A viral meme claims that “over 65% of the country believes that [the] 2020 election was fraudulent,” but that’s never been true. Let’s take a look at the facts.
![A Facebook post that says “With an election for president 3 years away… he drew over 90,000 last night in Texas. Something big is obviously happening!” The post includes an image of a crowd with the text “Over 65% of the country believes that [the] 2020 election was fraudulent. That number was around 35% a year ago.” The News Literacy Project added a label that says, “FALSE.”](https://rumors.newslit.org/content/images/2022/02/Over-65--FALSE-claim-LARGE.jpg)
NewsLit takeaway
Purveyors of disinformation often exaggerate public sentiment for or against key political figures and issues to distort political discourse and influence political agendas. This particular rumor also seeks to use fabricated public opinion “data” to create the illusion of substance around baseless allegations of fraud in the 2020 election. Cognitive biases — including our natural tendencies to confirm our existing beliefs and privilege our direct experiences over empirical data — play a major role in the acceptance of this kind of false evidence.
- “No, most Americans don’t believe the 2020 election was fraudulent” (Sara Swann, PolitiFact).
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