Popular vote loser Donald Trump and his deplorable followers can't imagine that he lost the popular vote. Fraud!!! they scream, saying millions of people voted illegally. The actual fact—not that it matters to Trump—is the vote was perfectly legitimate.
In an election in which more than 137.7 million Americans cast ballots, election and law enforcement officials in 26 states and the District of Columbia—Democratic-leaning, Republican-leaning and in-between—said that so far they knew of no credible allegations of fraudulent voting. Officials in another eight states said they knew of only one allegation.
A few states reported somewhat larger numbers of fraud claims that were under review. Tennessee counted 40 credible allegations out of some 4.3 million primary and general election votes. In Georgia, where more than 4.1 million ballots were cast, officials said they had opened 25 inquiries into “suspicious voting or election-related activity.”
But inquiries to all 50 states (every one but Kansas responded) found no states that reported indications of widespread fraud. And while additional allegations could surface as states wind up postelection reviews, their conclusions are unlikely to change significantly.
Gee, why would Kansas not respond? Couldn't be because the nation's leading voter fraud huckster—Kris Kobach—is secretary of state there, and had no fraud to report? But you can bet that this won't end the myth of voter fraud, nor will it end the Trumpsters insisting that millions of Hillary Clinton's votes just don't count.
It's a lie that few of Trump's enablers in elected office are going to acknowledge. That's because it's becoming increasingly clear that Republicans are going to have to rely on voter suppression more an more to secure their stranglehold on government.