Trump erroneously added, “only the Republican machines,” to his assertion that Maricopa County’s “machines just happened to be broken,” which is why Kari Lake lost the 2022 election for governor of Arizona. Voters may still be counted even if some printers generated ballots that were too light for the tabulators present. Lake’s legal objections were unsuccessful, and an impartial inquiry turned up no proof of misconduct.
Trump targets swing states with false election claims
In addition, Trump asserted without providing any supporting data that Abraham Hamadeh’s election was rigged to win Arizona’s attorney general’s seat in 2022. Hamadeh was found to have lost the election via a recount, and her legal claims were also dismissed for want of proof. In Nevada, Trump who was charged by a federal grand jury on charges of plotting to win the presidency in 2020 but lost it denied the violence that broke out on January 6, 2021, when his followers stormed the Capitol building while Congress convened to count the electoral votes that would determine Joe Biden’s victorious candidacy.
“They were only voicing their opposition to an unfair election. He added of his followers, “And then the police say, ‘Go in, go in,'” to the Capitol. The Republican Party’s presumed presidential nominee, Donald Trump, spoke at two events this summer: a town hall in Phoenix on June 6 and a rally in Las Vegas on June 9. In 2020, Biden defeated the former president in Arizona and Nevada. The narrow margin of victory for Biden in Arizona, a crucial swing state in 2024, was 10,457 votes. During his speech in Phoenix, Trump introduced a few Republican candidates from Arizona, including Hamadeh, a House candidate for the 8th Congressional District, and Lake, a current U.S. Senate contender. This is customary for presidential candidates visiting a state.
Battleground states hit by Trump’s election misinformation
Trump erroneously stated during his introductions that there are no “honest elections” in the United States. He then made the irrational accusation that election fraud occurred in 2022 in Hamadeh and Lake. Then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs defeated Lake in the 2022 governor’s election by a margin of more than 17,000 votes. In a lawsuit filed on December 9, 2022, she alleged election fraud for her defeat and made many assertions, one of which Trump alluded to when he talked about “broken machines.” Trump is alluding to an issue that occurred on Election Day with certain polling places in Maricopa County’s ballot-on-demand printers. Maricopa County stated that for a while the printers generated ballots that were too light for the ballot tabulators on site to see as we published the day after the election on November 8, 2022. Election authorities recommended voters to put their completed ballot in a safe box to be tallied later until the issue was fixed.
Trump’s focus on key electoral regions
Lake filed a lawsuit, alleging disenfranchisement of her voters. However, her case and ensuing appeals were unsuccessful. Judge Peter Thompson of Maricopa County Superior Court stated in his decision on December 24, 2022, that “plaintiff’s own expert acknowledged that a ballot that was unable to be read at the vote center could be deposited by a voter, duplicated by a bipartisan board onto a readable ballot, and in the final analysis counted.”
| Claim | Detail |
| Trump asserted that Maricopa County’s “machines just happened to be broken” that is, just the Republican machinery was the reason Kari Lake lost the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial contest. | Voters may still be counted even if some printers generated ballots that were too light for the tabulators present. Lake’s legal objections were unsuccessful, and an impartial inquiry turned up no proof of misconduct. |
| In the 2022 Arizona attorney general’s race, Trump said that Abraham Hamadeh was defeated because “his election was rigged.” | Hamadeh’s loss in the election was confirmed by a recount, and legal appeals were dismissed for want of proof. |
| By arguing that his followers were “just protesting a rigged election” and had been “set up” by the police, Trump attempted to sanitize the violence on January 6, 2021. | In an attempt to prevent the demonstrators from entering the Capitol that day, about 140 law enforcement personnel were hurt. No proof exists that the 2020 election was “rigged.” |
| Trump made up the notion that if there were “honest elections” in the United States, he “would have stopped campaigning two weeks ago.” | There isn’t any reliable proof of extensive fraud that might have changed the results of the 2020 election. |
