Millions of Democratic votes were sent into a ‘black hole’? That’s Pants on Fire!

After major news outlets called a presidential election win for President-elect Donald Trump, some social media users cast doubt on the results.

"I'm thinking those votes were disappeared," a user posted Nov. 6 on Threads. "I think they found a way to target Democratic districts and send millions of votes into a black hole. The numbers aren't adding up. How could there be record turnout on early votes and a huge drop off in the vote totals? It doesn't make sense."

The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

In 2020, President Joe Biden won the popular vote with more than 81 million votes. Trump got 74 million. Votes from the 2024 election were still being counted Nov. 7, but as of 4 p.m. EST, Trump had gotten more than 72 million votes to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 68 million.

The difference in votes between the 2020 and 2024 elections is not evidence of fraud. Just as there was none in 2020, there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2024 election.

"Our election infrastructure has never been more secure and the election community never better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free, and fair elections for the American people," Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly said in a Nov. 6 statement. "This is what we saw yesterday in the peaceful and secure exercise of democracy. Importantly, we have no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure."

Although the media called a winner based on existing counts and electoral gains, it’s still unclear precisely how many votes each candidate received and how those results compare with the 2020 election.

"Indeed, in some states, election officials can continue to accept vote-by-mail or absentee ballots that were postmarked by Election Day and are delivered over the next few days, so we don’t even yet know the total number of votes cast," Florida State University election law professor Michael Morley said.

Every state has different deadlines for completing ballot counting, which range from one to four weeks after Election Day. After states finish their counts, they then must certify the results. Those deadlines fall in November and December.

Just as the final vote tally for each candidate is currently unknown, so is the 2024 election’s voter turnout.

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"We won’t have a complete picture of voter turnout comparisons across elections until each state provides certified voter turnout files," said Carolina Lopez, executive director of the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions, a nonpartisan organization that works with election officials in jurisdictions of 300,000 people or more.

It’s also memorable that the 2020 election had record high voter turnout. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 67% of citizens 18 or older reported voting. A Washington Post analysis showed voter turnout in 2024 is on pace to be close to 2020. 

In the weeks before Election Day, local news organizations reported record-setting early voter turnout in different states. By Nov. 4, the day before Election Day, more than 78 million ballots had been cast in 42 states and Washington, D.C., according to a CNN analysis. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, 110 million people voted early in person or by mail, according to CNN. 

But high early voter counts don’t signal a fraudulent Trump win. Not all the millions of early voters cast ballots for Harris. It’s also difficult to draw conclusions about voter behavior during the 2024 election by comparing it with the 2020 election, when Trump discouraged early and mail voting. 

"Republican messaging concerning vote by mail and absentee ballots has changed this election cycle," Morley said, adding that Republicans encouraged early and mail voting. "Accordingly, we would expect the partisan breakdown of voters who use those methods of voting to have changed between the 2020 and 2024 elections."

A social media user said: "I think they found a way to target Democratic districts and send millions of votes into a black hole. The numbers aren't adding up."

However, just as there was no widespread voter fraud in 2020, there is no evidence of it in the 2024 election. 

Ballots are still being counted, so it’s unclear how many votes each candidate received, and how those results compare with the 2020 election. 

Millions of people voted early, setting records in some states. But those early voters could have supported Trump, Harris, a third party candidate or chosen not to vote in the presidential election at all.

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