Former United States president Donald Trump is headed back to the White House after his victory over Vice-President Kamala Harris in the U.S. general election was called Wednesday morning. The tight race in many key battleground states has led to scrutiny over the popular vote, with some on social media claiming there were 20 million fewer votes cast in 2024 than in 2020. This is misleading. Vote counting is not complete in any state, and while there is a dip in voter turnout, it's projected to be close to what was seen in 2020.
Several social media posts have pointed to a supposed vote gap of 20 million votes between the 2020 and 2024 elections.
"We need a recount - 20 million votes less than 2020? Something is not adding up!" one on X, formerly Twitter, reads.
Others have claimed, using a , the vote disparity proves election fraud in the 2020 election, which saw Joe Biden win the presidency with more than 81 million votes.
Claim: Misleading
As of Friday afternoon, there are  that have reported a complete vote tally, with final results .
In California, for example, only about 58 per cent of the votes have been counted as of Friday afternoon, according to . , with about 78 per cent of votes counted, and , with about 96 per cent of votes counted, have yet to be called for either candidate, although Trump is leading in both states.
Voter turnout for 2024 is estimated to be about of eligible voters, according to the University of Florida Election Lab, close to the of 66 per cent in 2020.
As of Friday morning, Harris had secured about – about 12 million short of . Trump has more than 73 million votes so far in 2024, less than one million shy of his 74 million total in 2020.
Election day saw several false allegations of fraud, including about "massive CHEATING" in Philadelphia, as well as a over "its name and insignia being misused to promote false narratives surrounding the election."
Polling stations in several states were targeted with appearing to come from Russian email domains, the FBI said. Officials said none of the threats were found credible, but voting hours were in some counties in Georgia over the disruptions.
The director of the , which oversees critical infrastructure security in the U.S., sought to reassure Americans of the security of the election process.
"As we have said repeatedly, our election infrastructure has never been more secure and the election community never better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free, and fair elections for the American people," Jen Easterly said in a statement Wednesday. "This is what we saw yesterday in the peaceful and secure exercise of democracy. Importantly, we have no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure."
Misleading graphic
A bar graph, shared widely on X and , was early Wednesday morning, purporting to show the difference between the popular vote for Democrats and Republicans in 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024. A line connecting the vote count for the Democrats appears roughly the same for 2012, 2016 and 2024, leading some to speculate about debunked claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election.
While the figures for , and appear roughly correct on the graphic, the ones for 2024 are already out of date. Also, while the graphic draws a line across the votes for the Democratic leader, it fails to do the same for the Republican votes, which saw a substantial increase from 2012 and 2016 in both 2020 and 2024.
Trump and his supporters brought alleging voter fraud and misconduct in the 2020 election to both state and federal court, all of which were either withdrawn or failed.
Sources
Claims can be found on X (), () and (), and Reddit ()
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