Millions of illegal votes cost Trump the 2016 popular vote
| Millions of illegal votes cost Trump the 2016 popular vote | |
|---|---|
| FALSE | |
| "Donald Trump would have won the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election if the millions of people who voted illegally were deducted." | |
| Domain | Politics & Elections |
| Tactic | Fabrication Statistical & Evidentiary Distortion |
| Era | Current |
| First seen | 2016 |
| Origin | A post by President-elect Donald Trump on Twitter on November 27, 2016 |
| Last reviewed | 2026-10-27 |
| Further reading: books on Politics & Elections | |
The claim that millions of illegal votes cost Trump the 2016 popular vote was made by Donald Trump weeks after he won the 2016 presidential election in the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote to Hillary Clinton by about 2.9 million votes. Trump said he had won the popular vote if the millions of people who voted illegally were deducted, and later suggested that between 3 and 5 million illegal votes had been cast. No evidence supported the claim. State election officials of both parties said they had seen no sign of widespread illegal voting, and a presidential commission established to investigate voter fraud disbanded in 2018 without producing any evidence.
The claim
On November 27, 2016, Trump posted that in addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, he had won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally. In January 2017, as president, he told congressional leaders that 3 to 5 million illegal votes had been cast, and he called for a major investigation.
What the evidence shows
- No evidence offered. The White House cited no specific data. Supporters pointed to claims by an activist, Gregg Phillips, who said his organization had identified millions of noncitizen voters but never published the analysis.
- Misused studies. Defenders cited a 2014 study by researchers at Old Dominion University estimating noncitizen voting from survey data; other researchers, including the managers of the survey, said the estimate resulted from small errors in respondents checking the wrong box. A 2012 Pew Center report finding outdated voter registrations, such as people who had died or moved, was also cited, but its author said it found no evidence of fraud.
- Election officials. Secretaries of state and election administrators across the country, including Republicans, said there was no evidence of widespread illegal voting. Studies of the 2016 election identified only a small number of fraud cases.
- The commission. In May 2017 Trump created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, led by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Many states refused its requests for voter data. It was disbanded in January 2018. A commission member, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, later obtained its documents through litigation and said they showed no evidence of widespread fraud.
Why it persists
The claim established a pattern, later repeated on a larger scale after the 2020 election, of disputing unfavorable results by alleging fraud without evidence. Research has found that claims of voter fraud by political leaders can reduce confidence in elections among their supporters, even when unsupported. They have also been used to justify stricter voting rules.
Lessons for readers
- Large claims of fraud require specific, verifiable evidence.
- Ask whether election officials, including those from the claimant's own party, support the claim.
- Distinguish between outdated registrations and illegal votes.
- Check how studies cited as evidence were interpreted by their own authors.
- Notice when an investigation promised to prove a claim ends without findings.
See also
- The 2020 presidential election was stolen
- Noncitizens vote in large numbers in US elections
- Trump's inauguration drew the largest crowd ever
Sources
- Donald J. Trump, post on Twitter, November 27, 2016.
- Brennan Center for Justice, Noncitizen Voting: The Missing Millions (2017).
- Stephen Ansolabehere, Samantha Luks and Brian F. Schaffner, "The perils of cherry picking low frequency events in large sample surveys," Electoral Studies 40 (2015).
- Matthew Dunlap, letter to Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary Kris Kobach on the commission's documents, August 2018.