Former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson held a joint appearance at Mar-a-Lago where they raised concerns regarding the integrity of US elections. Trump’s team billed the event as focusing on “election integrity,” specifically targeting the false claims about the 2020 election being rigged and future mass voter fraud. House Speaker Mike Johnson specifically raised baseless concerns about potentially hundreds of thousands of votes being cast by undocumented immigrants in the November presidential election. He proposed a bill that would require people to provide proof of US citizenship when registering to vote for federal elections.
Despite Johnson’s concerns, the current system is effective in preventing mass voting by non-citizens in US elections. Voting experts have noted that voting by non-citizens at the federal and state levels is illegal and occurs on a microscopic level. People registering to vote are required to provide identification and swear under penalty of perjury that they are US citizens. Data from the past decades show that incidents of non-citizens voting in federal elections are extremely rare and are usually due to misunderstandings.
Claims made by former President Trump at the event included baseless allegations that millions of people from countries like Venezuela and the Congo, including terrorists and individuals from jails and mental institutions, were illegally entering the US. There is no evidence to support these claims, and experts have not found any credible information to substantiate these allegations. Trump also baselessly claimed that President Biden is orchestrating the New York state criminal case against him, calling it election interference, despite no evidence to support this claim.
Trump also alleged that millions of people are pouring into the US, with estimates of up to 15 million migrants under the Biden administration. However, data from US Customs and Border Protection shows nearly 9.4 million border encounters nationwide since President Biden took office in January 2021. While there has been an increase in migrants at the southern border, Trump’s figure is inflated. He also claimed that “we broke Roe v. Wade” and suggested that every legal scholar wanted the decision overturned. However, many legal scholars have expressed support for preserving Roe v. Wade, contradicting Trump’s assertion.
Overall, the joint appearance by Trump and Johnson featured false claims about voting, immigration, and other topics related to US elections. Despite their assertions, experts and data show that incidents of non-citizen voting are extremely rare, and the current system is effective in preventing illegal voting. Claims about mass migration and election interference by President Biden lack evidence, further highlighting the misinformation spread during the event. False allegations and baseless claims undermine the integrity of US elections and perpetuate falsehoods about critical issues facing the country.
