2024 U.S. ELECTIONS RAPID RESEARCH BLOG

This is part of an ongoing series of rapid research blog posts and rapid research analysis about the 2024 U.S. elections from the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public. It is also crossposted on the CIP’s election rumor research Substack newsletter.

Key Takeaways

• In a post to Truth Social on Monday, Donald Trump alleged without evidence that Democrats are preparing to commit election fraud by misusing the processes that support U.S. citizens in voting while living abroad. 
• Citing the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), which allows U.S. citizens, including military personnel and their families, to vote when they are abroad, Trump made unsubstantiated claims that Democrat efforts to get out the vote (GOTV) among U.S. citizens living outside the country reflected an intent to “CHEAT” in the election and “dilute” the votes of military personnel and their families. 
• Trump also insinuated that overseas voting by U.S. citizens is a vector for foreign election interference.
• These allegations appear to build upon a September 6 Gateway Pundit article that cited a Democratic Party memo announcing a new investment effort for GOTV efforts abroad. 

What is the rumor?  

On Monday, September 23, former President and current Presidential candidate Donald Trump published a Truth Social post alleging that Democrats are preparing to “CHEAT” (i.e., commit election fraud) by exploiting potential vulnerabilities in the election infrastructure that supports U.S. citizens in voting while living abroad. He specifically called out the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), which allows U.S. citizens, including military personnel and their families, to vote when they are abroad. He then claimed without evidence that Democrats planned to “dilute” the vote of U.S. military personnel by encouraging non-citizens to vote. Trump’s Truth Social post, which was amplified widely on X and other social media platforms, appears to build upon arguments in multiple Gateway Pundit articles published and amplified throughout the month of September that have echoed across several online platforms. These allegations fit into a larger narrative that argues if Trump loses, it will be because of election fraud. Our researchers were unable to find any evidence — in lawsuits, media reports, or within social media posts of those spreading these rumors — of people who are not eligible to vote in U.S. elections having used UOCAVA systems to vote, or of any tampering of these systems by foreign governments.

This rumor — which could gain traction in the coming weeks — integrates factual claims with unfounded accusations and omits key context about election security measures that would prevent illegal voting (like that alleged) from impacting election results.

At its core is a factual claim — which features in the central argument within the Gateway Pundit’s original article — that Democrats have been investing resources in get out the vote (GOTV) efforts with Americans living abroad. This part is true. But the rumor twists that fact into an entirely unfounded allegation that these efforts reflect an intent to cheat. The rumor relies upon insinuations and, in some cases, explicit mischaracterizations that the processes for supporting U.S. citizens in voting while abroad — which are critical for military members and their families, missionaries, diplomats, humanitarian workers, and others to exercise their right to vote — are inherently insecure and therefore likely to be exploited, both by Democrats and through “foreign interference.” At the heart of this rumor is a logical fallacy that conflates perceived vulnerabilities within election systems as proof that those systems have or will be exploited. 

For example, a key aspect of the rumor features images associated with online forms from GOTV efforts (Image 2) printed in the initial Gateway Pundit article, suggesting that overseas voters do not need to provide social security numbers or similar identification credentials when registering to vote, reinforcing the perception of insecurity. This claim is false. Federal law requires first time voters to prove their identity before registering to vote by mail, and overseas voters would therefore need to provide proof of ID when they register for the program. 

Some of the rumors associated with overseas voting appear to be based on a misunderstanding of election administration processes and online forms. Before overseas voters can receive a ballot, their eligibility must be validated, as is the case for all voters, domestic and overseas alike. Image 2 above shows a step in a GOTV sign up effort to help overseas voters fill out the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) to register to vote and to request an absentee ballot. This is only the first step of this process; submitting an FPCA form does not automatically establish eligibility or register one to vote. Instead, the form is a tool that is used to route the voter’s request for registration (FPCA) and a ballot to the appropriate registrar of voters in the U.S., at the local level, based on the voter’s last U.S. residence address, or in the case of Americans born abroad who haven’t lived in the U.S., at a residence associated with their parents’ voting address. Filling out a voter registration application does not necessarily guarantee someone will actually be registered — security measures exist to ensure that ineligible individuals’ applications are rejected. Additionally, different states require different forms of identity verification. 

Local election officials typically verify the requestor’s eligibility to vote based on information such as a driver’s license ID, social security number, passport, or other similar credentials. In keeping with the decentralized nature of US elections, laws and procedures to verify voter eligibility vary from state to state, but the bottom line is that an overseas voter’s request for a ballot cannot be granted without the essential step of validation.

The Gateway Pundit’s reporting — and the rumor that emerged from it — focuses on a DNC memo that made an erroneous claim that 9 million Americans are eligible to vote abroad, an apparent misinterpretation of statistics provided in this government report. Government estimates of eligible UOCAVA voters are much lower. The rumor uses this discrepancy as evidence to allege that Democrats are planning to illegally register large numbers of ineligible or non-citizen voters. 

This rapid response piece tracks the emergence of the rumor and considers some of the evidence it provides to support its misleading allegations. We plan to update this as more information and fact-checks are published.   

Timeline of Spread  

This rumor appears to have stemmed from an article published by the Gateway pundit on Sept 6th and posted on X, Telegram, Gettr, and Truth Social. It surged later in the month, culminating in candidate Trump’s post on Truth Social.

Figure 1 below shows the attention dynamics of the rumor as it spread on X, starting with the September 6 post and then surging again with Trump’s Truth Social post, which was shared on X.  The graph shows the accumulation of engagement on X from when Gateway Pundit published their first article on September 6, alleging that UOCAVA was being misused by Democrats, through the end of September 25. Around two hours after the Gateway Pundit posted its original article, the Federalist promoted a similar story on X, framing the allegations as “ballot harvesting” with a headline claiming “Democrats’ Plan to Harvest Millions of Overseas Ballots is Threat to Fair Elections.” The X post by The Federalist was amplified by the now-suspended @SydneyPowell1 (an account with more than 900,000 followers that appears to have been impersonating former Trump attorney Sidney Powell.)

After seeding the initial article, Gateway Pundit continued to promote their allegations on X throughout September until former president Trump made similar claims in his post on Truth Social on September 23. Shortly after making his Truth Social post, @DC_Draino (a right-wing political commentator) and @TrumpDailyPosts (an account dedicated to reposting content from Trump’s Truth Social account) amplified Trump’s claims on X, launching the rumors into virality that other conservative influencers, and Gateway Pundit, amplified. Figure 2 below also illustrates this timeline, albeit from a different perspective, showing where spikes of virality occurred. Visible in that graph is the relative engagement the Gateway Pundit managed to maintain each time they promoted the allegations, as well as how tweets by DC_Draino, TrumpDailyTweets, and later MJTruthUltra (an account that gained influence by sharing conspiracy theories) drove engagement on X by amplifying the rumor in the wake of Trump’s Truth Social post.

Figure 3 below shows the volume of posts mentioning “UOCAVA” on Truth Social for the month of September. On Truth Social, there was an initial discussion on September 6, 2024, coinciding with the first Gateway Pundit article. On both September 10 and September 22, the Gateway Pundit posted two follow-up articles on the platform that accused Democrats of attempting to steal the election using overseas voters, again referencing UOCAVA. Following the second follow up article, there was another increase in mentions when Trump himself posted.

Below is an annotated timeline of some of the key moments in this rumor’s spread: 

9.6.24

• An article was written and posted by the Gateway Pundit on X and Telegram, Gettr, and Truth Social.  
• A screenshot from votefromabroad.org and published by the Gateway Pundit (Image 2 above) as “evidence” of potential voting insecurity spreads on the same date on X, here and here.
• Additionally, X creators tweet images from the Gateway Pundit piece, including a graph showing eligible UOCAVA voters in swing states – which include voters well over the margin by which the victor won in 2020.  (Image 3)  

9.10.24

• The Gateway Pundit does a follow-up article, “WAKE UP, REPUBLICANS!… Democrats Are Openly Stealing the 2024 Election with Fraudulent Overseas Ballots.” It cites Paul Harris, a manager during the Maricopa County audit of the 2020 election ballots, who stated that the number of ballots they received from overseas voters went up from 1600 in 2016 to 9600 in 2020 and “95%… all went towards one candidate.”
• The article states that in August, the DNC released a memo stating there will be a six-figure investment in registering 9 million overseas voters, despite only roughly 3 million eligible overseas voters, according to federal data. 

9.19.24

• A Gateway Pundit contributor posts video of her testimony to the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee in 2020, claiming that UOCAVA ballots all have 1/1/1900 birthdays, and that this is evidence of fraud. There was a procedural explanation for this and the identities of those voters had been verified. 

9.20.24

• The Gateway Pundit publishes a long and detailed post to Telegram about GOP poll challengers who claimed to have been kicked out of the absentee ballot counting room in Detroit, Michigan, during the 2020 election. The post alleges that the ballots being counted that time were UOCAVA votes. This furthers the rumor that UOCAVA votes are a vector of election fraud. 

9.21.24: 

• An X creator posts screenshots of advertisements to register to vote in American elections served to Facebook users. The post gets a lot of engagement as users claim to try to register to vote under American addresses they haven’t lived at or without social security numbers. (It appears that they are filling out a widget developed by non-government organization Votefromabroad.org that fills out the Federal Post Card Application to send in and register to vote, but submitting the application does not guarantee or confirm eligibility or registration.) 

9.22.24: 

• POLITICO publishes an article about overseas voting and the Democrats GOTV investments. X creators retweet and engage with the article, some suspicious of UOCAVA. 
• The Gateway Pundit posts a new article about UOCAVA with screenshots of the POLITICO post on Gab, Getter, Truth Social, and X. 

9.23.24

• In the morning, Trump posts on Truth Social claiming the Democrats are using UOCAVA to “CHEAT!” He does not cite the Gateway Pundit article. 

• The Gateway Pundit tweets a newly published piece saying, “BREAKING: President Trump Acknowledges Gateway Pundit’s Exclusive Reporting On a LEGAL Trick Democrats Can Use To Steal The Election.” 
• True the Vote tweets the Trump Truth Social post, alleging that individuals can register without proving citizenship.  

Discussion 

This is an emerging rumor, and we anticipate continuing to research its spread and applications. Such a rumor that non-citizens are voting from abroad ties into other ongoing narratives that non-citizens coming from the southern border of the continental United States are voting, are registered to vote, or plan to vote. Additionally, we know from prior research that the most effective and potentially viral rumors combine a novel element – like “UOCAVA” – with a familiar theme – “non-citizen voting.” This also comes after UOCAVA voters in Montana discovered last week that Presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s name was left off the ballot. That problem was quickly remedied, though not before it became the focus — among Democrats, this time — of false rumors about intentional voter suppression (which we explained in a rapid research post).  

The rules of voting from abroad – as a service member, as an American citizen born abroad who hasn’t lived in the United States, or as someone temporarily away from home for work –  are complex and numerous.  For more information, please consult the following government websites: 

• The Federal Voting Assistance Program’s Overview of UOCAVA
• The United States Election Assistance Commission’s Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS) Comprehensive Reports (2020 and 2022)  
• The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice info sheet on UOCAVA 

Acknowledgements 

We would like to acknowledge Eddie Perez, Member of the Board of Directors at the nonpartisan nonprofit OSET Institute, for his contributions to this piece. 

---

Photo at top by Tiffany Tertipes via Unsplash