Trump Claims 'Massive' Number of Dead People 'Voted' in 2020

Former U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that a "massive" number of dead people voted in last November's presidential election, which he ended up losing to Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

"Breaking News! Massive numbers of dead people "voted" in the 2020 Presidential Election, far greater than anyone has known or seen before," Trump said in a statement issued on his website on Thursday.

"Some of these "dead people" even applied for an application to vote. This is just one of the many fraudulent aspects of the 2020 Presidential Election. People are just now beginning to understand!"

The former Republican president and his supporters have been saying that large numbers of dead people voted since he lost the election. In some cases, people can die in the period between when they send in their ballot by mail and the election day itself. The claims can also stem from list-matching or clerical issues, such as the confusion created by people who have similar names, Charles Stewart III, a political science professor at MIT, told FactCheck.org.

The claims involving the 2020 election, which haven't been substantiated, were particularly prominent in battleground states that Trump lost to Biden, such as Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Speaking to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state, in early January in a bid to try and alter the outcome of the state's presidential vote, Trump claimed about 5,000 dead people had voted in the southern state. Officials in Georgia have debunked these claims.

In another example, shortly after the election in November, Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier declared on social media that he had found definitive proof of widespread voter fraud, citing an absentee ballot cast by "118-year-old William Bradley."

Days later, Bradley's son, also named William Bradley but with a different middle name, told fact-checking website PolitiFact that had been the one who voted, and that his father was indeed dead and therefore couldn't have cast a ballot. That was then confirmed by Michigan election officials. There are many such examples, which have all been debunked.

The secretary of state for Michigan's website said that officials "are not aware of a single confirmed case showing that a ballot was actually cast on behalf of a deceased individual."

Newsweek contacted Trump's team and the White House for comment on the claims.