More Claims of Voter Fraud

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In the wake of the 2020 and 2024 U.S. presidential elections, allegations of voter fraud and systemic vulnerabilities have continued to swirl, particularly amplified in late 2025 amid new investigations and resurfaced testimonies. Meanwhile, various audits, court rulings, and official reports continue to affirm the security of these elections. In spite of this, a vocal segment of the public and political figures maintains that irregularities—ranging from mail-in ballot anomalies to noncitizens voting—undermine democratic integrity. This article synthesizes recent claims from 2024 and 2025, including those revisiting 2020, drawing on public records, lawsuits, and social media discussions. It also acknowledges criticisms of debunking efforts, which often originate from mainstream media outlets (e.g., NPR, The Washington Post, BBC) or organizations with perceived progressive affiliations (e.g., Brennan Center), potentially raising questions about impartiality. However, in pursuit of truth, we must weigh these claims against available evidence, emphasizing the need for verifiable facts over conjecture to rebuild trust in electoral processes.

There is Smoke - is There a Fire?

The 2020 election remains a flashpoint, with claims of widespread fraud persisting into 2025, often tied to voting machines, mail-in ballots, and procedural lapses. Proponents argue these issues enabled a "stolen" outcome, pointing to narrow margins in swing states like Georgia (where Biden won by about 11,000 votes) as evidence of manipulation.

• Voting Machine Tampering and Foreign Interference: Allegations center on systems from Dominion and Smartmatic, claiming them to be vulnerable to remote access and foreign control (e.g., from Serbia or Taiwan). In December 2025, supporters highlighted the case of Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk convicted of tampering with voting equipment while investigating fraud claims. Peters appealed her conviction, arguing it stemmed from exposing machine vulnerabilities that allegedly flipped votes in 2020. On X, users amplified her story, calling it a "backfire" on officials like Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Governor Jared Polis, accused of suppressing evidence. On December 12, 2025 President Trump granted a full pardon to Tina Peters yet Colorado Govenor Jared Polis argues that Trump lacks jurisdiction. General Michael Flynn, in a 2025 interview, asserted "100% foreign interference" in 2020, citing undisclosed evidence. These echo broader claims of a "global election fraud cartel" affecting over 100 countries.

• Recent Whistleblower Testimonies Affirming Fraud: Adding to these concerns, recent whistleblower accounts in 2025 have resurfaced allegations of international rigging. Former CIA operations officer Gary Berntsen, a retired station chief and USAF veteran, along with co-author Ralph Pezzullo, detailed these in their book Stolen Elections: The Takedown of Democracies Worldwide (published in 2025) showa how they recruited defected Venezuelan Smartmatic engineers as sources.

  • Berntsen and his partner Martín Rodil, while investigating Venezuelan drug trafficking in 2019, uncovered a conspiracy originating with Hugo Chávez's regime. The engineers revealed that Smartmatic's software, first used in Venezuela's 2004 recall election, included backdoors and manipulation techniques—such as altering vote counts via lottery machine software—to steal elections undetectably. This system allegedly spread to over 70 countries, including the U.S., where it was deployed--since 2006--in districts using Venezuelan-sourced code and Chinese-manufactured parts since 2006.

  • Berntsen claims the cartel, involving Venezuela's Cartel de los Soles, Cuba's DGI, China's CCP, Russia, and Serbia (with Dominion's Belgrade office housing 98 engineers), rigged the 2020 U.S. election through 14 technical attack methods on tabulators and scanners. Coordinated with entities like CISA and Soros-linked groups, it aimed at a socialist takeover.

  • The whistleblowers, a dozen engineers, provided sworn testimony to the DOJ, and Berntsen asserts they helped block a similar steal in 2024. An ex-Venezuelan general in December 2025 echoed these claims, stating Smartmatic rigged elections, amid Trump's DOJ probes into Venezuelan involvement in 2020.

  • These testimonies, presented in podcasts and the book, name specific methods like pre-planning steals in key counties and using Huawei servers for remote control, raising profound questions about the integrity of electronic voting systems despite official dismissals.

  • Other 2025 whistleblower developments include Senate Judiciary Committee releases by Sen. Chuck Grassley on FBI headquarters interfering in a Chinese election interference probe to shield Director Christopher Wray, potentially linking to broader foreign meddling claims. In Minnesota, a 2018 whistleblower's testimony resurfaced in October 2025 hearings, calling for probes into welfare fraud with potential ties to election irregularities and terror links.

  • Additionally, a December 2025 whistleblower complaint in Hamtramck, Michigan, escalated into a lawsuit alleging retaliation and irregularities in the chaotic 2025 local election, including voter intimidation and procedural lapses. X posts amplified these, with users like Patrick Byrne sharing videos on global fraud and calling for justice for figures like Tina Peters, framed as a whistleblower exposing Colorado's 2020 issues. A Milwaukee election official's 2022 conviction for fraud (testing vulnerabilities) was cited in 2025 discussions as whistleblower persecution.

• Mail-In Ballot Anomalies: A core contention is that expanded mail-in voting due to COVID-19 created opportunities for fraud. In Michigan, a 2020 poll watcher testified under oath that absentee ballots appeared in sequential order without dates—impossible for mailed ballots—suggesting fabrication. This testimony resurfaced in December 2025 on X, with calls for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's imprisonment. In Pennsylvania. Footage from Delaware County allegedly shows poll workers filling out ballots, described as illegal duplication. Claims include military absentee ballots in Georgia all favoring Biden with no down-ballot votes, deemed "strange" given Trump's military support. Statistical anomalies, such as improbable vote spikes or Benford's Law violations in mail-in data, are cited in 2025 analyses, including a North Carolina study on absentee ballots in the 9th District. Proponents argue unconstitutional last-minute changes in five states (e.g., Pennsylvania's authorization of 80 million mail-ins) facilitated "ballot harvesting scams."

• Fulton County, Georgia Probes: In December 2025, the Trump administration's DOJ sued Fulton County for access to 2020 ballot records, amid claims of hidden fraud like counterfeit ballots and chain-of-custody gaps. Fulton County has acknowledged that over 130 tabulator tapes from the 2020 election, representing approximately 315,000 early votes, were not signed by poll workers as required by Georgia election rules. These tapes are part of the chain-of-custody and certification process, with state regulations mandating that a poll manager and two witnesses sign each of three printed tapes to confirm the accuracy of vote totals. Ann Brumbaugh, attorney for the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, stated during a December 9, 2025, hearing before the Georgia State Election Board (SEB) that the county does not dispute the allegation and admitted the unsigned tapes constituted a violation of election procedures. Activists continue to allege materials still held by the county prove "massive fraud," with X posts demanding arrests. This ties into 2020 videos of "suitcases" of ballots and a fake pipe burst, interpreted as cover for irregularities.

• Court Rulings and Fake Electors: In Wisconsin, former Trump aides faced trial in December 2025 for 2020 fake elector schemes, charged with fraud. Claims from four swing states' supreme courts allegedly adjudicated ballot fraud, with corrections before 2024. A resurfaced Trump phone call to Georgia's speaker in December 2020 urged overturning results based on conspiracy theories.

These claims gained traction post-Trump's 2024 win, with supporters arguing it "proves" 2020 was rigged, as similar rules yielded different outcomes.

Claims from the 2024 Election and Beyond

The 2024 cycle saw similar allegations, though Trump's victory muted some, while local races in 2025 highlighted ongoing concerns.

• Noncitizen and Illegal Immigrant Voting: Texas AG Ken Paxton investigated 33 noncitizens for voting in 2024. In Florida, a 22-year-old noncitizen was charged for casting a ballot. Nationwide, figures like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy claimed millions of illegal immigrants voted, aided by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which referred 57 cases by April 2025. X posts linked this to Democratic strategies. In Minnesota, same-day registration allowing one voter to vouch for eight others without ID was called "made for fraud" by Musk in December 2025.

• Mail-In and Absentee Issues: Trump claimed nearly 10 million unrequested mail-in ballots in California for 2024, tying to welfare fraud. In Georgia, a Fulton County canvasser faced 70 felony counts for fraudulent registrations. Biden's alleged admission of a "voter fraud organization" resurfaced.

• Voter Roll Manipulation: Michigan planned to remove 338,000 inactive records in 2025, amid lawsuits over improper maintenance. In Pennsylvania, independent voters were allegedly omitted from rolls in Chester County. Georgia's 2025 local elections saw complaints in counties like Nicholls (one-vote margin with recount irregularities) and others.

• Machine Errors and Broader Fraud: High error rates in Dominion machines (e.g., 750x allowed in Michigan) allowed "bulk adjudication." In Colorado, unauthorized machine access was alleged. The Heritage Foundation's database, updated December 2025, lists 1,561 fraud instances since 1982, emphasizing vulnerabilities. X discussions in December 2025 tied 2020 fraud to 2024 patterns in states like Arizona and Minnesota.

Local 2025 incidents, like WALB's investigation into South Georgia counties (e.g., Dougherty for registration fraud), underscore ongoing concerns.

Notable Prosecutions and Convictions: Evidence of Vulnerabilities or Isolated Incidents?

Amid these claims, actual prosecutions and convictions for voter fraud provide tangible examples that proponents cite as proof of systemic issues, while critics dismiss them as rare and inconsequential. The Heritage Foundation's Election Fraud Database documents hundreds of cases, with several notable ones from 2020 onward highlighting absentee ballot misuse, false registrations, and duplicate voting. For instance:

• Kimberly Zapata (Wisconsin, 2022): A former Milwaukee election official convicted of fraudulent use of absentee ballots. She was charged with one felony count of misconduct in public office and three misdemeanor counts of absentee ballot fraud, resulting in a criminal conviction.

• Samunta Shomine Pittman (Georgia, 2024): Charged with 70 counts of felony fraudulent entries for using fictitious names on voter registration applications while canvassing in Fulton County. This led to a criminal conviction, amplifying concerns about organized registration fraud.

• Tina Peters (Colorado, 2024): Convicted on multiple counts related to tampering with voting equipment during her investigation into 2020 fraud claims. Critics of the decision point out that the presiding judge precluded Peters from entering her allegations of external machine tampering into evidence. Sentenced to nine years, her case has become a rallying point for election skeptics, who argue it punishes whistleblowers rather than fraudsters. Peters has appealed, and discussions on X in December 2025 called for her pardon by Trump, which was granted.

  • Clarification added on Dec. 29, 2025: The specific counts that Tina Peter was convicted of are:

    • Three felony counts of attempting to influence a public servant

    • One felony count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation

    • One misdemeanor count of first-degree official misconduct

    • One misdemeanor count of violation of duty

    • One misdemeanor count of failure to comply with an order from the Secretary of State

  • She was found not guilty on three counts:

    • One felony count of criminal impersonation

    • One felony count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation (separate from the guilty count above)

    • One felony count of identity theft

• Yelyzaveta Demydenko (Florida, 2024): A 22-year-old noncitizen charged with illegally voting in the presidential election, claiming she "wanted to make a difference." This case ties into broader allegations of noncitizen participation.

Other convictions documented in the Heritage database from the 2020 era include instances of duplicate voting across states, such as Richard Rosen (New Hampshire/Massachusetts, though predating 2020, it's cited in ongoing discussions). X posts in late 2025 referenced these as part of a pattern, with users demanding more aggressive prosecutions for figures like Ruby Freeman in Georgia, though no convictions have occurred there yet. A congressional sampling from earlier years notes that preventing and prosecuting fraud is essential, yet the low number of convictions (often under 0.001% of ballots) is used by debunkers to downplay issues—sources like Brookings and Brennan Center, criticized for potential biases. Proponents argue these cases represent the tip of the iceberg, especially given Texas's investigation of 33 noncitizens and DOGE's referrals.

Debunkings and Questions of Bias

Efforts to refute these claims often come from mainstream sources, which critics argue have progressive ties (e.g., Soros-linked funding for Brennan Center). For instance, NPR covered Fox News' $787 million settlement with Dominion over false 2020 claims, and a new Smartmatic lawsuit in December 2025 echoes this. The Washington Post framed the DOJ's Fulton suit as access-related, not fraud-confirming. Fact-checkers like PolitiFact and Snopes have dismissed anomalies as procedural errors or misinformation. Yet, critics note procedural court dismissals avoided merits reviews, and audits were conducted by accused officials, potentially lacking independence. Surveys indicate that many Americans continue to have doubts over 2020's legitimacy, fueled by these perceptions.

Toward Resolution: The Need for Bipartisan Reforms

While these claims and convictions raise legitimate questions about vulnerabilities the public continues to be told, "move along - nothing to see here". Many critics of voter fraud point to Trump's 2024 win (they claim under similar systems challenges) as the evidence that voter fraud is a myth. While proponents indicate that the circumstances surrounding the 2024 election were very different due to significant effort to block voter fraud.

Whichever side of the narrative you may be, it is clear that distrust erodes democracy. Solutions could include nationwide voter ID, more comprehensive machine audits, elimination of machine counting and better transparency laws like the SAVE Act. As of December 2025, ongoing DOJ actions and state investigations offer hope for clarity, but only through non-partisan scrutiny can we ensure elections reflect the people's will.