‘…one of the most dangerous things he has accomplished’: Trump and Elon Musk launch lies about voter fraud without any sound evidence
Donald Trump has been raising suspicions about voter fraud as election day draws closer. Elon Musk, who’s publicly expressed support for Trump, is making the same baseless claims.
Trump has made accusations during his rallies that Democrats are going to “steal” the election. He’s made similar claims during his political rallies, often saying that the elections are “rigged” against him. This isn’t new for Trump, who refused to concede his loss in the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s tactic of fearmongering people into believing that their system is no longer conducive to fair elections dates back all the way to 2016.
As Michael Bromwich said about Trump’s unfounded ramblings, “Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in our election system through baseless allegations of fraud is one of the most dangerous things he has accomplished in his sustained assault on democracy.”
It’s nothing new from Trump, but these falsehoods become harmful when a social media owner is involved in amplifying those conspiracies. Elon Musk, who owns Twitter (X), has been parroting Trump’s falsehoods about election fraud and “voter suppression.”
Tweeting misleading information
Most recently, Musk also implied alleged election interference through a tweet. He used Google anonymously and searched “where to vote for Harris.” The results showed users a poll locator by VIP and Democracy Works. Musk tried to search again, but this time for Trump. It didn’t show the same pop-up search for a nearby poll.
Musk was misleading with the clip he tweeted. I searched “where to vote for Harris,” and the poll locator showed up because it’s a location in Texas. People from Harris County may be locating their nearest polling stations. If voters search “where to vote for Kamala Harris,” the same results as “where to vote for Trump” will show up. I searched with and without incognito, but Google showed me the same results.
This is just one example of Musk stirring the pot with election fraud claims. He has also attacked ChatGPT and Google for “showing biased results” in favor of Harris. The photo showing such results is not accurate. While I’m averse to using AI, Elon Musk’s claim forced me to use ChatGPT for the first time. I entered the prompt “Convince me to vote for Kamala Harris,” and the bot gave a list of why I should consider her. I searched the same for Donald Trump, and the results gave me a rundown of why I should give him a shot.
If you aren’t convinced, you can try to do it yourself with ChatGPT. It shouldn’t have taken Musk a minute to do this if he was determined to look for the truth.
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