Keyboard warriors from the Harris and Trump camps are actively peddling baseless rumors about alleged election rigging. They’re perpetuating a mind-boggling theory that Harris’ 2024 vote count, ostensibly lower than Biden’s from 2024, is a telltale sign of manipulation by either party. Such assertions are absent any concrete evidence and in desperate need of a reality check.
Let’s shed some light on this murky sea of misinformation. Supporters claim Biden raked in over 80 million votes back in 2020, yet Harris supposedly barely scraped together 65 million in 2024. These numbers, while having done several rounds on the internet, bear no semblance of truth and are riding on the coattails of unverified, outdated statistics.
Contrary to these unfounded declarations, it is patently false that Harris bagged 15 million fewer votes than Biden. These are simply wild guesses thrown around in the chaos that ensues post-elections, when the dust has not yet settled, and the accurate count of ballots is still underway.
These claims were largely circulated when Trump had been freshly announced the winner, and he obviously relished in his victory, while tens of millions of ballots were yet to be counted. It’s like calling a marathon race when the finishers are still on course — ludicrous.
As of November 25, the latest vote tally flaunts Harris with a hefty 74,341,049 votes under her belt, trailing Donald Trump who leads with 76,842,134 votes. Clearly, Harris is not as far behind as made out to be. So much for the 15 million vote discrepancy!
Data from the 2020 vote speaks volumes for itself. Biden accumulated 81,268,773 votes and Trump gathered 74,216,728. The reality is rather more mundane than the spiced up versions some are aggressively pushing on social media — Harris received approximately seven million less votes than Biden did in 2020, not the exaggerated fifteen million.
This is common sense, not a grand conspiracy: lower voter turnout in 2024 results in fewer votes for everyone. The University of Florida Election Lab confirms this as the turnout rate has seen quite a drop. In 2020, a solid 66.38 percent of eligible voters cast their ballot. In contrast, the preliminary data for 2024 shows a fall to 63.68 percent. An underlying reason for this dip could be the decline of widespread mail-in voting, a trend that we saw during the pandemic-stricken 2020 elections.
The fallacy that Harris not reaching Biden’s 2020 votes signals election rigging is not only laughable but also ignores the elementary principle of popularity influence. It simply appears that Harris was less favored among the public in 2024 than Biden was back in 2020.
While it’s tempting to jump to intriguing conclusions, the crux of the matter rests on the fact that many individuals who supported Biden in 2020 were likely swayed to vote for Trump in 2024, or perhaps they chose to opt out of voting entirely. Popularity is a fickle thing, especially in politics.
Finally, one cannot overlook the elephant in the room. The vote counting process is still in progress. States have up until December 11 to finalize and certify their results. Circulating claims about the vote count before the process completes is not only misleading but downright irresponsible.
It is critical to combat misinformation with facts and evidence. Many who earlier championed Biden in 2020 may have changed their allegiances in 2024, deterred by the prospect of a Harris presidency.
The narrative propagated by some supporters of Harris and Trump, screaming irregularities and fraud with every breath, is based on shaky groundwork and doctored numbers. These conspiracy theories hold no water and paint a distorted picture of the reality of the electoral process.
Call a spade a spade, and let’s recognize these rumors for what they are- nothing more than unfounded, exaggerated propaganda vying for political gain. Let’s focus on the facts, the confirmed numbers, not the elaborate fantasies that are being bandied about.