No, Biden didn’t say Democrats would dump ballots

A recent Instagram post suggested that President Joe Biden admitted to voter fraud during a recent speech, but that’s wrong. 

"Joe Biden announced to the world tonight that they are going to cheat by dumping ballots," the Nov. 3 post said. "He asked the citizens of America to ‘be patient’ because it ‘takes time to count all legitimate ballots.’" 

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The post features an image from a Nov. 3 speech Biden gave on "standing up for democracy." 

He did tell Americans to be patient, but not because he was talking about dumping ballots. Rather, he said, "More and more ballots are cast in early voting or by mail in America. And we know that many states don’t start counting those ballots until after the polls close on Nov. 8. That means in some cases, we won’t know the winner of the election for a few days — until after a few days after the election. It takes time to count all legitimate ballots in a legal and orderly manner. It’s always been important for citizens in a democracy to be informed and engaged. Now it’s important for citizens to be patient as well." 

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It’s normal not to know all election results on election night, and not because Biden said so. 

Counting mail ballots takes time and only some states allow election officials to start processing mail ballots before Election Day. Election experts have previously told PolitiFact that it can take days or longer to declare a winner in close races, and that pace does not signal fraud.

What’s more, the partisan divide in preferred voting methods suggest that Republican votes are more likely to be counted first in key states than are Democratic votes. This is sometimes referred to as the "red mirage" — a pattern whereby in-person ballot tallies outpace the more time-consuming processes required of tabulating of mail ballots.

We rate the claim that Biden admitted to plans to dump ballots on election night Pants on Fire!