Washington
CNN
—
Donald Trump informed lie after lie in his speech on election night time in 2020. With the previous president operating once more in 2024, listed below are 12 potential falsehoods to be careful for on this week’s election night time – and maybe the next days, too.
False declarations of victory
Because the votes had been nonetheless being counted on election night time in 2020, Trump wrongly declared that he was the winner of varied swing states it turned out he misplaced – and that he was the winner of the election it turned out he misplaced.
Reality-checker’s tip: Don’t belief any candidate’s personal declarations of victory. As an alternative, anticipate main media shops’ unofficial projections (popularly often known as “calls”) of the winner of every state and the election.
False claims that Harris couldn’t probably have received legitimately
It’s very potential that Trump wins this election. But when Vice President Kamala Harris wins, Trump would possibly properly revive his pre-November false claims that the one means Harris may probably prevail is thru dishonest.
Reality-checker’s tip: Know that this declare is nonsense. Opinion polls have constantly discovered that Trump and Harris are locked in a detailed race. It might be received, truthful and sq., by both of them.
False claims that out-of-context movies present nefarious habits
Social media is awash in posts that misleadingly describe what is going on in election-related movies. In 2020 and past, for instance, Trump and his allies claimed {that a} video had captured flagrant illegality by two Georgia election staff who had been really doing nothing improper.
Reality-checker’s tip: Earlier than you consider {that a} video exhibits what a caption on social media claims it exhibits, search data from the feeds of state and native elections authorities and state and native journalists.
False claims that good-faith errors had been malicious
In 2020, a small Michigan county made an error in its preliminary reporting of the votes, reporting Trump votes as in the event that they had been Biden votes – and Trump and his allies used that mistake, which was promptly corrected, as a main foundation for a sprawling conspiracy concept baselessly alleging that voting expertise had been rigged to steal the election.
Reality-checker’s tip: Know that there’s all the time a smattering of preliminary errors when counties across the nation are processing and reporting greater than 150 million votes. Human error is all the time extra doubtless than a conspiracy; search proof earlier than attributing these errors to malicious intent.
False claims that Democratic-dominated cities interact in huge dishonest
Trump has falsely claimed for years that overwhelmingly Democratic cities with massive Black populations, such as Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee and Atlanta, are rife with election fraud.
Reality-checker’s tip: Demand proof for any such claims made in 2024. Know there was no proof of any widespread voter fraud, or any dishonest by the elections authorities, in any Democratic-dominated metropolis or state in 2020.
False claims that standard late-night reporting of votes is suspicious
Trump has repeatedly claimed that there was one thing amiss about supposed “dumps” of votes within the in a single day hours of election night time in 2020. In actuality, these had been simply regular votes being counted as standard and added to the general public totals as quickly as potential.
Reality-checker’s tip: Know that counting votes takes time, particularly in populous city counties with massive numbers of voters, and that it’s customary, not suspicious, for some votes to be reported after midnight on election night time. Additionally know that Republican state senators within the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania declined to move legislative proposals between final election and this election that may have allowed for a sooner depend.
False claims that vote-counting after Election Day is suspicious
Trump, who infamously known as in 2020 to “STOP THE COUNT” when the depend confirmed him with non permanent leads over Biden, has typically baselessly known as into query the legitimacy of counting votes after election night time.
Reality-checker’s tip: Know that the depend all the time continues after election night time. Whereas media shops typically “name” races on election night time, these “calls” are unofficial projections primarily based on incomplete knowledge. The official depend proceeds till all legitimate votes are counted.
False claims that mail-in ballots are rife with fraud
Trump has for 4 years made false claims about mail-in ballots, wrongly claiming they’re rife with fraud.
Reality-checker’s tip: Know that there isn’t a proof of widespread fraud with mail-in ballots; whereas consultants say there may be marginally extra fraud with these ballots than with in-person voting, it’s nonetheless a minuscule proportion of votes. Additionally, Trump himself inspired supporters to vote by mail this 12 months whilst he has continued to criticize mail-in ballots.
False claims that ballots accepted after Election Day are illegitimate
Trump recommended in 2020 that mail-in ballots which can be obtained after Election Day are illegitimate and shouldn’t be counted.
Reality-checker’s tip: Know that there’s nothing illegitimate about these ballots.
A few of them are votes by servicemembers and different residents residing abroad, who get prolonged return deadlines in lots of states. Others will also be lawful votes: even some states run by Republicans, together with Utah, West Virginia and Ohio, permit ballots from residents residing within the US to be counted even when they arrive a sure variety of days after Election Day, so long as they’re postmarked by the deadline on or earlier than Election Day. (Of this 12 months’s seven swing states, nonetheless, Nevada is the one one which doesn’t require mail-in ballots to reach by the night of Election Day.)
False claims that there isn’t a verification of navy and abroad voters
Trump baselessly claimed in September that Democrats had been utilizing navy and abroad ballots to cheat within the election, wrongly saying these ballots are despatched to individuals whose identities haven’t been checked.
Reality-checker’s tip: Know that the identities of those voters had been verified by their native elections workplaces after they registered to vote.
False claims that noncitizens are voting en masse
Trump has falsely claimed for years that giant numbers of noncitizens are casting unlawful votes in presidential elections. For instance, even after he received the 2016 election, he incorrectly asserted that hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants had voted in California.
Reality-checker’s tip: Know that these claims are false. There are a tiny quantity of identified circumstances of unlawful voting by noncitizens – and nonpartisan consultants on election regulation say such circumstances are nearly all the time caught, due to layers of identification verification constructed into the registration and voting course of.
False claims about voter registration functions in Pennsylvania
Within the week main as much as Election Day, Trump has falsely claimed that greater than 2,000 phony “votes” had been found in a single county in Pennsylvania.
Reality-checker’s tip: Know that the difficulty on this county didn’t contain precise votes. Fairly, these had been voter registration functions that had been considered suspicious and positioned beneath investigation.
