Fact check: Watch out for these election night falsehoods

By Daniel Dale, CNN

Washington (CNN) — Donald Trump told lie after lie in his speech on election night in 2020. With the former president running again in 2024, here are 12 possible falsehoods to watch out for on this week’s election night – and perhaps the following days, too.

False declarations of victory

As the votes were still being counted on election night in 2020, Trump wrongly declared that he was the winner of various swing states it turned out he lost – and that he was the winner of the election it turned out he lost.

Fact-checker’s tip: Don’t trust any candidate’s own declarations of victory. Instead, wait for major media outlets’ unofficial projections (popularly known as “calls”) of the winner of each state and the election.

False claims that Harris couldn’t possibly have won legitimately

It’s very possible that Trump wins this election. But if Vice President Kamala Harris wins, Trump might well revive his pre-November false claims that the only way Harris could possibly prevail is through cheating.

Fact-checker’s tip: Know that this claim is nonsense. Opinion polls have consistently found that Trump and Harris are locked in a close race. It could be won, fair and square, by either of them.

False claims that out-of-context videos show nefarious behavior

Social media is awash in posts that misleadingly describe what is happening in election-related videos. In 2020 and beyond, for example, Trump and his allies claimed that a video had captured flagrant illegality by two Georgia election workers who were actually doing nothing wrong.

Fact-checker’s tip: Before you believe that a video shows what a caption on social media claims it shows, seek information from the feeds of state and local elections authorities and state and local journalists.

False claims that good-faith errors were malicious

In 2020, a small Michigan county made an error in its initial reporting of the votes, reporting Trump votes as if they were Biden votes – and Trump and his allies used that mistake, which was promptly corrected, as a primary basis for a sprawling conspiracy theory baselessly alleging that voting technology had been rigged to steal the election.

Fact-checker’s tip: Know that there is always a smattering of initial mistakes when counties around the country are processing and reporting more than 150 million votes. Human error is always more likely than a conspiracy; seek proof before attributing these errors to malicious intent.

False claims that Democratic-dominated cities engage in massive cheating

Trump has falsely claimed for years that overwhelmingly Democratic cities with large Black populations, such as Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee and Atlanta, are rife with election fraud.

Fact-checker’s tip: Demand proof for any such claims made in 2024. Know there was no evidence of any widespread voter fraud, or any cheating by the elections authorities, in any Democratic-dominated city or state in 2020.

False claims that normal late-night reporting of votes is suspicious

Trump has repeatedly claimed that there was something amiss about supposed “dumps” of votes in the overnight hours of election night in 2020. In reality, those were just normal votes being counted as usual and added to the public totals as soon as possible.

Fact-checker’s tip: Know that counting votes takes time, especially in populous urban counties with large numbers of voters, and that it’s standard, not suspicious, for some votes to be reported after midnight on election night. Also know that Republican state senators in the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania declined to pass legislative proposals between last election and this election that would have allowed for a faster count.

False claims that vote-counting after Election Day is suspicious

Trump, who infamously called in 2020 to “STOP THE COUNT” when the count showed him with temporary leads over Biden, has sometimes baselessly called into question the legitimacy of counting votes after election night.

Fact-checker’s tip: Know that the count always continues after election night. While media outlets often “call” races on election night, those “calls” are unofficial projections based on incomplete data. The official count proceeds until all valid votes are counted.

False claims that mail-in ballots are rife with fraud

Trump has for four years made false claims about mail-in ballots, wrongly claiming they are rife with fraud.

Fact-checker’s tip: Know that there is no evidence of widespread fraud with mail-in ballots; while experts say there is marginally more fraud with these ballots than with in-person voting, it’s still a minuscule percentage of votes. Also, Trump himself encouraged supporters to vote by mail this year even as he has continued to criticize mail-in ballots.

False claims that ballots accepted after Election Day are illegitimate

Trump suggested in 2020 that mail-in ballots that are received after Election Day are illegitimate and should not be counted.

Fact-checker’s tip: Know that there is nothing illegitimate about these ballots.

Some of them are votes by servicemembers and other citizens living overseas, who get extended return deadlines in many states. Others can also be lawful votes: even some states run by Republicans, including Utah, West Virginia and Ohio, allow ballots from citizens living in the US to be counted even if they arrive a certain number of days after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by the deadline on or before Election Day. (Of this year’s seven swing states, however, Nevada is the only one that doesn’t require mail-in ballots to arrive by the evening of Election Day.)

False claims that there is no verification of military and overseas voters

Trump baselessly claimed in September that Democrats were using military and overseas ballots to cheat in the election, wrongly saying these ballots are sent to people whose identities have not been checked.

Fact-checker’s tip: Know that the identities of these voters were verified by their local elections offices when they registered to vote.

False claims that noncitizens are voting en masse

Trump has falsely claimed for years that large numbers of noncitizens are casting illegal votes in presidential elections. For example, even after he won the 2016 election, he incorrectly asserted that millions of undocumented immigrants had voted in California.

Fact-checker’s tip: Know that these claims are false. There are a tiny number of known cases of illegal voting by noncitizens – and nonpartisan experts on election law say such cases are almost always caught, thanks to layers of identity verification built into the registration and voting process.

False claims about voter registration applications in Pennsylvania

In the week leading up to Election Day, Trump has falsely claimed that more than 2,000 phony “votes” were discovered in a single county in Pennsylvania.

Fact-checker’s tip: Know that the issue in this county did not involve actual votes. Rather, these were voter registration applications that were thought to be suspicious and placed under investigation.

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