By: Priyam Nayak
July 22 2021
President Joe Biden's victory was certified by the Electoral College. There was no evidence of voter fraud.
On July 15, 2021, conservative commentator Candace Owens quote tweeted a Fox News video clip that insinuated voter fraud had taken place in Fulton County, Georgia. Owens stated in the tweet, "It has now been proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris CHEATED in the 2020 election with mail-in ballots. The Democrats, in collusion with Big Tech and state TV, were the real insurrectionists all along." Even months after the results were declared, former President Donald Trump and his supporters have amplified baseless claims about rampant voter fraud and unfounded allegations about a rigged election. A number of election falsehoods have been widely circulated to assert that Biden was not legitimately elected – with allegations ranging from glitches in voting machines, the number of votes being higher than eligible voters, and dead people casting votes. On Nov 7, 2020, a national coalition of election security officials including the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Association of State Election Directors described the 2020 election "as the most secure in American history." The colation stated, "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors." There is no evidence of voter fraud or that the election was rigged in any manner. On Dec 12, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the presidential elections in several key battleground states. Several similar lawsuits were filed by Trump and his supporters across the country but all the claims were dismissed. According to Reuters, state and federal judges - some appointed by Trump – dismissed more than 50 lawsuits brought by Trump or his allies alleging election fraud and other irregularities. Theories about mail-in ballots facilitating voter fraud were also pushed by Trump supporters. None of those claims is true. According to a New York Times report, there have been numerous independent studies and government reviews finding that voter fraud is extremely rare in all forms, including in mail-in voting. According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, there is no evidence that mail-in balloting increases electoral fraud as there are several anti-fraud protections built into the process designed to make it difficult to impersonate voters or steal ballots. "These provisions include requiring people requesting absentee ballots to be registered voters, mailing ballots to the official address listed on voter registration rolls, requiring voter signatures on the external envelope, and having election authorities make sure the ballot came from the address of an actual voter. If a ballot appears questionable, some states use a signature matching technique to verify the signature of the voter," the Brennan Center said. All of these measures make it impossible to engage in widespread voter fraud. The rate of voting fraud overall in the U.S. is less than 0.0009 percent, according to a 2017 study by the Brennan Center for Justice. On Dec 15, 2020, the Electoral College confirmed Biden as the 46th president of the United States, with presidential electors giving him a majority of 306 electoral votes as opposed to Trump's 232. Biden amassed a total of 81 million votes to Trump's 74 million. On January 7, 2021, the U.S. Congress also certified Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential elections.