While at publication time the Associated Press’ vote count was indeed 16 million votes lower than that for the 2020 election, the explanation is trivially simple: The entirety of the vote hasn’t been tabulated yet.
“Election denial is anti-democratic, whether it comes from the left or the right,” David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, wrote on X. “No, 20 million votes aren’t missing. Votes are still being counted in many states, including millions in CA alone. Number of votes in 2024 very close to 2020, when all are reported “
Posts relating to these conspiracy theories began to gain traction around 2 am Eastern, PeakMetrics data shows, which coincides roughly with the time the election was called for Trump—but even as Americans went to bed, the number of posts did not decline.
“By 8 am ET, the number of posts per hour had surged to 31,991,” PeakMetrics wrote in an analysis shared with WIRED. “There was perhaps a surprising lack of overnight drop-off in posts from 2 am to 7 am ET—when typically posts would decline as the US hits sleeping hours. The steady increase in posts on the Kamala recount/missing votes narrative throughout the overnight hours may simply reflect the intensity of this discussion—or may point to inauthentic or automated posting behavior.”
Unlike the election denial movement in 2020, which was inspired by Trump’s refusal to accept the results, these conspiracy theories haven’t received any support from the candidate. On Wednesday, Harris urged her supporters to accept the results and assured them her team “will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.”
The phenomenon of left-leaning or anti-Trump accounts posting conspiracy theories on social media platforms, referred to as BlueAnon, came to prominence earlier this year in the wake of the assassination attempt on Trump’s life in July.
“Any event that seems improbable will always invite conspiracy theories about what ‘really’ happened,” says Mike Rothschild, an author who writes about conspiracy theories and extremists. “In this case, it’s a factually incorrect narrative that there are tens of millions of missing votes and that Russian bomb threats sabotaged the Harris campaign. Neither are true—turnout appears to be down, and many states, including California, are still well into counting. And while bomb threats are never acceptable, they’re not the reason why the Harris campaign lost every swing state. To write Trump’s win off to conspiracy theories is to not live in reality.”