Trump’s Orwellian Game: President Wants Investigation Into Non-Existent Voter Fraud
President Donald Trump has called for an investigation into voter fraud. The president claimed this week that up to 5 million people had voted illegally, costing him the popular vote. There is absolutely no evidence of voter fraud in the 2016 election.
During the presidential campaign, Trump claimed that the election could be stolen from him and that he would not accept the results unless he was treated fairly. There is no evidence of significant voter fraud in modern American elections and no evidence of any voter fraud in the 2016 election.
Trump has not accepted he lost the popular vote, which Hillary Clinton won by 3 million votes. Trump claimed that he had won the real popular vote if illegal votes are discounted. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told press yesterday that Trump still believes there was massive voter fraud.
“I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!” Trump tweeted.
Claims like the ones Trump made have been common among right-wing activists for years but there is no evidence for them. Trump’s decision to launch an investigation into something that demonstrably did not happen has echoes of authoritarian regimes’ attempts to re-write history in a more favorable light. Any investigation led by the Trump administration may lack objectivity since the White House started off the new administration with a series of lies.
Many people have publicly called Trump a liar on this and have said he should initiate an investigation if his claim has any validity, so he knows he backed into a corner. However, even if there is not a single case of voter fraud discovered, it’s likely the results will be misrepresented to the public. When voters move from one state to other, they often do not notify their previous state, and can thus remain registered in that state for some length of time. Likewise, people who die are eventually removed from the voter roles, but this generally doesn’t happen instantaneously, so there may be a lapse of days, weeks or months before their names are removed. There are already alt-right claims that the number of people who remain on voter roles after they move or die represents the amount of voter fraud being perpetrated in US elections. Even though using these numbers would be ridiculous and inaccurate, the Trump administration is not above doing this, and his supporters seem to agree with every absurd claim Trump makes.