Trump's Lies Matter

 

This is what Trump said to the crowd before the attack on the Capitol.

 

            "There were over 205,000 more ballots counted in Pennsylvania. Now think of this. You had 205,000 more ballots than you had voters. That means you had 200 … Where did they come from? You know where they came from? Somebody’s imagination. Whatever they needed. So in Pennsylvania you had 205,000 more votes than you had voters!"

 

          There were 6,917,613 ballots cast in Pennsylvania out of 9,089,901 registered (meaning you had to sign and have a photo ID) voters. That's a 76% turnout, meaning that for every three people who voted, there was a fourth who didn't.

 

          Here's what Trump then said about Detroit.

 

          "That’s Detroit. 174,000 ballots were counted without being tied to an actual registered voter. Nobody knows where they came from. Also in Wayne County, poll watches observed canvassers rescanning batches of ballots over and over again, up to three or four or five times. In Detroit, turnout was 139 percent of registered voters. Think of that. So you had 139 percent of the people in Detroit voting. This is in Michigan, Detroit, Michigan."

 

          Wayne County had 828,102 ballots cast out of 1,398,888 registered voters. That's a 59.1% turnout. In 2016, when Trump won Michigan, Wayne County had 788,459 ballots cast out of 1,355,794 for a turnout of 58.2%. There were 40,049 more registered voters in 2020, and 39,643 more ballots cast.

 

          Please note, Trump won 228,993 votes (34.2%) in Wayne County in 2016, and 264,553 (27.8%) in 2020. That's an increase of 35,560 votes for Trump in Wayne County (that's a 15.2% increase for Trump in an election he's claiming was rigged), although his percentage of the vote went down because Biden's vote increased more.

 

          And just to be clear, Biden won Michigan by 154,188. His margin in Wayne County was 42,166 bigger than Hillary's, not enough to explain Biden's statewide victory. Just for the sake of clarity and comparison, turnout in Michigan rose by 664,683 statewide. Registration was up 7.3%, and turnout was up 13.6%, compared to Wayne County's registration increase of 3.1% and a turnout increase of 5.2%. So, Trump's 15.2% vote increase (compared to a statewide rise of 13.6%) shows he did relatively better in Wayne County than in the rest of the state. Trump lost Michigan in the white suburbs, not because of non-existent fraud in Detroit.

 

          Trump's explanation of election fraud is nothing but a racist dogwhistle.

 

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Contact: Joshua Leinsdorf