US elections 2020: how did mail voting affect the 2016 election?
There is no evidence of cheating in the 2016 general election in New York and Trump is adamant that he won the popular vote the year he was elected president of the U.S.
President Donald Trump was sworn into office in 2016 to become the 45th President of the United States. He was recently interviewed by Fox News and the host Laura Ingraham asked him about whether a higher popular vote total would send a message of support for Trump.
According to the President there were irregularities during the total vote count in several Democratic states of the 2016 elections when Hillary Clinton was running against him. He talked about his theory of what happened that year.
Trump’s theory
“I think I did win the popular vote in a true sense. I think there was tremendous cheating in California, there was tremendous cheating in New York and other places,” said Trump.
Donald Trump ended up winning the electoral college but lost the popular vote in the 2016 elections. The total count for Hillary Clinton was 65.85 million and only 62.99 million for Trump that year.
In 2017 the New York City Board of Elections admitted that they inappropriately removed voters from the rolls ahead of the 2016 Democratic primary. According to a report from the New York City Campaign Finance Board (NYCCFB), “126,000 voters were improperly removed before the primary, but were restored in time to vote in the general election.”
At the end of that report the NYCCFB concluded that there was nothing that could be considered “tremendous cheating” in the general election of 2016. Also Trump claimed that the Libertarian candidate that year, Gary Johnson, took votes away from him.
“I had a Libertarian party candidate last time. Those are Republican voters. They are wasting their vote because they have to vote for us,” Trump added.