Donald Trump continues to make baseless claims that widespread voter fraud led to his defeat by Joe Biden in last week’s election.
In an all-caps tweet on Thursday morning, the president claims that Dominion Voting Systems, the software provider that local governments around the country use to run elections, “DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE”.
He also claimed that data analysis showed 221,000 votes being switched from him to president-elect Biden in Pennsylvania, and a further 941,000 Trump votes in the state were deleted.
Appearing to cite One America News Network and its White House correspondent Chanel Rion as his source, Mr Trump added that states using Dominion’s software switched 435,000 votes from Trump to Biden.
The tweet was flagged by Twitter as making a claim about election fraud that is disputed.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that allegations against Dominion software leading to mistakes in ballot counting in Michigan and Georgia were “baseless”.
Dominion software was only used in two out of the five counties that reported problems, in every incidence there was a detailed explanation of what happened, and in all cases there was no impact on the vote count.
“Many of the claims being asserted about Dominion and questionable voting technology is misinformation at best and, in many cases, they’re outright disinformation,” Edward Perez, an election-technology expert at the OSET Institute, a nonprofit that studies voting infrastructure, told the Times. “I’m not aware of any evidence of specific things or defects in Dominion software that would lead one to believe that votes had been recorded or counted incorrectly.”
Mr Trump had previously shared a Breitbart article on Twitter that incorrectly tied issues in Michigan to problems experienced in Georgia.
His personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has also claimed, with no apparent evidence, to be in touch with whistleblowers from Dominion.
“REPORT: DOMINION DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE. DATA ANALYSIS FINDS 221,000 PENNSYLVANIA VOTES SWITCHED FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BIDEN. 941,000 TRUMP VOTES DELETED. STATES USING DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS SWITCHED 435,000 VOTES FROM TRUMP TO BIDEN.” @ChanelRion @OANN
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2020
A number of false claims have spread online regarding Denver-headquartered Dominion Voting Systems, including deep ties to Democrats.
Mr Trump spent much of Thursday morning attacking Fox News and retweeting his supporters’ tweets saying that they are switching over to Newsmax or OANN.
The Associated Press has called Pennsylvania for Mr Biden with 99 per cent of the vote counted and the Democrat leading Mr Trump by 3.39 million votes to 3.34 million.
While the Biden team continue with their preparations to take over the White House in January, the president continues to refuse to concede.
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