Shock election result ignites conspiracy theories on left and right

New York: When President-elect Donald Trump was announced the winner of this year’s presidential contest on Wednesday, the vote tallies initially suggested a sharp drop-off of millions of Democratic votes compared with the results in 2020.

To some Republicans, that slump was evidence that the 2020 election was fraudulent, that Democrats had somehow conjured millions of phantom votes that year – despite repeated confirmation from election officials, statewide audits and courts that nothing nefarious happened.

Estimates suggest about 157.6 million votes were cast in the US election, down about 700,000 from 2020.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

The shortfall also set off doubts among the internet’s left flank, but for different reasons. Hundreds of thousands of posts on social media implored Vice President Kamala Harris to avoid conceding defeat over suspicions that millions of votes were somehow “missing” this year – despite assurances from federal agencies that the election was safe and secure.

While it is unusual for opposing political camps to create conspiracy theories from the same material, supporters of both candidates have fixated on the Democrats’ underperformance this year as a central narrative. The conversation online highlights the appeal that election fraud stories have to partisans of all stripes – especially those facing electoral defeat – and the power of social media to help those ideas go viral, despite ample evidence that the concerns are meritless.

Although election officials dealt with a variety of complications on election day, Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, concluded there was “no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure”.

As more ballots were counted over the following days, estimates from The Associated Press suggest that the number of votes cast this year will be about 157.6 million, down about 700,000 from 2020. The gap between Trump and Harris has continued to narrow as more votes are counted in left-leaning states such as California, Washington and Oregon, which take time to process mail ballots.

The right-leaning version of the conspiracy theory was shared by towering figures in conservative commentary, while the left-leaning version came from voters with much less reach.

“I’ve never thought about it in this way, but when he lost in 2020 and I kind of – I thought there was something wrong with it,” Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host and now internet personality, said on an election night livestream that had 3 million views. “Now I’m totally convinced it was stolen.”

Another post shared on the social platform X by a far-right account with more than 3 million followers included a chart on turnout by party, which appeared to show Democratic turnout had doubled in 2020. But the chart used a manipulated axis and preliminary data to exaggerate the difference. The post was viewed nearly 2 million times.

The theorising from the left came from voices with far less prominence than Carlson’s, though their missives still earned millions of views on X, according to a report by Cyabra, a company that monitors disinformation. The company found that posts from profiles with few followers were able to reach tens of millions of views after posting about the conspiracy theory. Cyabra blamed the posts for “undermining trust in the 2024 election process and democratic institutions”.

Election workers count votes in Oregon City, Oregon, last week.Credit: AP

Claims from the left have focused on interference from Russia or a number of bomb threats that were made to polling sites in swing states. Many also echoed claims that Trump supporters had made after the 2020 election, including suggestions that Harris’ large crowd sizes showed that Democratic enthusiasm was greater. Experts say crowd sizes are not a useful predictor of election day turnout.

The hashtag #DoNotConcedeKamala trended on X with more than 650,000 mentions by Friday, according to data from NewsGuard, a company that tracks misinformation. The morning after the election, there were more than 30,000 mentions of the hashtag along with the words “rigged”, “fraud” and “stolen”, NewsGuard found.

“If anyone could fund a massive election fraud scheme, it’s Elon Musk,” wrote Dean Obeidallah, a host of a show on SiriusXM’s Progress channel, to more than 50,000 followers on Threads. He called for the Department of Homeland Security to examine the results to “alleviate concerns that Trump and Elon Musk somehow cheated to win”. Musk, the owner of X, is a vocal Trump supporter. Obeidallah did not respond to a request for comment.

So far, fears among disinformation researchers that the clamour could build into a larger movement were tempered by Democratic leaders, who have widely endorsed the results – something Trump and his allies refused to do in 2020.

Harris conceded the race in a speech on Thursday AEDT. The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said that Democrats would accept the results and that they “believe in free and fair elections”.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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