ballots were cast suspiciously after their death, representing one vote per 300,000.

January 01, 1970
election, denial, movement, united, states, election, denial, movement, united, states, widespread, conservative, belief, that, united, states, election, resulting, desired, republican, victory, been, rigged, stolen, through, voter, fraud, democrats, adherents. The election denial movement in the United States is a widespread conservative belief that any United States election not resulting in a desired Republican victory has been rigged and stolen through voter fraud by Democrats Adherents of the movement are referred to as election deniers Voter fraud conspiracy theories have spread online and through conservative conferences community events and door to door canvassing Since the 2020 United States presidential election many Republican politicians have sought elective office or taken legislative steps to address what they assert is weak election integrity leading to widespread fraudulent elections though no evidence of systemic voter fraud has come to light and voter fraud is extremely rare The movement came to prominence after Donald Trump was defeated in the 2020 United States presidential election Trump had a history of questioning elections before he ran for office notably the 2012 reelection of Barack Obama He grew the movement among his supporters by making consistently false allegations of fraud during the 2016 and in particular the 2020 presidential election With these false and unsubstantiated claims Trump and his associates sought to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden he and others have been indicted on federal and state charges involving election subversion Trump s false allegations came to be known as his big lie Trump has since endorsed only Republican candidates who agree the 2020 election had been stolen from him and he has not committed to accepting the results of the 2024 presidential election in which he is a candidate By April 2024 Trump had embraced mail in balloting and early voting which he had for years vilified as corrupt and contributors to his 2020 election loss Contents 1 Context 1 1 Prevalence of voter fraud 1 2 Origins of the movement 2 Disputed elections 2 1 President 2 1 1 2012 2 1 2 2016 2 1 3 2020 2 1 4 2024 2 2 Statewide 2 2 1 2022 3 Prevalence of election denialism 3 1 Elected officials 3 2 Voters 4 Analysis 5 Priorities and supporters of the movement 5 1 Notable supporters of the election denial movement 6 References 7 Further readingContext editGoing back decades some influential Republicans who have expressed concerns around election security have been accused of using the fear of voter fraud as a pretext for voter suppression 1 2 A notable quote that has been used as evidence of bad faith efforts to address voter fraud comes from Paul Weyrich co founder of the conservative The Heritage Foundation who said in a speech in 1980 I don t want everybody to vote our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down 2 Prevalence of voter fraud edit Election experts have found that election fraud is vanishingly rare not systemic and not at levels that could have impacted a presidential election 3 4 5 In response to Donald Trump s 2016 claims of millions of fraudulent votes the Brennan Center in 2017 evaluated voter fraud data and arrived at a fraud rate of 0 0003 0 0025 6 That year the center also analyzed The Heritage Foundation s database of voter fraud as tiny reaching back to 1948 and one in which the vast majority of cases would still occur under the Foundation s proposed election reforms 7 Origins of the movement edit Professor Andrew Smolar and Dr Geoffrey Kabaservice believe this election denial movement began with the Tea Party after Obama s election citing the Birtherism conspiracy theory as helping to dissolve trust in institutions and objective truth 8 9 Other dates that have been suggested for the start of this movement include 2012 10 2016 11 and 2020 12 Analyst Chris Sautter argues the movement is the latest stage of wrangling about election rules that began in the 1960s regarding severe restrictions to stop Blacks from voting in most of the South The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discrimination and enabled the federal government to block new restrictions During the Reagan presidency in the 1980s the Republican National Committee RNC launched ballot security and voter integrity campaigns to reduce what it alleged to be voter fraud They focused on minority communities with large Democratic majorities They stationed off duty police officers in conspicuous locations near polling places distributed leaflets suggesting voters could be subjected to prosecution and made unsupported challenges of registered voters Federal courts concluded the techniques were designed to frighten minority voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 Republican party officials were forced to sign a consent decree agreeing to stop However in 2013 the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in its ruling on Shelby County v Holder This enabled Republican legislatures in at least 20 states to impose new obstacles for the 2018 elections 13 14 Disputed elections editPresident edit 2012 edit After Barack Obama was declared the winner of the Electoral College while still trailing in the popular vote count early on election night 2012 Trump tweeted the election was a total sham because Obama lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election adding the electoral college is a disaster for a democracy and We can t let this happen We should march on Washington and stop this travesty 15 Final election results showed Obama won the popular vote by nearly five million ballots 16 In the 2016 presidential election Trump won the electoral college but lost the popular vote by nearly three million ballots 17 ABC News writer Terrence Smith described Trump s statements as the first example showing a broader playbook of election denial 10 Despite Trump s comments unsuccessful Republican nominee Mitt Romney accepted the results and conceded defeat 2016 edit During the 2016 Republican primaries Trump alleged without evidence that his opponent Senator Ted Cruz stole the Iowa presidential caucuses after he had won them 10 During the 2016 presidential campaign Trump asserted that the only way he could lose was if there was election fraud 18 Trump political advisor Roger Stone created a Stop the Steal organization in 2016 in the event Trump lost it was revived after Trump s loss in 2020 19 Trump claimed without evidence that millions voted illegally for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election costing him the popular vote victory 20 As a result Trump established an election integrity commission in May 2017 but the commission was disbanded several months later with member Matthew Dunlap the Maine secretary of state writing to commission chair Mike Pence and vice chair Kris Kobach that contrary to public statements by Trump and Kobach the commission did not find substantial voter fraud 21 Dunlap alleged the true purpose of the commission was to create a pretext to pave the way for policy changes designed to undermine the right to vote Critics said the commission s intent was to disenfranchise or deter legal voters 22 Kobach then the Kansas secretary of state had a history of making false or unsubstantiated allegations of voting fraud to advocate for voting restrictions 23 24 2020 edit Main article Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election Donald Trump complained of widespread voter fraud leading up to and following the 2020 U S presidential election which was widely debunked Having never conceded Trump used this allegation of fraud as justification to try multiple times to subvert the election results and remain in office Trump has demanded those seeking his endorsement to support his unfounded allegations of fraud Many of those involved in the plots including the riot on January 6 2021 have been convicted charged or are under investigation for crimes such as insurrection 2024 edit As of January 2024 Trump has not committed to accepting the results of the 2024 U S presidential election if he loses 25 Trump s niece Mary L Trump and retiring Rep Anthony Gonzalez R among others predict that he would once again deny the results of a loss and try to steal the election 26 27 According to NPR the continuation of election denial tactics by Trump for the 2024 election is likely 28 Many Republicans notably Trump long criticized ballot harvesting and the early voting it enables as rife with fraud and cheating encouraging their voters to vote only at polling places on election day The 2022 Dinesh D Souza film 2000 Mules was centered on false allegations of illegal ballot harvesting by unnamed nonprofit organizations supposedly associated with the Democratic Party to commit election fraud After disappointing Republican results in the 2020 and 2022 elections some Trump aligned organizations such as Turning Point USA recognized they needed to adopt similar ballot collection methods for the 2024 elections which they named ballot chasing Turning Point said it would raise money to create the largest and most impactful ballot chasing operation the movement has ever seen Kari Lake who refused to concede her loss in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race said she would launch the largest ballot chasing operation in our nation s history Media Matters reported in March 2024 that Lara Trump the new co chair of the Republican National Committee had said on a recent podcast that the RNC would launch a legal ballot harvesting effort 29 30 31 Lara Trump said on the same podcast that I m gonna say 75 million plus Americans who still are like what the hell happened in 2020 They didn t get any answers She baselessly claimed that the odds of mail in ballots giving Biden swing state victories was one in one quadrillion to the fourth power 32 After insisting for several years that mail in balloting is totally corrupt and contributed to his 2020 election loss by April 2024 Donald Trump and the RNC were encouraging his supporters to adopt mail in and early voting 33 34 35 36 During the campaign Trump often referred to election integrity to allude to his continuing lie that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen as well as baseless predictions of future mass election fraud As he did during the 2020 election cycle without evidence Trump told supporters that Democrats might try to rig the 2024 election By 2022 Republican politicians conservative cable news outlets and talk radio echoed a narrative of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon that if Democrats don t cheat they don t win Politico reported in June 2022 that the RNC sought to deploy an army of poll workers and attorneys in swing states who could refer what they deemed questionable ballots in Democratic voting precincts to a network of friendly district attorneys to challenge Media Matters reported that in March 2024 Lara Trump said the party had the ability to train poll workers who could handle ballots rather than merely observe polling places Trump s political operation said in April 2024 that it planned to deploy more than 100 000 attorneys and volunteers to polling places across battleground states with an election integrity hotline for poll watchers and voters to report alleged voting irregularities Trump told a rally audience in December 2023 that they needed to guard the vote in Democratic run cities He had complained that his 2020 campaign was not adequately prepared to challenge his loss in courts some critics said his 2024 election integrity effort is actually intended to gather allegations to overwhelm the election resolution process should he challenge the 2024 election results Marc Elias a Democratic election lawyer who defeated every Trump court challenge after the 2020 election remarked I think they are going to have a massive voter suppression operation and it is going to involve very very large numbers of people and very very large numbers of lawyers 37 Days after the RNC voted Lara Trump and Michael Whatley to lead the organization former OANN anchor Christina Bobb was named to head the RNC election integrity program which Lara Trump said occupied an entire wing of the building A staunch Trump advocate Bobb was involved in attempts to overturn the 2020 U S presidential election and promoted the false allegation that the election had been stolen from Trump by fraud 38 39 40 In April 2024 the RNC released a robocall script falsely alleging Democrats committed massive fraud in the 2020 election The script added If Democrats have their way your vote could be canceled out by someone who isn t even an American citizen 41 Statewide edit 2022 edit In addition to making false claims about the previous election a centerpiece of her 2022 Arizona gubernatorial campaign Kari Lake refused to concede her loss traveling the country into 2023 to promote her election fraud allegations amid speculation she was considering a run for Senate or being named as Trump s running mate in 2024 Her several lawsuits challenging her loss were thrown out as has a lawsuit to stop using electronic machines 42 43 A July 2023 suit filed by Republican Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer alleging Lake defamed him by claiming he had rigged the election against her was in December 2023 cleared to proceed to trial 44 Prevalence of election denialism editElected officials edit An October 2022 Washington Post analysis found that 51 of Republican nominees for House Senate and key statewide offices in nearly every state that year denied or questioned the 2020 presidential election outcome 45 Secretaries of state oversee elections in states In 2022 nearly one in three Republican candidates for those offices supported overturning the 2020 presidential election results 46 47 The America First Secretary of State Coalition co founded and led by Nevada Republican Jim Marchant was created in 2021 to promote election deniers for secretary of state in the 2022 United States secretary of state elections 48 All but one of nearly twenty candidates the group endorsed in 2022 lost in the general election 49 50 According to analysis by the nonpartisan States United Action election denialism cost Republican candidates from 2 3 to 3 7 percentage points of votes in the 2022 midterm elections 51 Trump made his election fraud claims a litmus test for Republican candidates and the heart of his platform 52 After Mike Johnson won the October 2023 Speaker of the United States House election David A Graham posited that only members of the election denial movement had a chance to win the speakership with only Republican votes 53 Voters edit As of August 2023 a large majority of Republican voters and Republican leaning independents continued to believe Joe Biden was not legitimately elected in 2020 54 Analysis editSarah Longwell a Republican political strategist who strongly opposes Trumpism wrote in April 2022 that she asked Trump voters in focus groups why they continue to believe the election was stolen from him She perceived that for many it was a hard to explain tribal response to a message that is echoed throughout the participants social and media environment 55 Analysis of polls by Charles Stewart a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at MIT shows that there are deep ideological roots involving belief in conspiracies racial tensions and religion as well as partisanship He argues Among Republicans conspiracism has a potent effect on embracing election denialism followed by racial resentment Among independents the strongest influences on denialism are Christian nationalism and racial resentment And although election denialism is rare among Democrats what variation does exist is mostly explained by levels of racial resentment 56 Some election experts and historians contend that left unabated election denial could further reduce concessions by losing candidates disrupt the peaceful transfers of power and weaken or even dismantle American democracy 57 58 Lisa Bryant a political science professor at California State University Fresno warned of the erosion of trust in the democratic process and the institutions it produces which might lead to a breakdown in the rule of law if the government and by extension the laws they create are not viewed as legitimate 59 60 Priorities and supporters of the movement editFollowing Trump s 2020 loss amid his false allegations of fraud Republican lawmakers initiated a sweeping effort to make voting laws more restrictive in several states across the country and to take control of the administrative management of elections at the state and local level 61 62 63 64 Some planned to deploy an army of poll workers and lawyers to challenge votes in Democratic districts 65 66 67 Notable supporters of the election denial movement edit Dennis Montgomery promoted widely debunked evidence for both the birther conspiracy theory movement and the 2020 election denial movement among other far right conspiracies was frequently widely cited by supporters of President Trump s efforts to overturn the election 68 By 2022 My Pillow founder Mike Lindell had become a prominent figure in the movement spending millions of his money for conferences activist networks a media platform legal actions and research Lindell asserts the 2020 election was stolen through a complex global scheme to hack into voting machines Through his My Pillow advertising placements he became a major financial backer of an expanding network of right wing podcasters and influencers 69 Lindell s legal firm said in an October 2023 court filing that Lindell was in arrears by millions of dollars in fees and that the firm could no longer afford to represent him which Lindell confirmed 70 Organizations funded by dark money have met quietly with officials in Republican controlled states to create an incubator of policies that would restrict ballot access and amplify false claims that fraud is rampant in elections Led by The Heritage Foundation the groups include the Honest Elections Project which is among a network of conservative organizations associated with Leonard Leo a longtime prominent figure in the Federalist Society 71 The Conservative Partnership Institute CPI was founded in 2017 by former Republican senator and Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint CPI employs Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark and has been described as the nerve center for the MAGA movement CPI s funding increased from 1 7 million 2017 to 45 million in 2021 CPI includes the Election Integrity Network led by Cleta Mitchell 72 73 74 75 Mitchell was a Trump advisor after the 2020 election who participated in the Trump Raffensperger phone call during which Trump pressured the Georgia secretary of state to find ballots that would secure him a victory in the state Trump and 18 others including Meadows and Clark were indicted in the Georgia election racketeering prosecution for allegedly running a criminal racketeering enterprise Mitchell was one of 39 individuals a special grand jury recommended for indictment on multiple charges though prosecutor Fani Willis declined to charge her 76 By 2022 Mitchell said she was taking the lessons we learned in 2020 as she held seminars around the country to recruit election deniers to monitor elections because the only way Democrats win is to cheat 77 In 2022 the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School identified several individuals or groups that together were spending tens of millions to support election deniers in that year s midterm elections These included the billionaire couple Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein Trump s Save America PAC and Home Depot co founder Bernard Marcus Former Overstock com CEO Patrick Byrne said he spent 20 million to convince people that the 2020 election was stolen he was also a major funder of the 2021 Maricopa County presidential ballot audit that sought but failed to find election fraud in the 2020 presidential election Byrne has been the largest funder of The America Project which pushes election denial narratives That group was founded by former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn in 2021 with an agenda that includes undermining trust in elections 78 79 Byrne Flynn and others attended a December 2020 Oval Office meeting with Trump to discuss ways to overturn the president s election loss 80 Oracle Corporation founder Larry Ellison joined a November 2020 conference call with Sean Hannity and senator Lindsey Graham to discuss ways to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 election 81 By October 2022 Ellison was donating millions of dollars to a SuperPAC to support four Senate candidates who had cast doubt on the 2020 election results 82 The 2022 Dinesh D Souza film 2000 Mules film falsely alleges unnamed nonprofit organizations associated with the Democratic Party paid mules to illegally collect and deposit ballots into drop boxes in five swing states during the 2020 presidential election 83 84 85 86 Some analysts and politicians both Republican and Democrat have suggested that election denial may include an element of grifting to solicit donations from unwitting supporters 87 88 89 90 With an email campaign Trump raised about 250 million for what he told donors was an official election defense fund that did not actually exist 91 92 By September 2022 a federal grand jury was investigating whether Trump and his allies were soliciting donations on the basis of claims they knew were false which might violate federal wire fraud laws 93 94 The Smith special counsel investigation was also examining the fundraising of former Trump attorney Sidney Powell by September 2023 95 References edit Wines Michael February 27 2021 In Statehouses Stolen Election Myth Fuels a G O P Drive to Rewrite Rules The New York Times Republicans have long thought sometimes quietly occasionally out loud that large turnouts particularly in urban areas favor Democrats and that Republicans benefit when fewer people vote But politicians and scholars alike say that this moment feels like a dangerous plunge into uncharted waters a b Malone Clare June 24 2020 The Republican Choice 538 Paul Weyrich co founder of the conservative The Heritage Foundation said in a speech in 1980 I don t want everybody to vote our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down Sullivan Andy Ax Joseph September 9 2020 Despite Trump claims voter fraud is extremely rare Here is how U S states keep it that way Reuters Epstein Reid J Corasaniti Nick March 17 2022 Republicans Push Crackdown on Crime Wave That Doesn t Exist Voter Fraud The New York Times Yoon Robert August 27 2023 Trump s drumbeat of lies about the 2020 election keeps getting louder Here are the facts Associated Press Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth Brennan Center for Justice www brennancenter org January 31 2017 Retrieved October 27 2023 Analysis Heritage Foundation s Database Undermines Claims of Recent Voter Fraud Brennan Center for Justice Brennan Center September 8 2017 Retrieved October 27 2023 Andrew Smolar How Group Identifications Have Contributed to Our National Discord Group 47 12 2023 115 147 Kabaservice Geoffrey December 4 2020 Perspective The forever grievance The Washington Post Retrieved November 4 2023 characteristic mistrust of norms was evident from the beginning in its embrace of birtherism the racist conspiracy theory that claimed without evidence that Obama was secretly a foreign born Muslim and ineligible for the presidency Social media accelerated the spread of such conspiratorial beliefs which further dissolved trust in established institutions and objective truth the tea party never really died its energies were reactivated with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump who of course was the leading purveyor of birtherism both the tea party and Trump s movement also were rooted in fact free conspiracy theories about the treachery of Democrats and elites who allegedly plotted to destroy the livelihoods and traditions of real Americans for their own benefit a b c Smith Terrence November 11 2020 Trump has longstanding history of calling elections rigged if he doesn t like the results ABC News Retrieved October 26 2023 Axelrod Ted September 8 2022 A timeline of Donald Trump s election denial claims which Republican politicians increasingly embrace ABC News Retrieved October 28 2023 Democracy on the ballot election denial and the Electoral Count Act Brookings November 1 2022 Retrieved October 28 2023 Voting Rights A Short History Carnegie Reporter November 18 2019 online Chris Sautter U S Elections on the Brink in Candice J Nelson and James A Thurber eds Campaigns and elections American style The changing landscape of political campaigns 5th edition Routledge 2018 pp 136 159 at p 140 Donald Trump s 2012 Election Tweetstorm Resurfaces as Popular and Electoral Vote Appear Divided ABC News November 9 2016 Republicans seek to change how electoral votes are allocated CBS News January 28 2013 Schwartz Jerry October 31 2020 EXPLAINER They lost the popular vote but won the elections Associated Press Blitzer Jonathan October 8 2016 Trump and the Truth The Rigged Election The New Yorker Kuznia Rob Devine Curt Black Nelli Griffin Drew November 14 2020 Stop the Steal s massive disinformation campaign connected to Roger Stone CNN Kilgore Ed November 14 2019 Bevin Concedes After Republicans Decline to Help Him Steal the Election Intelligencer Retrieved October 28 2023 Williams Joseph January 10 2018 Trump Panel Finds No Voter Fraud U S News amp World Report U S News amp World Report Retrieved November 9 2020 Horwitz Sari Trump s voter commission hasn t even met and it s already off to a rough start The Washington Post Retrieved July 19 2017 Foran Clare August 4 2018 Trump voting commission had no evidence of widespread voter fraud former member says CNN Horwitz Sari April 6 2016 The conservative gladiator from Kansas behind restrictive voting laws The Washington Post Gans Jared May 11 2023 Trump won t commit to accepting 2024 election results The Hill Retrieved October 26 2023 Writer Fatma Khaled Staff March 11 2023 Mary Trump predicts what Donald Trump will do if he loses again Newsweek Retrieved October 26 2023 Zhao Christina November 6 2021 GOP Lawmaker Warns Trump Will Try Steal Election Again In 24 If He Loses Newsweek Retrieved October 26 2023 Bond Shannon Parks Miles November 10 2023 Why the fight to counter false election claims may be harder in 2024 NPR Retrieved November 10 2023 Josh Dawsey Isaac Arnsdorf July 12 2023 Republicans plan efforts to tout early voting tactics they once vilified The Washington Post Swenson Ali May 3 2022 FACT FOCUS Gaping holes in the claim of 2K ballot mules Associated Press Praised by former President Donald Trump as exposing great election fraud the movie called 2000 Mules paints an ominous picture suggesting Democrat aligned ballot mules were supposedly paid to illegally collect and drop off ballots in Arizona Georgia Michigan Pennsylvania and Wisconsin But that s based on faulty assumptions anonymous accounts and improper analysis of cellphone location data which is not precise enough to confirm that somebody deposited a ballot into a drop box according to experts Wheatley Jack March 15 2024 Lara Trump says she wants to hire QAnon conspiracy theorist Scott Presler to work for the RNC Media Matters Wheatley Jack March 15 2024 Lara Trump says she wants to hire QAnon conspiracy theorist Scott Presler to work for the RNC Media Matters Josh Dawsey Isaac Arnsdorf July 12 2023 Republicans plan efforts to tout early voting tactics they once vilified The Washington Post Kendall Ross Lalee Ibssa Soo Rin Kim April 5 2024 Republican Party pushing mail in voting despite Trump s opposition ABC News Luciano Michael April 19 2024 Trump Encourages Supporters to Vote by Mail After Bashing It for Years MAKE A PLAN Mediaite Tangalakis Lippert Katherine April 20 2024 Trump flip flopped on absentee voting but don t expect his supporters to start trusting the system now political scientist says Business Insider Multiple sources Fact checking Trump and Johnson s election integrity announcement CNN April 12 2024 Thompson Stuart A July 5 2022 On Conservative Radio Misleading Message Is Clear Democrats Cheat The New York Times Przybyla Heidi June 1 2022 It s going to be an army Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections Politico Isenstadt Alex April 19 2024 Trump campaign says it will deploy thousands of election workers to monitor poll sites Politico Wheatley Jack March 15 2024 Lara Trump says she wants to hire QAnon conspiracy theorist Scott Presler to work for the RNC Media Matters Lutz Eric April 19 2024 No Trump s Plan to Deploy 100 000 Poll Workers Isn t About Election Integrity Vanity Fair Timm Jane C April 19 2024 Trump campaign RNC pledge to deploy 100 000 attorneys and volunteers to monitor the vote NBC News Slattery Gram April 19 2024 Trump campaign launches effort to fight voter fraud Reuters Glenn Thrush Maggie Haberman Michael S Schmidt October 11 2022 She Went Out on a Limb for Trump Now She s Under Justice Dept Scrutiny The New York Times Archived from the original on July 28 2023 Retrieved September 28 2023 Cameron Chris March 14 2014 New R N C Chair Declares a United Front With Trump After Sweeping Changes The New York Times Wheatley Jack March 15 2024 Lara Trump says she wants to hire QAnon conspiracy theorist Scott Presler to work for the RNC Media Matters Andrew Kaczynski Em Steck April 10 2024 RNC under Lara Trump spreads massive fraud claims about 2020 election CNN Kornfield Meryl February 12 2023 Defiant Kari Lake carries election denier banner across Iowa amid divided GOP The Washington Post Kari Lake s lawsuit over metro Phoenix s electronic tabulation systems has been tossed out AP News October 17 2023 Retrieved October 26 2023 Sievers Kaitlin December 20 2023 Judge denies Lake s motions to dismiss Richer defamation case Arizona Mirror Gardner Amy October 12 2022 A majority of GOP nominees deny or question the 2020 election results The Washington Post Riccardi Nicholas September 8 2022 Support of false election claims runs deep in 2022 GOP field Associated Press Berzon Alexandra June 5 2022 In Races to Run Elections Candidates Are Backed by Key 2020 Deniers The New York Times Halpern Sue September 20 2022 Behind the Campaign to Put Election Deniers in Charge of Elections The New Yorker Corasaniti Nick November 12 2022 Voters Reject Election Deniers Running to Take Over Elections The New York Times Edelman Adam November 16 2022 Election deniers overwhelmingly lost in battleground states NBC News Corasaniti Nick May 15 2023 How Much Did Election Denial Hurt Republicans in the Midterms The New York Times Colvin Jill Peoples Steve May 4 2021 Whose Big Lie Trump s proclamation a new GOP litmus test AP News Retrieved October 26 2023 Graham David A October 25 2023 The House Republicans Troubling New Litmus Test The Atlantic Retrieved October 26 2023 Agiesta Jennifer Edwards Levy Ariel August 3 2023 CNN Poll Percentage of Republicans who think Biden s 2020 win was illegitimate ticks back up near 70 CNN Longwell Sarah April 18 2022 Trump Supporters Explain Why They Believe the Big Lie The Atlantic Charles Stewart III Public Opinion Roots of Election Denialism January 4 2023 Available at SSRN or http dx doi org 10 2139 ssrn 4318153 Greenblatt Alan November 12 2020 Trump s Not the First Politician Who Refused to Concede Governing Retrieved October 27 2023 Elving Ron November 8 2020 The Tradition Of A Candidate Concession Is Far More Than Mere Courtesy NPR Harb Ali November 1 2022 Eroding trust How election deniers endanger US democracy Al Jazeera Axelrod Tal September 6 2022 Why election experts worry for American democracy and what they say can be done ABC News McCaskill Nolan D March 15 2021 After Trump s loss and false fraud claims GOP eyes voter restrictions across nation Politico Archived from the original on March 15 2021 Retrieved January 17 2023 Izaguirre Anthony Coronado Acacia January 31 2021 GOP lawmakers seek tougher voting rules after record turnout Associated Press Archived from the original on January 31 2021 Retrieved January 17 2023 Corasaniti Nick Berzon Alexandra May 8 2023 Under the Radar Right Wing Push to Tighten Voting Laws Persists The New York Times Riccardi Nicholas December 29 2021 Slow motion insurrection How GOP seizes election power Associated Press Retrieved January 17 2023 Przybyla Heidi June 1 2022 It s going to be an army Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections Politico Parks Miles Mollenkamp Allison McMillan Nick June 30 2022 Election deniers have taken their fraud theories on tour to nearly every state NPR Parks Miles Birkeland Bente July 21 2022 The election denial movement is now going door to door National Public Radio Roston Aram Eisler Peter December 20 2022 The man behind Trump World s myth of rigged voting machines Reuters Retrieved October 26 2023 Berzon Alexandra Homans Charles Bensinger Ken October 27 2022 How Mike Lindell s Pillow Business Propels the Election Denial Movement The New York Times Gregorian Dareh October 5 2023 MyPillow lawyers say CEO Mike Lindell owes them millions of dollars NBC News Pilkington Ed Corey Jamie April 5 2023 Dark money groups push election denialism on US state officials The Guardian Buckley Olivia Massoglia Anna September 15 2023 Billionaire megadonor couple funding election denial with extensive influence machine and dark money network OpenSecrets Schwartzman Paul March 15 2023 Steps from the Capitol Trump allies buy up properties to build MAGA campus The Washington Post Trump Lawyer Cleta Mitchell Escaped Georgia Indictment And Still Leads Election Denial Movement The Intercept September 13 2023 Przybyla Heidi March 16 2023 Inside the Trump world organized retreat to plot out Biden oversight Politico Shapero Julia Robertson Nick September 8 2023 The 39 people the Georgia special grand jury recommended charges against The Hill Berzon Alexandra May 30 2022 Lawyer Who Plotted to Overturn Trump Loss Recruits Election Deniers to Watch Over the Vote The New York Times Fishman Julia Vandewalker Ian November 3 2022 Big Donors Working to Overturn the 2020 Election Are Backing Election Denial Candidates in 2022 Brennan Center for Justice Smith Michelle R October 18 2022 How Michael Flynn goes local to spread Christian nationalism Associated Press Cohen Zachary July 12 2022 What we know about infamous Oval Office meeting held by Trump s inner circle in December 2020 CNN Stanley Becker Isaac Boburg Shawn May 20 2022 Oracle s Larry Ellison joined Nov 2020 call about contesting Trump s loss The Washington Post Durot Matt October 12 2022 Tech Billionaire Larry Ellison s Record Political Giving Funds Election Deniers In Midterms Forbes Swenson Ali May 3 2022 FACT FOCUS Gaping holes in the claim of 2K ballot mules Associated Press McCarthy Bill Sherman Amy May 4 2022 The faulty premise of the 2 000 mules trailer about voting by mail in the 2020 election PolitiFact Bump Philip April 29 2022 The dishonest pivot at the heart of the new voter fraud conspiracy The Washington Post Marques David Right Wing Flop of the Year Dinesh D Souza s 2000 Mules The New Republic Wines Michael September 24 2021 Arizona Vote Review Is Political Theater and Sham G O P Leaders Say The New York TImes Falconer Rebecca Duda Jeremy October 30 2022 Arizona s Republican AG calls election fraud claims horses t Axios Kuznia Rob Ortega Bob Tolan Casey September 13 2021 In the wake of Trump s attack on democracy election officials fear for the future of American elections CNN Hananoki Eric November 25 2020 Right wing media figures are lying about the election being stolen to grift their followers for money Media Matters Pilkington Ed June 18 2022 The big rip off how Trump exploited his fans with election defense fund The Guardian Lowell Hugo June 15 2022 Trump s raising of 250m for fund that did not exist suggests possible fraud The Guardian Feuer Alan Haberman Maggie Goldman Adam Vogel Kenneth P September 8 2022 Trump s Post Election Fund Raising Comes Under Scrutiny by Justice Dept The New York TImes Haberman Maggie Feuer Alan Swan Jonathan April 28 2023 Prosecutors in Jan 6 Case Step up Inquiry Into Trump Fund Raising The New York TImes Cohen Zachary Reid Paula September 5 2023 CNN Exclusive Special counsel election probe continues with focus on fundraising voting equipment breaches CNN Further reading editAlbertson Bethany and Kimberly Guiler Conspiracy theories election rigging and support for democratic norms Research amp Politics 7 3 2020 online Craig Maureen A and Jennifer A Richeson On the Precipice of a Majority Minority America Perceived Status Threat From the Racial Demographic Shift Affects White Americans Political Ideology Psychological Science 2014 25 6 1189 97 Graham Matthew H and Milan W Svolik Democracy in America Partisanship Polarization and the Robustness of Support for Democracy in the United States American Political Science Review 2020 114 2 392 409 online Sautter Chris US Democracy Survives a Challenge in Campaigns and Elections American Style The changing landscape of political campaigns ed by Candice J Nelson James A Thurber and David A Dulio 6th ed Routledge 2023 pp 33 51 doi 10 4324 9781003166375 3 Wu Jennifer et al Are Dead People Voting By Mail Evidence From Washington State Administrative Records Stanford Institute for Economic and Policy Research 2020 summary Examination of 4 5 million distinct votes in Washington state 2011 to 2018 found 14 cases of individuals whose ballots were cast suspiciously after their death representing one vote per 300 000 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Election denial movement in the United States amp oldid 1220578414, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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