Mistrust of system persists despite no evidence of voter fraud
In the early morning on Nov. 4, 2020, Donald Trump stood at a lectern in the White House and told a throng of cheering supporters he’d won the presidential election.
“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the election,” Trump wrote on Twitter hours earlier. “We’ll never let them do it.”
Trump hadn’t won and provided no evidence to support his claims of fraud.
In the following weeks and months, state and federal courts dismissed dozens of cases filed by the Trump campaign and its supporters that alleged fraud and election law violations. The president’s own Department of Homeland Security called the 2020 election the most secure in U.S. history.
Cornell Clayton, a Washington State University political science professor and director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy, said allegations that the 2020 election was rigged shouldn’t be taken seriously.
“The problem with suggesting there are two sides to the debate is it assumes there are two sides that have evidence,” Clayton said. “There’s no evidence behind these objections that have been raised and we should have full faith and confidence in our election system.”
Sowing doubt about the integrity of elections could cause irreversible damage to American democracy, Clayton said.