Election Denial Conspiracy Theories Are Exploding on X. This Time They’re Coming From the Left

While astatine work clip the Associated Press’ ballot number was so 16 cardinal votes little than that for the 2020 election, the mentation is trivially simple: The entirety of the ballot hasn’t been tabulated yet.

“Election denial is anti-democratic, whether it comes from the near oregon the right,” David Becker, enforcement manager of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, wrote connected X. “No, 20 cardinal votes aren’t missing. Votes are inactive being counted successful galore states, including millions successful CA alone. Number of votes successful 2024 precise adjacent to 2020, erstwhile each are reported “

Posts relating to these conspiracy theories began to summation traction astir 2:00 americium Eastern, PeakMetrics information shows, which coincides astir with the clip the predetermination was called for Trump—but adjacent arsenic Americans went to bed, the fig of posts did not decline.

“By 8am ET, the fig of posts per hr had surged to 31,991,” PeakMetrics wrote successful an investigation shared with WIRED. “There was possibly a astonishing deficiency of overnight drop-off successful posts from 2am-7am ET—when typically posts would diminution arsenic the US hits sleeping hours. The dependable summation successful posts connected the Kamala recount/missing votes communicative passim the overnight hours whitethorn simply bespeak the strength of this discussion—or whitethorn constituent to inauthentic oregon automated posting behavior.”

Unlike the predetermination denial question successful 2020, which was inspired by Trump’s refusal to judge the results, these conspiracy theories haven’t received immoderate enactment from the candidate. On Wednesday, Harris urged her supporters to judge the results and assured them her squad “will prosecute successful a peaceful transportation of power.”

The improvement of left-leaning oregon anti-Trump accounts posting conspiracy theories connected societal media platforms, referred to arsenic BlueAnon, came to prominence earlier this twelvemonth successful the aftermath of the assassination effort connected Trump’s beingness successful July.

“Any lawsuit that seems improbable volition ever invitation conspiracy theories astir what ‘really’ happened,” says Mike Rothschild, an writer who writes astir conspiracy theories and extremists. “In this case, it's a factually incorrect communicative that determination are tens of millions of missing votes, and that Russian weaponry threats sabotaged the Harris campaign. Neither are true—turnout appears to beryllium down, and galore states, including California, are inactive good into counting. And portion weaponry threats are ne'er acceptable, they're not the crushed wherefore the Harris run mislaid each plaything state. To constitute Trump's triumph disconnected to conspiracy theories is to not unrecorded successful reality."