Analysis: Election conspiracies persist, even with different outcomes in the 2024 election

We just had another election with a clear and verifiable victor, overseen by hundreds of thousands of election officials. Those public servants have suffered years of harassment, and despite their successes, are still being accused of taking part in a massive and impossible conspiracy — a conspiracy led by the party out of power to steal an election and cover up all evidence. 

Despite all evidence, many still believe that the opposition Democrats secretly overwhelmed the power of the Trump administration in 2020 to steal an election by 7 million popular votes and 70 electoral votes. And they believe that the Biden administration suddenly lost this mythical election-stealing power while controlling the executive branch in 2024.

Within hours of President-elect Donald Trump's projected victory in the 2024 election, conspiracy theories began to spread among those who opposed him. On the left, there were claims that "the math just didn't add up," that 20 million ballots were "missing" or that Elon Musk's Starlink was uploading fake votes to help Trump. There was mischaracterization about why voters might split their votes between Trump and a Democrat.

On the right, from those who supported Trump came claims that the "20 million missing ballots" were actually proof that the 2020 election had been stolen and that there was no possible way that President Biden could have received 81 million votes that year.

For those who work in elections, and particularly the election officials around the country — public servants of both parties — these claims are familiar, and exhausting. And to be clear, these claims are false on their face. 

Millions of ballots weren't missing – they were being counted, and when the election is officially certified, we will confirm that the 2024 election saw only slightly lower turnout than 2020's all-time record. For those questioning "missing votes," the 2024 election will end up seeing the second-largest number of ballots cast in any American election, and the second-highest turnout in any election in over 100 years, behind only 2020's record turnout.

As for split votes, that happens all the time. Sometimes, as in 2020, there are a large number of voters who dislike both presidential candidates and choose to leave that race blank on their ballots. Sometimes, as in 2024, a significant number of people vote only for president, and leave the rest of their ballots blank. This is normal. Republicans in Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin didn't game the system to give Trump a win this year while allowing Democratic senators to win in each of those states. Democrats in 2020 didn't rig the system to defeat Trump that year, only to then give up key seats in state legislatures right before redistricting that would decide control of Congress. And we have the paper ballots that confirm this. 

And those paper ballots are the key. Trump won in 2024 in a verified, confirmed election with over 95% paper ballots, including all the ballots in all the swing states. Hand audits of those ballots are nearly complete and will confirm the results. 

Similarly, Mr. Biden won in 2020 in a verified, confirmed election with over 95% audited paper ballots, including all the ballots in all the swing states. The math adds up because the ballots add up, and the election officials have shown their work.

We know who won the last two presidential elections, thanks to the paper ballots, audits, and more election litigation and court review than any election in world history. In dozens of court cases, losing candidates couldn't produce a single piece of evidence that raised any question about the 2020 election outcome. 

When Rudy Giuliani and Kari Lake were sued for defamation about their false claims, they could have defended themselves with evidence that they were speaking the truth. Instead, they conceded liability (Giuliani's assets have begun to be seized, and Lake just settled her case this past weekend). Fox News settled its defamation case with Dominion Voting Systems for nearly $800 million, rather than attempt to present evidence of the truth of its claims. A group of esteemed conservative legal scholars further confirmed the 2020 election was "Lost, not Stolen."

But whether coming from the right or the left, the conspiracies continue, and our nation's election officials are concerned about the lasting damage. Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer of the Georgia Secretary of State's office told me, "Ideas that Musk's Starlink or black box voting might change votes plant seeds that will germinate into deeper conspiracy theories, and then further undermine faith in elections and institutions." 

Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates confirmed, "People who push conspiracy theories without basis that tabulation machines have been breached or that dead people have voted by the thousands do harm to our democracy, regardless of whether the allegations come from the right, left or the middle of the political spectrum." 

Our elections are incredibly decentralized, with nearly 10,000 different election jurisdictions nationwide, varying in technologies and processes. Our process is run by hundreds of thousands of election officials nationwide, of both parties. Every voter registration requires ID under federal law, and our voter records are as accurate as ever. In the exceedingly rare cases where fraud is attempted, it is caught and prosecuted. It is effectively impossible to steal a major election in the United States.

But foreign adversaries and domestic grifters understand how to exploit concerns about the security of American elections. They have employed a more effective strategy, to convince us against all evidence that our elections are being stolen. They have become masters at leveraging the losing side's disappointment at the outcome to create a fantasy world of election denial and to stoke fear, anger and hate directed at our fellow citizens, including our public servants. We saw on Jan. 6, 2021, how this anger can lead to violence.

Entertaining these delusions could threaten our agency as voters. Worse, our susceptibility to these false claims aids U.S. adversaries, and puts public servants at risk. If we become a nation where both parties can only accept the integrity of our election system when they win, we are truly lost as a democracy.

David Becker is executive director and founder of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research. He's a former trial attorney in the voting section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. He also serves as a CBS election law contributor.