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President Donald Trump falsely claimed on Twitter that an election technology company had ‘suppressed’ many of his votes or ‘traded’ them to count for Joe Biden – the latest in a series of baseless theories suggesting vote-counting problems that the President encouraged.
His tweet on Thursday amplified a “report” built on empty claims from anonymous comments on a pro-Trump blog.
Trump and his supporters have launched baseless attacks on one of the most widely used technology companies in the United States, Dominion Voting Systems, seeking to cast doubt on the 2020 election results, despite no evidence of serious irregularities.
Here’s a look at the claims in Trump’s tweet:
TRUMP: “REPORT: THE DOMINION REMOVED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOICES IN THE NATIONAL. DATA ANALYSIS FIND 221,000 VOTES IN PENNSYLVANIA CHANGED FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BIDEN. 941,000 TRUMP VOICES DELETED. STATES USING DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS CHANGED 435,000 VOTES FROM TRUMP TO BIDEN. ”
THE FACTS: There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, nor of any major issues with the Dominion’s systems. Election officials from both political parties have publicly stated that the election went well and international observers have confirmed that there were no serious irregularities.
“There is no evidence that a voting system suppressed or lost votes, altered votes or was compromised in any way,” a statement read. sent to reporters on Thursday by the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, a federal agency that oversees U.S. election security. “The November 3 election was the safest in American history.”
Dominion Voting Systems said in a statement that it “denies the allegations of any voting changes or any suspected software issues with our voting systems.”
There have been only a “small handful” of problems resulting from human error involving the voting technology, not the software itself, said Eddie Perez, voting technology expert at the OSET Institute. , a non-profit, non-partisan electoral technology research and development organization.
The OSET Institute has helped monitor more than 1,000 reports of voting problems across the United States since election day.
Perez said he was not aware of any systemic issues related to issues with the Dominion software that would affect the tabulation of results.
Technical problems in voting this year have occurred at a slower pace than in most elections because “electoral procedures (were) followed more scrupulously than usual,” said Doug Jones, professor at the University of Iowa, co-author of “Broken Ballots,” A History of Voting Technology. .
There is also “no factual basis” for Trump’s claims that 221,000 votes were transferred from Trump to Biden in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State Department spokeswoman Ellen Lyon said in a letter. electronic.
The “report” that Trump mentions in his tweet was broadcast on conservative television network One America News Network, which promoted a theory posted on a pro-Trump blog claiming that millions of votes were swapped or suppressed in favor of Biden. The TV network did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The anonymous commentator who published the theory claimed the findings were supported by data from polling company Edison Research. Yet the company did not produce such a report, said Larry Rosin, chairman of Edison Research.
“We have no evidence of voter fraud,” Rosin said in an email.
The biggest example of a tabulation problem in the 2020 election involved a few thousand votes in County Antrim, Michigan, and was the result of human error, Perez said.
When the Republican-leaning county initially announced a landslide victory for Biden, social media users were suspicious of the Federal Election Management System used to compile the data.
It turned out that Dominion wasn’t to blame, according to the Michigan State Department. “There was no malice, no fraud here, just human error,” County Clerk Sheryl Guy told The Associated Press. The tabulation error has been corrected.
Dominion is one of the largest providers of voting technology in the United States, with over 30 states using its software.
The company has been the target of a number of election misrepresentation being pushed by Trump supporters, among which the company has ties to prominent Democrats.
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AP Technology writer Frank Bajak contributed to this report from Boston.
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EDITOR’S NOTE – A look at the veracity of the claims of political figures.
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This story has been corrected to show in the 13th paragraph that Trump claimed that 221,000 votes went from Trump to Biden, and not from Biden to Trump.
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