FACT CHECK: Viral Post Claims Over 500,000 Votes Switched From Trump To Biden

Elias Atienza | Senior Reporter

A post shared on Facebook claims over 500,000 votes switched from President Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden via “voting machine software theft” during the 2020 election.

Verdict: False

There is no evidence 500,000 votes switched from Trump to Biden, according to election officials, a national election security coalition and Dominion Voting Systems.

Fact Check:

The Associated Press and other media outlets projected Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election on Nov. 7. (RELATED: There Have Been A Lot Of Allegations Of Election Fraud, We Looked Into Them)

In the days following Biden’s projected victory, social media posts have alleged a large number of votes switched from Trump to the former vice president. This particular post reads, “Caught! Election data analyzed, producing detailed lists of over 500,000 votes SWITCHED from Trump to Biden via voting machine software theft, with heavy fraud focused on swing states.”

The claim may stem from a report from One America News Network’s Lilia Fifield, who, per Mediaite, alleged during a segment that “according to an unaudited analysis of data obtained from Edison Research, states using Dominion Voting Systems may have switched as many as 435,000 votes from President Trump to Joe Biden.” Trump elevated the inaccurate claim on Twitter.

Edison Research is a firm that provides exit-polling data to several news outlets such as CBS News and CNN. Larry Rosin, the firm’s president, told Check Your Fact in an email: “We never created any report and we have no evidence of voter fraud.” He also noted that the One America News Network story is no longer available on the outlet’s website.

“Dominion Voting Systems categorically denies false assertions about vote switching issues without voting systems,” Dominion Voting Systems says on its website. “Voting deletion/switching assertions are completely false.”

Though a small number of counties in Georgia and Michigan using Dominion Voting technology experienced minor issues, they did not affect the accuracy of vote counts, according to The New York Times. In one Georgia county, an issue with Dominion software delayed the reporting of the vote count but did not affect its accuracy, the outlet reported. A “user human error” by Michigan’s Antrim County clerk – not Dominion Voting software – caused an early tally to incorrectly make it seem like Biden was winning by some 3,000 votes but was corrected, Michigan election officials said, per The Associated Press.

Election officials in swing states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia have said there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in their respective states. (RELATED: Does This Video Show Election Workers In Pennsylvania’s Delaware County Committing Voter Fraud?)

“The Wisconsin Elections Commission has seen no evidence of problems with Dominion Voting systems or any other manufacturer’s voting systems in Wisconsin,” Reid Magney, the public information officer for the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said in an email. He also directed Check Your Fact to a Nov. 10 news release in which Meagan Wolfe, Wisconsin’s chief election official, said, “At this time, no evidence has been provided that supports allegations of systemic or widespread election issues.”

Tracy Wimmer, director of media relations for the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office, told Check Your Fact that “there is no evidence issues in Michigan were anything other than human error.” The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office has also said that there is no evidence of system issues with voting or the current vote tally, which shows Biden leading by some 14,000 votes, according to The Associated Press.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, on its website pushed back on the claim that a “bad actor” could “change election results without detection” due to “robust safeguards including canvassing and auditing procedures.” The agency released a joint Nov. 12 statement with election officials that said “there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changes votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Election officials in dozens of states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio and Minnesota, also told The New York Times that there is no evidence “fraud or other irregularities” affected the outcome of the presidential election.

Elias Atienza

Senior Reporter
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