translated from Spanish: US elections are in the middle of the world. U.S.: What’s true or false in 8 Trump sentences about his allegations of vote count fraud


While he still does not define whether he retains the presidency or whether his rival, Joe Biden, will replace him in office, the BBC Reality Check team verified some of the representative’s accusations.
1. “I’ve been talking about mail voting for a long time. It’s really destroyed our system. It’s a corrupt system and it corrupts people.”

Trump has published more than 70 tweets that call into question mail voting and has referred to voter fraud or “rigged” elections since April.

But there’s no evidence that the system is corrupt.

Voter fraud is very rare in the U.S.: the rate is less than 0.0009%, according to a 2017 study by the Brennan Center for Justice. Nor is there any evidence to suggest that it was a major problem in this election.

Trump himself has voted by mail in the past. He lived outside the state in which he was registered, Florida, and asked to vote by mail.

The ballot he receives is known as an “absentee ballot” and Trump has said he is in favor of it because he believes he has better safeguards.

But it has made distinctions with other forms of mail-in voting, such as when states automatically send ballots to all registered voters.

Oregon and Utah have done so successfully in previous elections.

2. “Tens of millions of unsolicited ballots were mailed without any verification measure”

Voters registered in nine states (plus Washington, D.C.) were automatically mailed ballots without having to ask for them. Five of these states introduced this measure due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But in eight of the nine states (Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, Washington, California, New Jersey, and Vermont), the results are not currently in dispute.

All forms of mail voting have safeguards, such as the authorities verifying that ballots come from a voter’s registered address and that envelopes are signed.

Mail voting is not new, it has been used in many elections.

3. “It’s amazing how those mail ballots are so unbalancedTos”

President Trump has repeatedly criticized plans to expand the vote by mail, saying, without real evidence, that the system was open to “tremendous fraud.”

He urged Republican voters to go to vote in person on November 3, rather than using ballots by mail.

There is evidence, according to the vote count, that Democratic voters preferred mail voting and Republicans voted in person.

The recount is not over, but in Pennsylvania, it is estimated that more than 2.5 million votes by mail received, nearly three times as much came from registered Democrats than from Republicans.

4. “In Georgia, a pipe broke in a faraway place, totally alien to where they were counting, and they stopped counting for four hours”

The pipe exploded at the State Farm Arena and affected a room where absentee voter ballots were tabulated.

“In two hours, repairs were completed. No ballots were damaged or any equipment damaged. There was a brief delay in tabbing absentee ballots while repairs were being made,” State Farm Arena leaders said in a statement Tuesday.

5. “Now there are only a few states left to decide the presidential race. The voting apparatus of these states is led in all cases by Democrats”

That’s not true “in all cases.”

In Georgia, which until Friday afternoon had not announced a winner, the governor and both chambers of the legislature are controlled by Republicans.

The secretary of state, who is in charge of the election administration, is Brad Raffensperger, who is a Republican.

Here’s a 2018 tweet in which Trump backs him up.

“Brad Raffensperger will be a fantastic secretary of state for Georgia and will work closely with @BrianKempGA. It’s very important that you go and vote for Brad. Early voting…”, Trump wrote.

To take another example, in Nevada, the secretary of state overseeing the election is a Republican.

6. “They did not admit legally permitted observers”

President Trump referred with this phrase to election observers. These are the people who observe the vote count, with the aim of ensuring transparency.

These observers are allowed in most states, but must registerElection Day, usually being affiliated with a party or candidate, although the rules vary from state to state.

President Trump has talked about a perceived lack of access for Republican observers in certain Democratic-led cities, such as Philadelphia and Detroit.

But election observers were able to monitor the count in both cities.

The number of election observers allowed in a counting facility varies by size. These limits are set before Election Day.

In some areas, numbers were restricted, in part due to coronavirus. Limits are also set to prevent intimidation.

In Detroit, more than 130 observers representing Democrats and Republicans were allowed in.

The municipal secretary, Janice Winfrey, said she was not aware that Republican observers had been removed.

In Philadelphia, a video went viral showing a certified voting observer being rejected from a counting place, but as we reported, this was due to confusion over the rules and then allowed in.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said: “All candidates and political parties may have an authorized representative in the room to observe the process. Some jurisdictions, including Philadelphia, are also broadcasting live, so you can literally see their counting process.”

7. “If they count illegal votes, they can try to steal our election. If they count the votes that were late, we’re looking at them very carefully, but a lot of votes were late”

President Trump suggests that counting votes by mail that arrive after Election Day is “illegal.”

But late mailings can be counted in about half of U.S. states, as long as they are stamped on November 3.

This includes the key states of Pennsylvania, Nevada and North Carolina, where a winner has not yet been projected.

Deadlines for determining how late a postcard can arrive vary from state to state.

Other states, such as Georgia and Arizona, do not count mail votes that arrive after Election Day.

In his speech, President Trump said late postal ballots in Pennsylvania were counted “without even any stamping or identification.”

The state Supreme Court ruled that late votes with illegible or missing stamps would be counted unless there is sufficient evidence “to show that they were mailed after Election Day.”

Each postcard goes through several steps to be verified, such as reviewing the signature and address.

8. “An important center for vote counting in Detroit re-covered the windows with large pieces of cardboard, so they wanted to protect and block the counting area”

Trump refers to the TFC Center in Detroit, Michigan, located in a key state.

On Wednesday, there were chaotic scenes when election observers claimed they were being prevented from seeing the counting room because the windows were covered.

Detroit’s lead attorney Lawrence Garcia said in a statement, “Some, but not all, of the windows were covered, because election workers sitting by those windows expressed concern about people outside the center who photographed and filmed them and their work.”

But in fact there were hundreds of election observers, from both parties, inside the counting center. Officials prevented more election observers from entering because capacity had been exceeded.

Original source in Spanish

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