No evidence for systematic voter fraud: A guide to statistical claims about the 2020 election

After the 2020 US presidential election Donald Trump refused to concede, alleging widespread and unparalleled voter fraud. Trump’s supporters deployed several statistical arguments in an attempt to cast doubt on the result. Reviewing the most prominent of these statistical claims, we conclude that n...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2021-11, Vol.118 (45), p.1-7
Main Authors: Eggers, Andrew C., Garro, Haritz, Grimmer, Justin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Elections
Fraud
Social Sciences
Statistics
Voter fraud
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Summary:After the 2020 US presidential election Donald Trump refused to concede, alleging widespread and unparalleled voter fraud. Trump’s supporters deployed several statistical arguments in an attempt to cast doubt on the result. Reviewing the most prominent of these statistical claims, we conclude that none of them is even remotely convincing. The common logic behind these claims is that, if the election were fairly conducted, some feature of the observed 2020 election result would be unlikely or impossible. In each case, we find that the purportedly anomalous fact is either not a fact or not anomalous.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.2103619118