In 2020, Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by winning the Electoral College vote 306 to 232, with seven million more votes, a margin of 5%.
Unwilling to accept defeat, Trump and his allies filed 62 legal challenges, of which he lost all but one meaningless case in Pennsylvania. Then Trump provoked supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying the results.
Tens of thousands of Americans defended the sanctity of the vote that year. Among them:
Vice-President Mike Pence who chose to do his lawful duty despite Trump’s threats. Pence literally risked his life to remain at the Capitol building rather than flee and delay certification.
An estimated 1,400 Capitol Police officers, and 850 DC Metropolitan Police officers who fought the rioters, many of whom incurred serious injuries.
Countless lawyers from the ACLU, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Campaign Legal Center, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, state, county and city legal departments and a great many private law firms, large and small who won those 61 cases and other legal challenges.
Ordinary Heroes and the Sanctity of the Vote
Republicans like Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state who refused Trump’s personal plea to illegally change Georgia’s vote total; Rusty Bowers, speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives, who faced down Trump’s threats and refused to appoint an alternative slate of electors; Doug Ducey, Arizona’s governor who signed the state’s official election certification for Joe Biden despite numerous phone calls from Trump; Aaron Van Langevelde, a member of Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers, who despite heavy pressure, cast the decisive vote to certify that Biden had won Michigan’s electoral votes.
Our election system was severely tested in 2020. It passed that test because countless heroes who believe in democracy and the importance of protecting the vote stood firm when it mattered.
On the other hand, Trump was not alone in his attempt to corrupt the result of that election. Despite lack of any evidence, 147 of 197 Republicans of the U.S. House and 8 members of the U.S. Senate voted against certifying Biden as president.
Even though Trump’s name is not officially on any ballot November 3, we’re being tested again, at a time many of the guardrails in place in 2020 are no longer there. This time, the Justice Department is serving as Trump’s personal law firm. The Pentagon is under the control of a leader willing to do Trump’s bidding. Mike Johnson, not Nancy Pelosi, is speaker of the House. Republicans control the Senate.
The Facts Behind Trump’s Voter Fraud Claims
In 2020 Trump claimed he lost because millions of illegal immigrants voted for Biden. His argument was best summed up by his lawyer, former New York mayor Rudy Guilliano who said, “We’ve got lots of theories. We just don’t have the evidence.”
The right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation set out to find that evidence. On its website, it maintains what it calls an “Election Fraud Map” and database. As of this writing, the list of election fraud cases totals just 1,412—going back to 1982, a period in which about 3 billion votes were cast.
Even those numbers may be inflated, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The Brennan Center analysis says, “The database includes an assortment of cases, many unrelated or tangentially related, going back decades, with only a handful pertaining to non-citizens voting or impersonation at the polls. They add up to a molecular fraction of the total votes cast nationwide.”
This year Trump claims, among other things, that 20,000 non-citizens are on California’s voting rolls. On its website The Heritage Foundation lists only 71 instances of voter fraud in California, from 1982 through 2025. Only 1 case is reported from California’s 2025 election.
The only serious case of illegal election manipulation during the Trump years has been Putin’s corrupt interference for Trump in the 2016 campaign, verified by numerous investigations, including one by a Republican-led U.S. Senate committee chaired by Marco Rubio.
Protecting 250 Years of American Democracy
Two hundred and fifty years ago, some mostly very rich men decided to trust the fate of their newly created form of government to the collective decisions of a whole lot of people who weren’t. Even during the devastating civil war, elections were conducted and the results accepted.
It’s a winning streak for democracy unrivaled in all human history. Will it be extended this year? That could depend on a lot of ordinary people stepping up as heroes, the way others did in 2020….
The workers and observers who will man 95,815 physical polling places tracked by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission.
The local boards of canvassers, county commissions and others who will tally all valid mail-in, early and election day results.
The 37 secretaries of state, three lieutenant governors and independent state commissions that manage statewide and congressional elections and the governors who issue official certificates of election to winning candidates.
Because Article II of the U.S. Constitution gives individual states the primary authority to set election rules and administer vote counting, where there are disputes and requests for recounts state courts are the first line of arbitration. On November 3 and after, many state judges will need to stand firm as well.
Trump has won two of three presidential election campaigns. Since his first election in 2016, his Republican party has controlled both the House and Senate longer than the Democrats. Yet he still maintains U.S. elections are rigged against him. With more executive power than ever and facing a worse political fate than ever, Trump almost certainly will do what he can to avoid losing control, despite the actual results.
But the U.S. election system is built on 250 years of dedication to the sanctity of popular choice and respect for that outcome by candidates who enter the arena. To corrupt it, Trump will need the acquiescence of hundreds, perhaps thousands of willing co-conspirators.
In 2020, he couldn’t persuade most honorable elected and appointed officials in his own party. Will he this time?
We’re about to find out.
Comments? Criticism? Contact Joe Rothstein at jrothstein@rothstein.net
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