False claim that federal agency revealed fraud in 2020 presidential election | Fact check
The claim: Federal election agency ruled there was fraud in 2020 election
[En Español: Falso: agencia federal reveló fraude en las elecciones presidenciales de 2020]
A May 11 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows a picture of former President Donald Trump giving a thumbs-up.
“SCANDALOUS DECLARATION!” text in the post reads in Spanish. “Yesterday, the ELECTORAL COUNCIL OF THE U.S. 2020 ELECTIONS CONCLUDED, after having a FORENSIC investigation of all manual and automated ballots, that THERE WAS FRAUD.”
The claim was shared elsewhere on Facebook as well.
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Our rating: False
There is no “Electoral Council of the US 2020 Elections.” And there is no report from any electoral organization confirming widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
No election entity announced widespread fraud in the 2020 election
The 2020 election was not stolen, and there’s no proof of anything illegitimate about President Joe Biden’s victory, despite repeated claims to the contrary from Trump and many of his followers.
Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, said in early December 2020 that the Justice Department had “not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.” And Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, said the same in his address to the chamber before it was evacuated during the Jan. 6 insurrection. Since then, a mountain of evidence – including lawsuits, recounts, forensic audits and even partisan reviews – has affirmed Biden won the presidency with 306 electoral votes.
The post claims the fraud investigation was conducted by “Electoral Council of the U.S. 2020 Elections,” but there is no organization by that name, or anything similar to it.
The post could be trying to refer to the Federal Election Commission, but its mission differs. The agency’s primary responsibility is to administer and enforce federal campaign finance law, according to Myles Martin, an FEC spokesperson.
“Matters involving issues of possible voter fraud are not within the jurisdiction of the FEC,” Martin told USA TODAY.
The Justice Department is responsible for investigating voting fraud at the federal level. But there have been no DOJ reports in May 2024 about fraud in the 2020 election.
Each state has a chief election official, usually the secretary of state, overseeing the process, including voter fraud, according to Ballotpedia.
Any legitimate report confirming 2020 election fraud would be major news, but no credible media outlets have reported on any such report at the state or national level.
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The post also claims the report revealed fraud at the Georgia recount. Robert Sinners, a spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, told USA TODAY that he is unaware of a federal investigation regarding voter fraud in Georgia.
The post could be referring to the State Election Board’s finding May 7 that about 3,000 ballots were double scanned in one of the multiple recounts of 2020, Sinners told USA TODAY.
“Two additional reviews of the statewide tallies confirmed that the 2020 election results in Georgia were fair and accurate,” Sinners told USA TODAY. “Administrative errors in a county conducting that review does not invalidate an election, despite the baseless claims from election deniers.”
USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Our fact-check sources:
- Myles Martin, May 13, Email exchange with USA TODAY
- Robert Sinners, May 13, Email exchange with USA TODAY
- Justice Department, accessed May 13, Voting and Elections
- Ballotpedia, accessed May 13, What methods do states use to prevent election fraud? (2020)
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 7, Fulton County reprimanded for double-scanned ballots in 2020 recount
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