You’re not just imagining it: the Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump vote totals do look rigged
As a political journalist, I hate empty conspiracy theories. I like to go where the bulk of the evidence is pointing. So even though I’m as shocked at Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton as anyone else, I have been unwilling to preemptively accuse the vote totals of having been rigged or altered. It’s taken me nine days of looking at the numbers and trends and patterns, but I’ve come to the conclusion that for once, the conspiracy theorists appear to have been right: this election looks rigged.
There is no single smoking gun in the voting results which led me to this conclusion of its own accord. Rather it’s the totality of all of what I’m about to lay out which has led me to the conclusion that there was indeed something fishy with the numbers, the sheer number of highly unlikely red flags. So bear with me as I lay out a mountain of evidence.
What first made me suspicious was the notably low general election voter turnout. Pundits have explained that away by pointing out that Clinton’s favorability rating was fairly low and Trump’s was even lower. But throughout the primary season, the American voters made clear that they very much wanted to turn out for or against these two candidates. And despite all the talk about favorability, these two candidates each got millions more primary votes than any of their challengers. So the notion that the 2016 election would receive two and a half million fewer votes than the 2012 election, which most Americans considered to be a far less consequential election, is odd. But the demographic breakdowns are what truly raise eyebrows.
Some have pointed to voter suppression in certain swing states as the supposed reason for lower voter turnout. But the 2012 election was subject to the same kinds of suppression. And for that matter, so were the 2016 primary contests. Despite the voter purging and long lines, we saw African-Americans in southern states come out of the woodwork to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 democratic primary, even though they didn’t necessarily dislike Bernie Sanders. But according to the official tallies, those same African-Americans in North Carolina suddenly decided they no longer cared if Hillary Clinton won the 2016 general election, even though she was now facing an opponent in Donald Trump whom they viewed as an abhorrent racist.
Other states and other demographics raise other red flags. For instance, somewhere around seventy percent of all the votes cast in the 2016 general election in Florida were cast early. Various exit polls pointed to Hillary Clinton receiving as somewhere between 54% and 59% of the Florida early vote, much of it from Hispanic-Americans. That meant Trump would have had to have received somewhere between 59% and 71% of the election day voting in Florida in order to have caught up and tied the state. He would have needed between 62% and 74% of the election day vote to have won it by the one percent overall margin he supposedly won it by.
Although democrats tend to do somewhat better in early voting and republicans tend to do somewhat better on election day, it’s virtually impossible for Trump to have come back and won Florida after it was already basically in the bag for Clinton before election day even arrived. See my full mathematical breakdown for Florida voting in the middle of this article for why he simply couldn’t have come back to even tie up Florida, let alone win it.
There has also been much made of how the polls ended up being so wrong. Having spent the past year and a half observing the polls in this election, I fully agree that it’s easy for one or two polls to end up being very wrong. We saw it all the time in the primary season. But historically speaking, going back through the eighty years in which presidential polling has been conducted, it’s virtually impossible for the polling averages to have been this thoroughly wrong. In fact the last time they got a Presidential general election wrong outside the margin of error was in 1948 – and polling was unsophisticated crap back then.
But nevermind the overwhelmingly unlikely odds of the 2016 polling averages having been wrong. The more immediate trend is one which we saw during the primary season. In any given hotly contested primary state, Donald Trump tended to perform the same as, or worse than, his polling averages. We saw it in his very first contest in Iowa, where he shockingly lost despite being favored. We saw it again in Wisconsin and other states. In contrast, Hillary Clinton tended to perform about the same as, or better than, her polling averages in most states. For instance she was favored to win South Carolina by around twenty points and she won it by more than forty points.
In a general election matchup between one candidate who had spent the past year underperforming his poll numbers, and one candidate who had spent the year outperforming her polls numbers, the logically expected outcome is that Hillary Clinton would have won by the same amount she was ahead in the polling averages or more. Now she did win the popular vote in the general election by around one percent. But logically, based on the final polling averages and the existing pattern observed in the primaries, she should have won it by four points or more.
Finally, there were four swing states in which Hillary Clinton was definitively favored to win, but she ended up losing: Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvnia, and Michigan. In the final tallies she lost each of them by right around one percent of the vote. That’s not how numbers work. If Trump had won those four states legitimately due to pockets of voters that pollsters didn’t know about, we would have seen a more random dispersion of the results. Trump might have won one of those states by four percent, won another of them by two percent, lost another one percent, and so on.
It is statistically suspicious that in every state where Donald Trump pulled off an upset, he won it by right around one percent, just what he needed to win it, no more and no less. Results don’t naturally play out that way. The final tallies in Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvnia, and Michigan read like someone went through and nudged each of them just over the mark so Trump would win them, but didn’t want to arouse too much suspicion by giving him any larger of a victory in those states than he needed.
So where does all of the above get us? It’s a mountain of statistical and mathematical and logical and demographic discrepancy and suspicion and nothing more. I can’t definitively prove that the vote tallies were rigged. And as a practical matter it would be so tricky for a hacker to rig the results in various states, without any of the local precinct overseers catching on, that no one has even been able to posit a plausible method for pulling it off. But still, these things can’t all have legitimately happened.
In order to believe that the official vote tallies are legitimate, you have to accept that all of the above legitimately happened: African-Americans in the south went from turning out in droves for Hillary Clinton in the primary to not caring if she won the general election. Donald Trump got sixty-something percent of the same-day voting in Florida. The polling averages were wrong for the first time in modern history. Trump beat his poll numbers despite having spent the primary season tending to fall below them. Clinton fell below her poll numbers despite having spent the primary season tending to beat them. In every state where Trump pulled off a shocking upset victory, he just happened to do it with one percent of the vote. And in an election that everyone cared particularly deeply about, no one really turned out to vote at all. I can accept any one of the above things happening as an isolated fluke. I cannot accept all the above happening. And so for once in my evidence-driven career, I’m left to believe that the conspiracy theorists are right: the vote tallies are rigged. If you enjoy Palmer Report, consider making a contribution:
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146 Comments on "You’re not just imagining it: the Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump vote totals do look rigged"
How does one start the investigation without being accused of sour grapes
Those sour grapes will become fine wine once the conspiracy is proven.
Don’t worry about being accused of ‘sour grapes,’ — too much at stake. Or, as I like to quip, the grapes are going to be really sour when, under a Trump regime, unions are dismantled; minimum wage is frozen; and millions are deported. Being called names is the least of our worries. This is really serious.
Not to mention Obama’s supreme court pick stolen and given to Trump. And of course Lyin’ Ryan going full steam ahead with voucherizing medicare and privatizing social security.
Who initiates the investigation?
Certainly NOT Comey
I’ve been told that Comey declared that he didn’t want to get involved in any investigations regarding trump as it may interfere with the election. Hmm, and the director of the FBI doesn’t see the irony there?!!!
I have yet to see a logical explanation as to why so so so many polls were wrong. And I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist whack job. But his election? WTF? Something needs to be investigated, at the very least.
Looking at this article it seems self-evident that the polls looks wrong because of the tampering.
Arizona is still counting ballots as of a couple of days ago. Contrary to cnn’s election night nonsense about early ballot totals, Arizona counts early ballots last. The Maricopa county recorder who caused the hours long lines by closing most of the voting locations for the primary has been replaced at least. There miiiiiight be a bright spot there for the future. We’ll see. The voter roll purges had a hand in this as you say.
I’m no spring chicken, and I have never, ever, seen an election of any type where the polling was this off, consistently, across the board.
So how do we get a physical accounting of the votes
How would we figure it out then Bill? What would be a way to figure out if Florida’s results are accurate?
Not to mention Guiliani leaking information. This needs to be investigated NOW.
Two words: Rudy Giuliani
I’m with you here. Everything you have mentioned is true. Trump and his team were just too confident going into this election when all the polls were showing him behind. Trump even said if he doesn’t win then the election is rigged. That’s because he knew it was being rigged for him. Therefore, if Hillary had win the rig would have to supersede their riggings.
He said there would be a big surprise…with his lack of self control, as witnessed on twitter, you could see his cockiness, he was having a hard time sitting on the fact that he already knew he would win.
The nite before the election that smug Kellyanne Conway saying ‘we’re gonna win, you’ll see’. Makes one wonder what they knew
I agree I mentioned this to my friends. I thought Conway seemed overly confident.
Also curious how many voting stations were open in urban areas vs. the primary? Since the voting is handled by the party that controls the state, just curious if the amount of available places to where you could vote went down between the primaries and final election, if so this would make the turn out extremely hard for many Americans.
Right there is reason enough to be suspicious. In our country we have an independent statutory body called the Electoral Commision. It can’t, by law, have any connection to the government, state or federal.
I live in a low income area and after switching voting locations my wait to vote went from 10 minutes to one and a half hours
But can anything be done? Can an investigation be launched?
Can someone draft a petition to the White House. If it gets 100k signatures, they HAVE to look at it. I’m not great at writing so someone needs to do this who is a better wordsmith than I.
I can totally do that and was just thinking about it. I am good with words and can do that.
You do that and I will sign and pass it on!
Well, let’s get started, times a wasting
Watch the HBO documentary “Hacking Democracy” from 2011…and that’s your answer
What got my attention is Hillary was getting some GOP support in Texas but none in those 4 battleground states. Then the Trump team is shocked. With so much at stake, there are motives to cheat.
I am shore he did rigged the election it’s not fair ,,,,the GOP were not for him but now that
he rigged the three House they all over him like he is God to get the three house for them
it is insane he is getting all those dummy in there with him ……his kids don’t belong there at all……
It’s not who voted that counts, it’s who counts the votes
Just examine the vote counting software……Oh, right, it’s proprietary, we’re not allowed to see it.
Trump orginization had been in contact with a russian bank server with some form of encrypted/undefined message service, on a supposed unused server in trump tower months before the election. Hes is married to someone from a country where russians are known to have rigged an election. I kept saying that night she just needs 60,000 votes in those states, im sure you are right about these numbers. Trump is a terrible choice for president. The man can help but tell on himself.
so wonder how trump feels being one of the most despised people in America?
Clinton with 62,403,269 votes to 61,242,652 for Trump and HE claims the election would be rigged
But … the last week was when Comey was influencing events and the fake “Hillary murdered everyone” news was going bananas. How to investigate?
There are probably two ways to further validate the votes. The first is comparing exit polls with voter totals and the second, looking at the number of votes that were disallowed in each state sub unit to see if there is systematic invalidation of votes in certain counties and not others.
Florida was definitely rigged! People reported on video to warn voters that the machines were jumping from Hillary to Trump during early voting here in Florida. They said right before they cast their ballot they had to use the pen on the machine to change it from Trump back to Hillary. When they reported it to the poll person they said the machine needed to be calibrated and she would fix it. Yeah, right! Our governor got caught throwing out mail in ballots in 2012 election, and was only reprimanded by the judge.
Pennsylvania was Clinton, but she lost it because of the number of third party votes…hard to believe that many people didn’t vote D or R.
To add, I find it interesting if not ironic how often in the last few weeks Trump referred to a general election loss for him would be the result of a rigged election or some sort of rigging …
We already know everything he accuses her of doing he does, lies, cheats, is crooked and a criminal. He is the one to suggest rigging.
This is a common behavior of narcissists. When they complain that something bad is happening or accuse others of fraud, they are often describing exactly what THEY are in fact doing. It is a form.of projection.
Yes. Exactly. And the accusation of Hillary being on drugs? When he looked himself like he has snorted too much coke before the debates, all that sniffing.
Because he was already in
Like NFL football, they need to throw the red challenge flag before the other team gets a play off (inauguration)!
How do we start this investigation? This news should be on CNN and other channels. After all, the media posted supposed news that never happened…i
Time to investigate Trump lover, Facebook backer and Paypal creator Peter Thiel….who also happens to run a super secret web security firm with government contacts! He must be involved in this and providing the Russians with unprecedented access to Facebook.
He gave a hint to this in one of his rallies telling his supporters of voter fraud and rigging of the election.
There’s something else. On the night of the election Trump tweeted that his friends and family were all gathered to see the election results and they were all very excited. But the next day his surrogates insisted that he was surprised and overwhelmed that he had won and that he didn’t expect it. Then why would he gather family and friends together just to see him lose? Doesn’t really make sense, does it?
On one of the news programs, they showed this huge cake being transported to the site of the so called party. The cake looked exactly like Trump in his blue suit, red tie. Yes, Tuesday morning they already knew it was a victory celebration. While watching this go down, I had a very bad feeling. Now I know why.
I also think it is strange that Republican Senators who were losing by a large majority in the polls won!! Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson is one example. Even Republicans can’t stand that man, yet he won the election.
People should not just speculate here – do something. Contact bigger medias since you guys have the connections. Make headlines. Start a petition. Contact the FBI although in this situation that might first sound like a bad choice. Contact lawyers who are willing to take a look at the case. Make your voice heard. Do not just write – and comment here like I do 🙂 But I am from another country so there is nothing I can do about it. You guys can. This is about the future of your country. And the future of the whole world.
Emails do nothing. Call Senators, sign “we the people” petiton. Call John Kerry, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, NSA, FBI, DOJ phones ringing best way to make things happen. #AuditTheVote
He is a idiot with known ties to the mob and Russia what are American people thinking ?
I would add all the times near the end of the campaign that Trump warned the election would be rigged. Given his habit of accusing of others of what is manifestly true about himself, were his warnings of a stolen election really self-revealing?
I’ve been saying this. NC managed to unseat a sitting Republican governor and voted for Democratic governor and Attorney General, but went red? I don’t think so. Something isn’t right.
I also felt something wasn’t adding up while watching the election (particularly with the swing states consistently winning for trump by a very slight amount). But the more I think about it the more unsure I am since a consistent 1% seems too sloppy for a rig by Russia (which is smarter then that)… Unless they intentionally wanted to raise suspicion…
You only have to hack one computer, The one that tabulated all the votes from the precincts.
Don’t just let this drop. If the count was rigged, there will be clear signs. You need a forensic statistician- a team of them – to investigate the tallies. If you are right, they will be able to find out what happened.
I thought the exact same thing about 4 days after the election . I just had this sinking feeling every time I saw the numbers. Makes no sense that she can have 2 million more popular votes yet none of those in the states she lost.Still smells like rotting fish. Somebody with far more knowledge then me needs to formally look into this.
“Low turnout” ?
The lines were gigantic ! There were reports from all over about long lines !
The paper ballots are still supposedly in the boxes. We need an Audit.
I agree Bill, the numbers don’t add up. I think the most logical explanation of how the GOP and Trump carried out this “conspiracy” is that the Koch brothers funded an elaborate scheme installed years ago in the form of the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program. This allows voters to be struck from voting – typically based on racial profiling. The voters would have turned out for Hillary in all likelihood. Why this isn’t being investigated when its a clear form of racial profiling and fraud is beyond me.
This is disturbingly convincing. I really wouldn’t be surprised if they had Comey release the last-minute e-mail stuff as a smoke screen to explain away the Trump “win.”
Right, and Comey didn’t want to release information about Trumps ties to Russia.
The information available to us, absent more, does not constitute definitive evidence that the election was rigged. However, it is information that warrants further investigation. The question is, if the investigation confirms what this information suggests, what happens next?
I knew it! I have been saying this since Wednesday after the election. It was all too coincidental that all of the large cities voted over the top for Hillary…. yet all of the rural areas – especially in the key states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina) were reported to have voted for Trump. The maps just looked wrong. Hillary won this election fair and square. Now…. How can we turn this around? How can the electoral college be convinced to vote reflecting the true vote of the people?
We are not Allstate folks and we are not in good hands.
Thanks, Bill. i’ve been thinking about this myself. I think that the rigging came in feeding votes to Gary Johnson and Jill Stein–there was basically NO variance in their poll numbers and their vote count–which flies in the face of everything that you’re saying about Trump and Clinton. (What typically happens performance-wise, etc.)
But who would investigate this? The FBI?? Fat chance there.
What can be done about it?
So are you following up on this?
Bill, do you have a plan to lobby the FEC to investigate? I agree, but there is no proof without an investigation.
Donald Trump has always turned around anything negative that was said about him to reflect upon anyone or anything else instead of him, so when he went on and on about the election being rigged, I wondered then if he didn’t know something we electors didn’t, and he wanted to be sure the “other side” would be blamed for any discrepancies.
I agree with your analysis and it is depressing and frightening. I don’t think there is anything we can do about this election. Any ideas about what we can do going forward?
Wrong. Contact your Senators. Call and leave message. Sign “We the People” Petition demand an audit. This is a non-partisan issue we cannot allow foreign entities to interfere with our Democratic process. Call Senators leave messages. Contact the ACLU.
I’m with you on this. The minute Trump said the election was rigged, my first thought was that he was rigging it. He uses projection so much of the time, it made sense. How do we get an audit? How can this injustice be corrected?
I’ve posted what to do in replies. Spread the word. Also sign the Faithless Elector petition. It is vital to stop this immediately.
Remember when I guess it was Ivanka said that it was going to be the “Silent voters” that win the election for Trump? How much you wanna bet those “silent voters” were ballot box stuffers/hackers? The Trumps do nothing but project their faults and schemes onto others. They did the rigging.
Can a voter in those states sue for having their voting rights infringed upon? Can they ask the state to prove that their vote was legally counted for the candidate they chose. If they had problems on the day they voted and those problems were not resolved immediately then wouldn’t they have a case. And if it was a state or county wide problem then gather more people and demand a stay on the election until it’s resolved.
Everyone was saying she was a shoe in for the early voting in Florida, I thought Florida was going to be called early once the early votes were read. There is no way that she didn’t win Fla.
Why wasn’t his connection to Russia more of an issue during the campaign? That was a real miss for the media.
Sometime during the middle of last week, I informed my colleagues that something was off regarding the outcome. I also made the same argument that, the odds for the majority of analysts to misinterpret the calculation is very rare, and does not correspond with statistics.
However I believe the issue will be, trying to determine what method or technique was used to fudge the numbers.
I wondered why Trump has answered so oddly when asked, beofer the election, if he would concede graciously if it turned out he lost. His answer was basically, ‘We’ll see” Did he know something then?
I think Trump genuinely expected not to win, especially given his comment that he would sue the women who made allegations against him after the election was over.
Makes sense to me.
Nothing that a national strike and nightly peaceful demonstrations from Dec 1- Dec 19th, including a nationwide and online holiday shopping boycott starting Black Friday, in all the major cities wouldn’t force the electoral college to turnaround and fix.
Including continued revelations by the NSA of how, exactly, Russia hacked the vote counts and how to insure it never happens again.
Trump might well concede if he didn’t win fairly, “as he wanted to”.