Trump shares new document rehashing 2020 voter fraud claims

Former US President Donald Trump, currently the frontrunner for his party’s nomination to the presidency in 2024, shared a report today alleging determinative voter fraud in five swing states during America’s 2020 presidential election, won by now-President Joe Biden. The former president shared the report on Truth Social, the Twitter/X clone that he launched after the original social network banned him from the platform in 2021. 

“These numbers,” Trump wrote, “are determinative, and, in all cases, are hundreds of thousands of Votes per Swing State more than I needed to WIN that State. If the Republican Senate does not step forward and address this ATROCITY, it will happen again, and be virtually impossible for Republicans to WIN ELECTIONS in the future.”

The document, which runs 27 pages, does not have an author listed, but Trump said in his Truth Social post that the report was “fully verified, [that] most of the information was gotten from Government Sources, Tapes and other Public Records, and [that it was] compiled by the most highly qualified Election Experts in the Country.” 

Report cites complaints, press conferences, conservative activists

The report contains 99 citations via footnote; many of them are links to videos on YouTube or on Rumble, a YouTube alternative that signed a business deal in 2021 with Trump’s media company. One footnote cites a Trump campaign press conference from November 5, 2020. The report does cite affidavits and complaints filed in court by those alleging voter fraud, although it does not cite the opinions of any judges who reviewed the complaints. 

Some news reports are cited, although in many cases these are not directly alleging the claim in question, but rather reporting that someone else made that claim. Articles that are directly cited as evidence are largely from conservative, Trump-aligned websites such as Gateway Pundit, One America News Network, and the Federalist. 

In addition, there are repeated references to something called "Report on Widespread Fraud in the Georgia 2020 Presidential Election," but the source is not linked, nor is any further information about it provided. Similarly, one footnote refers to “Spreadsheet, ‘Fulton County Missing Ballot Images Recount,’” with a similar absence of any further information or hyperlink. 

Some of the government documents cited come from Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who was appointed as a special counsel to investigate the 2020 election. One footnote cites a presentation by Gableman called “Why Many Wisconsin Voters Still Doubt the 2020 Election Results.” The footnote provides a link, but the link does not go anywhere. 

Gableman, who is cited four times in the report, was fired in 2022 by the Republican State Assembly leader who appointed him, who ultimately called him “an embarrassment to the state.” Another expert cited four times in the report is Shiva Ayyadurai, an Indian-American engineer and political activist who is himself running for president in 2024, despite the fact that he is not a natural-born citizen of the United States, and thus generally considered ineligible for the office. Ayyadurai disputes this interpretation of the Constitution, as does progressive activist Cenk Uygur, another naturalized citizen in a long-shot bid for president.

Report makes little impact, at least in first day

The report from the former president did not receive much attention. Trump’s post presenting it was "liked" by about 24,000 users on Truth Social, and "reTruthed" by about 9,000. A short article about the document was published by the Daily Beast, which was in turn shared by Yahoo News. 

The claims are nothing new for the former president, who is embroiled in four separate criminal trials, one of which involves his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In December, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump was ineligible to be president, determining that he had engaged in insurrection. The state of Maine followed suit in late December.

The case, which effectively removed Trump’s name from the state’s presidential ballot in 2024, concerns a clause in the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, ratified following the American Civil War. Similar cases are being litigated in other states. The US Supreme Court, however, declined to immediately rule on the issue late last month, after the current administration requested that they take it up.