Trump Renews Ballot ‘Dump’ Conspiracy Theory Claim—Here’s Why It’s Bogus
Topline
As President Trump’s legal effort to overturn the results of the election hits roadblocks at every turn, the president has returned to floating a conspiracy theory about anomalous ballot “dumps,” a debunked claim he first promoted the day after Election Day.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Key Facts
During an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo Sunday, Trump continued to erroneously paint the election as a fraud, claiming there were “big, massive [ballot] dumps, in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and all over.”
Trump floated the claim again on Monday, linking to a story on a conservative website that suggested a similar conspiracy was at work.
The president’s claim suggests that in states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia, which reported large numbers of ballots for President-elect Joe Biden in the wee hours of the morning on November 4th, a nefarious coup against the president was at work: “They did these massive dumps of votes and all of a sudden I went from winning by a lot to losing by a little,” Trump said Sunday.
Trump is right that several states reported vote counts that leaned heavily towards Biden overnight, but there’s no evidence there was fraud at work: most of these ballot “dumps” were from heavily Democratic cities and were reported late due to delays in counting mail-in ballots—delays that happened because election officials in many states were required by law to wait until Election Day to count mail-in ballots.
For instance, Trump’s lead in Wisconsin evaporated in the early morning on November 4th—a phenomenon the president specifically mentioned in a tweet—because Milwaukee reported 170,000 absentee ballots which skewed overwhelmingly towards Biden; this burst of votes for Biden was expected because Democrats were much more likely to vote by mail, and Milwaukee is very blue.
Another purported instance of “ballot dump” fraud the president latched onto was in Michigan, where briefly, Biden seemed to receive 100% of a batch of more than 100,000 votes; the count was nothing more than a “clerical error” which was fixed almost immediately.
Chief Critic
“Even if “massive [ballot] dumps” (I can’t believe I just typed that) were true, the subsequent canvass, audit, and/or recount processes would have identified inconsistencies,” Chris Krebs, the former head of the cybersecurity agency overseeing critical election infrastructure who was fired by Trump earlier this month, said on Twitter. “And yet the outcomes were consistent in GA, WI, PA., etc. The proof is in the paper ballots.”
Tangent
In an op-ed, the head of Dominion Voting Systems, John Poulos, hit back at the president for floating other, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the company’s voting machines in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. “The lies and smears have no basis in fact, but they do real damage to our democracy by casting doubt on the legitimacy of the electoral process. The false allegations should be retracted immediately.”
Further Reading
Trump May Have Based False Claims About ‘Secretly Dumped Ballots’ On A Typo And Retracted Tweet (Forbes)
Fact check: Vote spikes in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania do not prove election fraud (Reuters)
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