It’s something you’ve heard from election integrity skeptics on both the left and the right after Donald Trump won the 2024 election: What happened to 20 million votes?
Indeed, that sounds like a scarily large number and seems like a sign something was seriously amiss with either this year’s election or with 2020’s.
However, the facts paint a much different picture.
But first, let’s start with the rumors — which began on Election Day, when the number of votes for both major party presidential candidates didn’t match the vote totals from four years ago.
In 2020, current President Joe Biden garnered 81,284,666 votes nationwide, while former President Donald Trump got 74,224,319.
As of early Wednesday morning last week, Trump’s total was at 71.7 million votes nationwide, while Vice President Kamala Harris had 66.8 million votes.
This set off alarms among people who wanted to believe something was awry.
Perhaps the loudest voice on the left saying that the numbers proved voter fraud was Pam Keith, an attorney and former Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, who maintains a significant social media presence.
According to her, the significantly lower vote totals for Harris was proof something was afoot, particularly with reports of heavy turnout.
20 or so million votes are unaccounted for.
Turn out and vote counts are not aligning.
Something is VERY wrong.
— Pam Keith, Esq. (@PamKeithFL) November 6, 2024
20 MILLION VOTES ARE MISSING!!!
— Pam Keith, Esq. (@PamKeithFL) November 6, 2024
However, it wasn’t just those on the left claiming the numbers showed an electoral conspiracy. On the right, there were those alleging the numbers proved the vote in 2020 was juiced, so to speak, for Biden:
the 20 million missing votes were because of cheating. pic.twitter.com/Fcmz6tlNAK
— Phil Labonte (@philthatremains) November 8, 2024
The problem with this premise was that there simply weren’t 20 million missing votes.
First, most of these claims were being made before the vote was fully counted. While it was clear in the early morning hours of Wednesday that Donald Trump was the winner in the presidential race, that by no means meant that all the votes had been tabulated — especially in California, our most populous state, where vote-counting is notoriously slow and where Harris would end up winning by a substantial margin.
“Lawmakers in California designed their elections to improve accessibility and increase turnout,” Time Magazine noted.
“Whether it’s automatically receiving a ballot at home, having up until Election Day to turn it in or having several days to address any problems that may arise with their ballot, Californians have a lot of time and opportunity to vote. It comes at the expense of knowing the final vote counts soon after polls close.”
In addition, as elections guru Nate Silver noted in a post on Thursday morning, the numbers between 2020 and 2024 are estimated to, more or less, match up once the final popular vote is tallied:
Updated estimate:
Harris 75.0m votes (48.3%)
Trump 77.4m votes (49.8%)
other 2.9m votes (1.9%)
Total turnout 155.3m votes (vs 158.6m in 2020)
Trump margin +1.6% (with rounding)
Tipping-point state: PA (Trump +1.9%) https://t.co/nK2xRQzFSu— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 14, 2024
As of Friday morning, the Cook Political Report’s National Popular Vote Tracker had Trump with 76,070,166 votes, or 50.09 percent of the popular vote, and Harris with 73,137,038 votes, 48.16 percent of the total.
And even if the vote total is lower — if certainly not 20 million votes lower — there’s a reason for that.
According to data from the University of Florida’s Election Lab, the turnout for 2024 was slightly lower than 2020 — 63.58 percent vs. 66 percent in 2020.
So, no, don’t believe the faulty numbers: There were never 20 million votes missing; there aren’t any votes missing, period, and no conspiracy is afoot.
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