Talk:Election denial movement in the United States

Delusional cult

People who are caught up in a mass delusion led by one leader tend to be called a cult rather than a movement. Something to think about. That angle may have enough sources for mention. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:12, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Election denial movement has the virtue of being common usage. There are plenty of articles about the 2020 election using that phrase. Election denialism is a little shorter, and is also common usage. Election intransigence, suggested by ChatGPT is accurate, but I only find 12 matches on Google. Refusal to accept the results of the 2020 United States presidential election would match other titles about the 2020 U.S. election, but is long. Faolin42 (talk) 15:14, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

It's a movement that appears QAnon-adjacent, according to some sources I've seen, which I may include soibangla (talk) 15:49, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Bogus AfD

A bogus AfD has been started by Arms & Hearts, who has made no attempt at this article or on this talk page to address their concerns. Not one attempt. This is not a collaborative or collegial way to deal with this issue. I suggest they immediately withdraw the bogus AfD and get over here and seek to get this straightened out. Their concerns may have some legitimacy, but the proper way to deal with them are to start here before starting an AfD. Pinging Soibangla. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:04, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't know if the article should be deleted, but it definitely needs work. My main issue is that it is entirely US-centric but doesn't make clear that this is about the US. Other countries have had election denial. There are statements here that are not neutral, such as "The election denial movement adheres to a widespread Republican belief that any American election not resulting in a desired Republican candidate's victory has been rigged or stolen through fraud." First, it's not solely Republicans (there are also independents who believe this) and it's not all Republicans. So this sentence is very problematic. There are lots of polls that give statistics on the percentage of Republicans that believe this. Also, there were denials in state elections. If this is only about the federal election it should say so. Lamona (talk) 18:11, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there are exceptions, but it is indeed mostly the Republican party, as it has been captured by the Trumpers, and most Republicans are now Trumpers. Exceptions don't change the accuracy of the generalization. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Guessing the issues with the article are why it's nominated for deletion, but seems like an extremely important topic that should be kept if at all possible and have its NPOV and other issues noted more precisely.

I've taken a few first steps to clean up some of the issues and link to related articles Superb Owl (talk) 02:40, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

@Valjean Shouldn't your question be discussed on the Talk page of the nominated AfD? Shouldn't WikiProject Deletion members be alerted about whether the nominated AfD follows WP:Deletion policy and WP:Deletion process for WP:Articles for deletion? rootsmusic (talk) 03:53, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Now moved to a better title that is more accurate. This article is not about the subject in a general or global sense. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:12, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Moved to more accurate title

This article is not about the subject in a general or global sense. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:11, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

2000 Missouri Senate and 2019 Kentucky Gov - SYNTH?

Moving these sections here from the main page given the discussion they prompted about possible improper synthesis. Are these part of the movement described in the article?

2000

John Ashcroft, after losing the 2000 Missouri senate election, joined other Republicans in claiming widespread fraud in black precincts, which a subsequent newspaper investigation found all but nonexistent.

2019

In a 2020 analysis by Governing of other politicians who refused to concede citing fraud, Republican Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin made claims (without evidence) of voter fraud and urban voter harvesting after losing his 2019 reelection bid, though few national or Kentucky republicans supported his assertion. Bevin conceded after a week during which a recount confirmed the vote totals and his overtures to Kentucky's Republican majority in the legislature to decide the outcome in his favor were rejected. Superb Owl (talk) 03:29, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

References

Improving the article

The AfD result was keep, but the article is clearly still in a poor state. How do we improve it? I propose making this article just about Trump and Republicans. This is different from Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, because this will cover the general Republican Party movement to distrust election results, not just 2020, even if it was massively accelerated by 2020. For example, almost all of the "Background" section of that article can be moved into this article, with 1-2 sentences summarizing Trump's insinuation that he won the 2016 popular vote and that he was sowing doubt towards 2020 for months beforehand.

This is also partly because that article is 133 kB, when WP:SIZERULE states that anything over 100kb "almost certainly should be divided or trimmed". This will probably make it necessary to change the title to Republican Party election denial movement, or something similar. MarkiPoli (talk) 11:45, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't see a point in limiting the analysis to just Republican election denialism -- one of the biggest outstanding issues is the article's selective exposure. There are plenty of instances of Democrat election denialism with reliable sources:

• 'You can have the election stolen from you,' Hillary Clinton warns 2020 Democrats - USA Today
• Former Vice President Joe Biden says he 'absolutely agrees' with comment that Trump is an 'illegitimate president' - Business Insider
• Jimmy Carter Says He Sees Trump As An Illegitimate President - NPR
• Hakeem Jeffries says Trump could be illegitimate, a Russian asset or "useful idiot" - NBC News
• Clinton opens door to questioning legitimacy of 2016 election - CNN
• Democratic Rep. Lewis: Trump not a ‘legitimate president’ - Associated Press

Sewageboy (talk) 05:07, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

there is a distinct difference between fleeting assertions that gain no traction and quickly recede into oblivion and persistent allegations that form a movement over years, with the leader of the movement demanding adherence to it by any politician who seeks his support soibangla (talk) 05:18, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

That’s an oversimplification. Having countless high-ranking Democrats, including Trump’s opponent, claiming that the result was illegitimate is significant. No one said that these claims have to be portrayed as equal in intensity to those made by Republicans in 2020, but it would be very disingenuous to try and cover it up instead. The Russian collusion allegations dominated the news cycle for years. Sewageboy (talk) 10:40, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

this article is not about Russian collusion allegations or anything else. you are drawing a false equivalency of whataboutism soibangla (talk) 19:11, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

It’s not currently about that, hence why it’s flawed and incomplete, but it will be. If this article becomes limited almost entirely to 2020 denialism, then it is redundant to Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election and must be merged/deleted. Sewageboy (talk) 19:42, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

This article is completely one-sided. In 2016 Democrats denied the election with Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton all saying the 2016 election was illegitimate. Not to mention Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg lying and saying that Stacey Abram's gubernatorial loss was illegitimate. All of those examples should be included. Moebiusdad (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 23:32, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Russia Gate

Why isn't Hillary's election denial in here? 98.168.237.78 (talk) 03:05, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Nothing about Democratic Denial in 2016

The vast majority of denial from the 2016 presidential election came from Democrats, not the Trump camp. It completely consumed political discourse in the United States for years. Democrats pushed verifiably false narratives and convinced the much of the public that Donald Trump was elected due to completely fabricated "Russian interference." How can not a single word on that be in this article? Eman863 (talk) 00:15, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe we don't say much because there really was massive Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It's not "fabricated". It's a fact. Their interference was wide and sweeping, even penetrating deep into the election systems of many states. States were offered federal money and help to investigate if their election security was compromised, but Republican states refused the help and refused to investigate. After all, their man had won, so why upset that apple cart?

Trump and his campaign cooperated with the Russian interference in many ways, with Roger Stone trying to coordinate with WikiLeaks and Paul Manfort sharing polling data with Russian agents. In spite of that, Mueller had a mandate that he must not find any crime that he could prosecute, as the rules forbid doing that to a sitting president, so he conveniently was unable to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the campaign actually "conspired" or "coordinated" with the Russian efforts, even though he found some evidence, and others found even more.

Therefore, Democrats were loath to make the "Russia changed votes" claim. They accepted the results of the election, unlike what Trump and MAGA have done. No evidence was found of such vote changing, although the Russian social media efforts likely caused many to change their votes in favor of Trump. President Jimmy Carter did go public with his opinion that Trump would not have been elected if not for the Russian help, and there are no doubt many who share that opinion.

But that suspicion is nothing like the election denial carried on by Trump and MAGA. They deny that Biden won the election. They claim there was voter fraud, even though all experts, all courts, and even Trump's own people have not found evidence of such fraud. They refuse to accept that the final vote tally is accurate. That kind of denialism goes against all evidence and is very damaging to democracy and trust in our election system, which is exactly why Putin helped Trump win. He knew Trump would cause problems and division and weaken the Western alliance against Russia. Trump's election has only helped him.

So the contrast is rather stark. Russian interference to help Trump win was very real and not fabricated. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:38, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Regardless of whether or not it was fabricated, it still falls under the category of election denial, no? If you're so confident in those facts, why are people afraid of it being posted on this page? 75.86.134.71 (talk) 02:56, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Eman863, the subject is touched on at Election denial movement in the United States#2016, where Trump and Republicas were the ones making waves, rather than Democrats, but you are welcome to find RS that document whatever Democrats did that resembles denying that election. Go for it! -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:06, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

There are myriad examples cited even above by multiple users. To say that Democrats didn't try to convince people that the results of the 2016 election were illegitimate due to Russian involvement is simply false. Eman863 (talk) 07:38, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

But you are correct in that I should have said "collusion" and not "interference." Eman863 (talk) 07:39, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I am not against the inclusion of something about this, but we need to do it carefully. Objecting to the illegal help and funding from Russia and the unpatriotic cooperation from Trump is not the same as refusing to accept the numbers in the vote. Voters did not elect Trump but the electoral system did, and that's the law, so he did win, fairly or not. That has not been questioned by Democrats. Denying that would be election denial in the sense we use it here. Trump and the GOP literally deny the numbers. Period. There is a huge difference. (Not that numbers would mean anything to Trump, as he declared he would not leave, no matter what.)

Objections to other factors are a related topic, so workshop how to include that as a tangential topic, either here or in its own article. Just don't make the mistake of treating "objections" as synonymous with "denial". They are not synonymous. There have always been various forms of objections in nearly all elections. That's expected.

This was a very different situation. The U.S. has never had a candidate openly working hand-in-glove with the nation's oldest enemy, especially enabling its military in their cyber attacks by providing polling data and lying to cover for Russia, essentially and practically becoming #PutinsPuppet. That, and that Putin apparently (according to multiple allied intelligence agencies) possesses quite a bit of nasty kompromat on Trump held as blackmail, make this a totally unique situation. It shows the objections are quite legitimate national security concerns, not just complaining. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:15, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

It amazes me that people actually still believe the Trump-Russia narrative that most media pushed on a near literal daily basis, but turned out to be a giant nothing burger. By kompromat, did you mean the debunked Steele dossier that Clinton and the DNC paid for (if not had a direct hand in fabricating)? This is absurd. I take no issue with an article on election denialism in general if it is indeed objective and unbiased, nor a section of same specific to the fact that Trump and MAGA supporters are the majority adherents of the voter fraud conspiracy as far as 2020 specifically. But not as the main focus of the article as a whole. For example I see zero mention of any of the many, repeated assertions by numerous mainstream media figures and top Democrats including Hilary Clinton, Biden, et al. that Trump was illegitimate and "denying" the 2016 election. Indeed several sources on that are cited earlier in this Talk page. Apparently "election denial" eg; a false belief/conspiracy theory only exists if a X number of people believe it? Or only exists when Republicans espouse it? The opposing candidate pushing such a claim isn't good enough to even rate a mention?

The lede literally states "Election Denial is ... a Republican belief that any American election not resulting in a desired Republican candidate's victory has been rigged or stolen through fraud." Strongly implying that it's A) a solely Republican belief and B) the automatic default assertion of all Republicans every single time they lose any election, period. The entire article should be scrapped, or at least re-titled something like "United States Election Denial Specific to Republicans (or to Trump, or 2020). It beggars belief that people seem not to see the insane amount of slant here.

I really hate to use the stupid catchphrase "Trump Derangement Syndrome", nor am I Trump supporter myself. But articles like this really appear very difficult to justify as anything but what's commonly referred to as "TDS" in action: One-sided, thinly veiled attacks on Trump and the GOP masquerading as objective. Or 'hit pieces' disguised as articles, if you prefer journalistic parlance. It's this kind of patently obvious bias that gives Wiki a bad reputation. Of course I'm just an ip, don't mind me... 2607:FEA8:2E20:3770:390F:99EC:BD44:7FFD (talk) 15:20, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

the key word here is movement. a small number of people alleging fraud in 2016 but soon dropping it is not a movement. polls consistently show to this day, over three years later, a significant share or majority of Republicans do not believe Biden was legitimately elected. the RNC is now ramping up operations ostensibly to deal with what they claim is widespread election fraud, when these claims have been refuted for decades. Trump continues to insist at least weekly that the election was stolen. there has never been any analog to this by Democrats, and there is no TDS at play here. this is exclusively a Republican phenomenon and it is quite detached from reality, and quite possibly not by accident. soibangla (talk) 19:46, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

No analog by Democrats? Apparently I'm the only one who remembers multiple media outlets pushing 2016 election denial; the many and repeated claims by Clinton, Biden, et al that Trump wasn't legitimate, the entire movement (and it was a movement by any definition) of "Not my President" and "The Resistance" mounted by the left and kept up through all 4 years of Trump. I can cite you polls from the Trump era showing a significant majority of Democrats didn't (don't?) believe Trump was legitimately elected. And soon dropping it, really? I can name you multiple supposedly respected mainstream media figures -- Rachel Maddow comes to mind -- who continued to insist daily, nevermind weekly, for 4 straight years that Trump was a Russian agent and any day now we'd have some bombshell evidence proving he was a Russian plant and the election was rigged, etc, ad nauseum. Nor was Maddow even close to the only one. What of the alphabet agencies illegally spying on the Trump campaign under Obama? The whole Muller investigation nothingburger over Russian election rigging and Trump's collusion, which was also promoted by Dems for years? No analog and quickly dropped indeed. This is what I mean by double standards and slant.

I'll agree it's been a larger and perhaps more persistent belief among the right wing voters themselves and MAGA folks particularly, but the left had a direct analogue espoused by the losing Democratic candidate and with the literally daily support, year in year out, of mainstream media. Trump's denialism may continue to get more attention, but it's wholly negative and decried by the media, whereas the Democratic claims were *supported* by the media. Remember that? I'd also bet, though it's neither here nor there at this point, that the majority of Dem voters today still believe 2016 was rigged by Russia and Trump was the illegitimate leader. There was all manner of protests and activism over the Trump/Russia election nonsense over his entire presidency, and just because because we aren't being constantly reminded of it by the media today doesn't mean it wasn't a widespread belief, didn't happen, or for that matter isn't still a prevalent belief.

Basically all I'm distilling out of this is that the definitions and standards seem to be selectively applied depending upon political alignment, or at least are being based on some arbitrary, nebulous standards around size and prevalence that nobody can actually define. It'd be like having an article on war; with a lede claiming "war is a solely American phenomenon where the US military is used against another nation state to achieve foreign policy goals by force of arms". Then in the article you just exclude mention of all other countries wars' because they occurred too long ago, or their forces were smaller than America's, or they didn't last as long as wars we were involved in, or whatever other completely arbitrary metrics.

Or to rephrase it very simply: The fact that Trumper idiots may be "worse" than the Dems in the writer's subjective opinion, or that there may be more of them, or that they did X specific thing that Dems didn't do, does not magically make them the only ones. That does not invalidate that Democrats, both politicians and the majority of their voters, believed in and pushed the same sort of election denial/illegitimate president nonsense 8 years ago. Complete with intelligence investigations and the support of mainstream media. I can cite literally dozens of thinly-veiled hit piece articles and video segments from any number of mainstream journalists, Democrat politicians, political commentators, etc over the entire length of Trumps' presidency pushing election denial. I bring up TDS because again, I as someone I think fairly objective and definitely NOT a Trump supporter, read this article and am immediately struck by the bias and patently obvious one-sided slant. The lede alone makes it plain. I'll leave it at this though, just for posterity. With all respect it's pointless arguing with what is honestly coming off as willful blindness to the other side of the same coin. 2607:FEA8:2E20:3770:390F:99EC:BD44:7FFD (talk) 10:22, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

I scanned enough of that to determine you're conflating different phenomena as though they are the same. Election denialism has become baked into the Republican Party as policy, mandated by Trump, who will not endorse any GOP candidate unless they comply. What Maddow might say, or Spygate falsely alleges, or what DOJ investigations did don't enter into this. Try googling election denial movement and see if you can find an analog to Democrats. soibangla (talk) 10:44, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Birtherism conspiracy similarities to watered down Replacement conspiracy

If anyone else thinks it's relative, I'm willing to put together a short sample from RS below. RS has highlighted claims by some republican reps and candidates, especially Trump, that dems are ultimately trying to "change/overthrow the electorate" via legal/illegal immigration.

• AP News Jan 2024

• Intelligencer 2022

• NBC 2022 Op-Ed written by Miles Taylor (security expert)

Cheers DN (talk) 01:45, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Sounds interesting. Go for it! -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:54, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

@Darknipples This article is about a political movement. "Birtherism" is described in Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. rootsmusic (talk) 16:12, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

@Rootsmusic it also has a section in this article, for reasons that are explained in that section. Some of the reliable sources I've listed here also mention birtherism in connection to the election denialist movement. Read the sources. DN (talk) 19:24, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

FYI

this article is not of low importance, as currently categorized

it is the Big Lie that is of vital importance and must be categorized accordingly

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Politics#Election_denial_movement_in_the_United_States soibangla (talk) 05:44, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Poll Sept. 10 2024

With regard to the most recent edit by Car234 which has been reverted by Soibangla. There were no edit summaries that I could see. The timeline of these additions range from Oct. 2023 to May 2024. I have since reinstated the language as status quo since there were no edit summaries explaining these changes...

1. The election denial movement in the United States is a widespread false belief among many Republicans that elections in the United States are rigged and stolen through election fraud by Democrats

2. Trump had a history of questioning elections before he ran for office, notably the 2012 reelection of Barack Obama. He grew the movement among his supporters by making consistently false allegations of fraud during the 2016, and in particular the 2020 presidential election. With these false and unsubstantiated claims, Trump and his associates sought to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden

3. Trump claimed, without evidence, that millions of undocumented migrants voted illegally for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, costing him the popular vote victory.

Is there consensus to Keep the status quo or to Remove the language in Car234's edit? DN (talk) 20:50, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

We go by what RS say. These are false beliefs, and we don't allow WP:Profringe changes to the status quo. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, and thanks for the input. The language used does not seem to have any official consensus AFAIK, so it may be helpful if the community here agreed that the particulars of this context is DUE to avoid any future doubt. Cheers. DN (talk) 02:00, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Statistical Significance, 2020 Election Cycle a Statistical Outlier

... tectonic demographic shift between the last two election cycles, is a non-sequitur. Over 15 million votes descending, pie-in-the-sky, on Harris-Biden, 2020, magically having evanesced, poof-gone, 2024? The two elections, 2024 V. 2020 are statistically significant, the two data trails are distinct, and are not directly comparable:

https://x.com/zerohedge/status/1854144250562429081 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.138.82.186 (talk) 05:04, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

It could be added as a component referenced by election challengers of possible election fraud with a valid citation in the 2020 section. If you are looking to add it as evidence, as I see you are, I would not because there is no hard evidence. It is an outlier, not statistical anomaly, so it is just circumstantial evidence, which is what was used entirely during stolen election allegations, so it’s more of the same. Also, the 2020 section currently does not list any of the references used by election challengers and instead links towards the main article. I wouldn’t change anything before further discussion, thanks Slothwizard (talk) 20:38, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Reframing of page needed as election denialism emerges on left

Denialism on the left regarding 2024 is nowhere near the level of denialism on the right in 2020, but it is not insignificant at this point and gaining in specificity. NewsGuard counts more than 1,200 “partisan sites masquerading as politically neutral local news outlets” now spreading the claims.

This page is framed in terms of GOP denialism, which was defensible until now. I'd like to start some significant reframing, but it is so thoroughly woven into the article from top to bottom that I wonder if this page should be moved to a new GOP-specific title and another page started about denialism on the left. Your thoughts welcome. Gowser (talk) 16:26, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Because of the history of previous attempts to do this, I would strongly advise against such a move until you have developed some consensus here on the talk page. If there had been no controversy over this, acting BOLDly would be appropriate, but we are well past that point, so it would just be disruptive.

Start by proposing to add some specific and well-formulated content, with RS, and share that content here in its own section. (You may want to develop it on a personal draft page first.) I understand your thinking and am not discounting it. It may well have some legitimacy. This article, at only 99 thousand bytes, is small and can handle this. So show us a sample of what you'd like to add so we can discuss it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:36, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

That's sensible, and I'm re-evaluating anyway. On closer review, the NewsGuard count includes conspiracy claims on the right before the election, which I'm sure hugely outnumber those on the left afterward. There might be a recency issue here as well—six months from now, the claims on the left might have faded to nothing, and the "election denial movement" will still clearly be on the right. Thanks @Valjean

Gowser (talk) 18:50, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

You make some good points. I have no doubt that there are a few left-wingers way out there who are making irresponsible claims, but I suspect they are outliers. Time will tell. Being suspicious of anything done by Trump (such as the fact that Russia helped him win in 2016 and 2024) is just common sense (if he can cheat, he will), but outright denial of the final results is a Republican/MAGA thing. Unless some good evidence arrives (and it may), I don't see any legitimate reason to question the actual vote tallies. The counting isn't over yet! Right now he has very narrow margin:

"Trump is winning a lower percent of the popular vote this year than Biden did in 2020 (51.3), Obama in 2012 (51.1), Obama in 2008 (52.9), George W. Bush in 2004 (50.7), George H.W. Bush in 1988 (53.2), Ronald Reagan in 1984 (58.8), Reagan in 1980 (50.7), or Jimmy Carter in 1976 (50.1). And, of course, Trump numbers are way below those of the presidents who won what could reasonably be described as “unprecedented and powerful” mandates, such as Richard Nixon’s 60.7 percent in 1972, Lyndon Johnson’s 61.1 percent in 1964, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 60.8 percent. As Trump’s percentage continues to slide, he’ll fall below the thresholds achieved by most presidents in the past century."[1]

Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:23, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

There's some polling on it now. According to this it's about 10 percent of Democrats, 6 percent of the overall electorate. VintageVernacular (talk) 13:19, 20 November 2024 (UTC)