Kamala Harris campaign does not seek to overturn Trump's victory via recount

Context

Social media has been inundated with false claims about the electoral process and outcomes following the U.S. elections. Less than a week after election day, a post on PoliticsVideoChannel, a purported political news account on X, claimed that Harris' campaign announced they would overturn Trump's election victory through a recount. This post (archived here) went viral, amassing over 20 million views, with similar claims (archived here) circulating across platforms.

Although Harris' campaign includes a "recount account" in its fundraising structure, no official statements or actions suggest intentions to challenge Trump's victory.

The recount process

To verify this claim, we conducted keyword searches across Harris's official channels, credible news sources, and social media. We found no statements or announcements from her campaign referencing plans to overturn Trump's victory, indicating that her team has not conveyed such a message.

The Harris Victory Fund, a fundraising committee authorized by Kamala Harris's campaign, does include a "recount account" as part of its donation allocation structure. Created via the ActBlue platform, the fundraising page specified that initial donations would go to the Democratic National Committee, followed by Harris's Recount Account, with further funds directed to Democratic state parties. We contacted the Harris campaign for clarification on the intended use of the recount fund but received no response. 

Harris, the current Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate, has publicly conceded the 2024 election, confirming that President-elect Trump is set to assume his second term as the 47th U.S. president in January 2025. 

In her concession speech Harris stated, "we must accept the results of this election… A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. That principle, as much as any other, distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny."

Recounts are routine procedural actions permitted by election laws in many states, primarily for close races. State laws vary, with 41 states and Washington, D.C., allowing candidates, voters, or groups to request recounts under certain conditions. Typically, recounts are permitted only if the vote margin between the top candidates is narrow. Candidates cannot request recounts in nine states, including Arizona, Florida, and New York, while Illinois, Mississippi, and Tennessee allow recounts only by court order.

Source of the claim

Several factors mark PoliticsVideoChannel, which originated the claim, as an unreliable source. It describes itself as a media company and links to a website of the same name, but the site has published only 12 posts, all dated 10-11 months ago. Three of these posts directly reference Donald Trump, while the remaining posts target other prominent Republicans, including Ron DeSantis, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, Matt Gaetz, Roger Stone, and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. A DNS search did not yield any information about the site's ownership or funding structure.

On X, PoliticsVideoChannel has previously shared threads that commence with an unsourced false claim and are followed by related news articles from reliable news outlets, which attempt to give the initial claim a veneer of credibility. 

For example, one thread commences with the unsourced, false claim that the U.K. government is considering arresting Elon Musk for social media posts. Posted below it are two links to Sky News coverage of riots in the U.K. over the summer, following which multiple people were sentenced to jail for online activity. However, there is no indication in the legitimate linked media coverage that Musk is among those sentenced, nor any indication of any plans to do so. 

Its X account has also received community notes multiple times (archived here and here), further undermining its credibility.

The verdict

The claim that Kamala Harris's campaign attempts to overturn the 2024 election through a recount is unfounded and lacks corroborating evidence from credible sources or official statements. 

Follow Logically Facts' coverage and fact-checking of the U.S. Election 2024 here.