AP finds fewer than 475 cases of potential voter fraud in six 2020 battleground states

An Associated Press investigation into the 2020 election found fewer than 475 cases of voter fraud in six battleground states, refuting former President Trump’s claims of a massive, coordinated effort to steal the election from him.

Reporters conducted a months-long examination of the election, which the AP called one of the most comprehensive to date, at more than 300 local election offices where ballots were submitted in swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. President Biden won those states by a combined 311,257 votes.

The AP concluded there was no collusion to steal the election and found fewer than 473 cases of individual voter fraud, with 80 percent of the counties in the battleground states reporting no suspicious activity.

“The cases could not throw the outcome into question even if all the potentially fraudulent votes were for Biden, which they were not, and even if those ballots were actually counted, which in most cases they were not,” reporters wrote.

The instances of individual voter fraud include a Wisconsin man who thought he could vote on parole and a Pennsylvania man who voted twice, for himself and his son. In most cases, fraud was intercepted by election officials, which the AP said further confirmed the security and integrity of the election.

Trump told The Associated Press he would soon release more information about the alleged massive voter fraud in the 2020 election.

“I just don’t think you should make a fool out of yourself by saying 400 votes,” he told the publication.

Biden beat out Trump with a historic amount of votes, winning more than 81 million. Biden also won each of the crucial swing states by thousands of votes each, winning a total of 79 electoral college votes.

But Trump continues to claim the election was stolen, citing massive voter fraud and contesting the use of mail-in voting, which was used on a larger scale than usual due to the coronavirus pandemic. His rhetoric fueled the Jan. 6 riot, during which Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the Senate and then-Vice President Mike Pence from certifying the election results.

Trump’s lawsuits in battleground states have largely been thrown out of court, and election audits have also unearthed little evidence of voter fraud, including a highly publicized one in Arizona.

But the AP investigation into the battleground states is the most thorough debunking of Trump’s repeated claims of massive voter fraud. Reporters found no mass wave of mail-in ballots from unregistered voters or more votes than registered voters.

A spokesman for the Biden administration, Andrew Bates, told the AP the investigation further cements Biden’s victory.

“Each time this dangerous but weak and fear-ridden conspiracy theory has been put forward, it has only cemented the truth more by being completely debunked,” he told reporters.

The review found individualized cases of voter fraud in each state: 198 in Arizona, 64 in Georgia, 26 in Pennsylvania, 31 in Wisconsin, 56 in Michigan and around 98 in Nevada.