WASHINGTON – With Donald Trump going through felony charges over his makes an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former president is flooding the airwaves and his social media platform with distortions, misinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories about his defeat.
It’s section of a multiyear effort to undermine public self assurance in the American electoral procedure as he seeks to chart a go back to the White House in 2024. There is proof that his lies are resonating: New polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research presentations that 57% of Republicans believe Democrat Joe Biden was not legitimately elected as president.
Here are the facts about Trump’s loss in the ultimate presidential election:
REVIEWS AND RECOUNTS CONFIRM BIDEN’S VICTORY
Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020 used to be now not specifically shut. He received the Electoral College with 306 votes to Trump’s 232, and the in style vote by way of greater than 7 million ballots.
Because the Electoral College in the long run determines the presidency, the race used to be made up our minds by way of a couple of battleground states. Many of the ones states carried out recounts or thorough opinions of the effects, all of which showed Biden’s victory.
In Arizona, a six-month review of ballots in the state’s largest county, Maricopa, that used to be commissioned by way of Republican state legislators now not handiest affirmed Biden’s victory however decided that he must have received by way of 306 extra votes than the formally qualified statewide margin of 10,457.
In Georgia, the place Trump used to be just lately indicted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 outcome there, state officers led by way of each a Republican governor and secretary of state recertified Biden’s win after conducting three statewide counts. The ultimate legit recount narrowed Biden’s victory in the state from simply shy of 13,000 votes to simply shy of 12,000 votes.
In Michigan, a committee led by way of Republican state senators concluded there used to be no widespread or systematic fraud in the state in 2020 after accomplishing a monthslong investigation. Michigan, the place Biden defeated Trump by way of virtually 155,000 votes, or 2.8 proportion issues, used to be much less aggressive when put next with different battleground states, even supposing the lead to Wayne County, house of Detroit, used to be targeted by Trump and his supporters with unfounded voter fraud claims, as have been key city jurisdictions throughout the nation.
In Nevada, the then-secretary of state, Republican Barbara Cegavske, and her administrative center reviewed tens of thousands of allegations of possible voter fraud known by way of the Nevada Republican Party however discovered that the majority have been in accordance with incomplete information and a scarcity of figuring out of the state’s vote casting and registration procedures. For instance, Cegavske’s investigation discovered that of 1,506 alleged circumstances of ballots being solid in the title of deceased people, handiest 10 warranted additional investigation by way of legislation enforcement. Similarly, 10 out of 1,778 allegations of double-voting referred to as for additional investigation. Biden received Nevada by way of 33,596 votes, or 2.4 proportion issues.
In Pennsylvania, the ultimate qualified effects had Biden with an 80,555-vote margin over Trump, or 1.2 proportion issues. Efforts to overturn Pennsylvania’s election failed in state and federal courts, whilst no prosecutor, pass judgement on or election legit in Pennsylvania has raised a priority about standard fraud. State Republicans proceed to aim their very own assessment of the 2020 effects, however that effort has been tied up in the courts and Democrats have referred to as it a “partisan fishing expedition.”
In Wisconsin, a recount slightly improved Biden’s victory over Trump by way of 87 votes, expanding Biden’s statewide result in 20,682, or 0.6 proportion issues. A nonpartisan audit that concluded a yr after the election made tips about the right way to support long term elections in Wisconsin however didn’t discover proof of standard voter fraud in the state, main the Republican co-chair of the audit committee to claim that “ the election was largely safe and secure. ” The state’s Assembly speaker, a Republican, ordered a separate assessment, which a state pass judgement on mentioned discovered “ absolutely no evidence of election fraud.”
AP INVESTIGATION FINDS MINIMAL VOTER FRAUD IN SWING STATES
An exhaustive AP investigation in 2021 discovered fewer than 475 instances of confirmed voter fraud across six battleground states — nowhere close to the magnitude required to sway the consequence of the presidential election.
The review of ballots and records from more than 300 local elections offices discovered that just about each and every example of voter fraud used to be dedicated by way of people appearing on my own and now not the outcome of a large, coordinated conspiracy to rig the election. The instances concerned each registered Democrats and Republicans, and the culprits have been virtually at all times stuck prior to the fraudulent poll used to be counted.
Some of the instances seemed to be intentional makes an attempt to dedicate fraud, whilst others appeared to contain both administrative error or voter confusion, together with the case of one Wisconsin guy who solid a poll for Trump however mentioned he used to be unaware that he used to be ineligible to vote as a result of he used to be on parole for a prison conviction.
The AP assessment additionally produced no proof to strengthen Trump’s claims that states tabulated extra votes than there are registered citizens.
Biden received Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and their 79 Electoral College votes by way of a blended 311,257 votes out of 25.5 million ballots solid. The disputed ballots constitute simply 0.15% of his victory margin in the ones states.
TRUMP’S OWN ADMINISTRATION FOUND NO WIDESPREAD FRAUD
Trump used to be many times steered by way of contributors of his personal management that there used to be no proof of standard fraud.
Nine days after the 2020 election, the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a observation announcing, “ The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.” The observation used to be co-written by way of the teams representing the best elections officers in each and every state.
Less than 3 weeks later, then-Attorney General William Barr declared {that a} Justice Department investigation had not uncovered evidence of the widespread voter fraud that Trump had claimed used to be at the middle of a large conspiracy to thieve the election. Barr, who had directed U.S. legal professionals and FBI brokers throughout the nation to pursue “substantial allegations” of vote casting irregularities, mentioned, “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
The Jan. 6 House committee report main points further circumstances the place management officers and White House personnel refuted Trump’s quite a lot of allegations of voter fraud.
COURTS HEARD TRUMP’S LEGAL CHALLENGES AND REJECTED THEM
The Trump marketing campaign and its backers pursued numerous legal challenges to the election in court and alleged a wide range of voter fraud and misconduct. The cases were heard and roundly rejected by dozens of courts at each state and federal ranges, together with by way of judges whom Trump appointed.
One of them, U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, used to be on a federal panel that declined a request to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its effects, announcing, “Voters, not lawyers, choose the president. Ballots, not briefs, decide elections.”
The U.S. Supreme Court also rejected several efforts in the weeks after Election Day to overturn the election leads to quite a lot of battleground states that Biden received.
CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT VOTING MACHINES WERE UNFOUNDED
Many of the claims Trump and his crew complex about a stolen election handled the apparatus citizens used to solid their ballots.
At quite a lot of instances, Trump and his criminal crew falsely alleged that vote casting machines have been inbuilt Venezuela at the path of President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013; that machines have been designed to delete or turn votes solid for Trump; and that the U.S. Army had seized a pc server in Germany that held secrets and techniques to U.S. vote casting irregularities.
None of those claims was ever substantiated or corroborated. CISA’s joint statement launched after the election mentioned, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised.”
Nonetheless, many of those and different unfounded claims have been repeated on Fox News, each by way of contributors of the Trump crew in addition to by way of some of the community’s on-air personalities. Dominion Voting Systems sued the community for $1.6 billion, claiming the outlet’s airing of those allegations amounted to defamation.
Records of inner communications at Fox News unearthed in the case confirmed that the community aired the claims even supposing its largest stars, together with Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, in addition to the corporate’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, didn’t consider they have been true.
Dominion and Fox News settled out of court for $787.5 million.
CLAIMS INVOLVING SUITCASES AND BALLOT MULES ARE DEBUNKED
Trump and his supporters even have claimed {that a} quantity of different elements contributed to a broader effort to thieve the presidential election.
One idea complex by way of each Trump and one of his legal professionals, Rudy Giuliani, is that “suitcases” full of fraudulent ballots in Georgia value Trump the election there.
Then-Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen told the Jan. 6 House committee that he in my view reviewed the video purported to turn the fraud allegation in query. He recounted telling Trump: “It wasn’t a suitcase. It was a bin. That’s what they use when they’re counting ballots. It’s benign.”
State and county officers additionally had confirmed the bins have been common poll bins on wheels, which are utilized in standard poll processing.
But per week later, Trump publicly repeated the suitcase idea, announcing, “There is even security camera footage from Georgia that shows officials telling poll watchers to leave the room before pulling suitcases of ballots out from under the tables and continuing to count for hours.”
Richard Donoghue, the former appearing deputy lawyer normal, advised the Jan. 6 committee that, days later, he advised Trump that “these allegations about ballots being smuggled in in a suitcase and run through the machine several times, it was not true. … We looked at the video, we interviewed the witnesses.” But Trump persisted to copy the false declare.
Another debunked declare spinning a story of 2,000 so-called ballot mules used to be featured in a movie that ran in masses of theaters ultimate spring. The movie alleges that Democrat-aligned people have been paid to illegally accumulate and drop ballots in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But the AP decided that the allegations have been in accordance with fallacious research of mobile phone location information and drop field surveillance photos.
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Associated Press writers Scott Bauer and Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin; Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this file.