Corbin is professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.
Numerous audits and in-depth investigations led by Republicans have confirmed there is no evidence of voter fraud and machine rigging in the 2020 presidential election. Even former President Donald Trump has finally admitted he lost the election.
It is vitally important for voters to trust the 2024 election process. Post-election analysis, truth-telling by Trump and GOP-led investigations into the 2020 race should erase voters’ concern about the integrity of the upcoming election.
First, recall how Cassidy Hutchinson (assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff) testified before the Jan. 6 select committee that Trump told Meadows and other White House staff that he lost the 2020 election. Hutchinson’s testimony has never been proven to be false.
Second, on Aug. 4, Trump — in an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman — admitted that he lost the 2020 presidential election. Trump also said he “lost the 2020 election” on two other occasions: Aug. 23, at an event near the southern border, and on Aug. 30, at the Moms for Liberty summit.
Third, the 2020 election deniers may purposely be ignoring that eight prominent, life-long Republicans, all attorneys, published a 72-page, research-based document in July 2021 in which they concluded that Joe Biden won the election fair and square. All voters should read, at a bare minimum, the introduction and executive summary of “ Lost, Not Stolen.”
Fourth, Ken Block, a data analytics expert and Trump campaign consultant, was hired by the Trump campaign to find voter fraud in the 2020 election. In a deposition taken by the Jan. 6 committee, he revealed the same results as noted in “Lost, Not Stolen” — that there were no voter irregularities anywhere in America.
Fifth, when white nationalist Nick Fuentes — Trump’s guest at a Nov. 22, 2022, Mar-a-Lago dinner — learned that Trump admitted he lost in 2020, he blasted Trump on his Sept. 6 podcast, requesting voters to not back Trump this year. An infuriated Fuentes stated, “So, why did we do Stop the Steal?” Trump’s Stop the Steal conspiracy theory has been touted 526 times on his Truth Social social media platform and will be a permanent stain on America’s revered voting process.
Lost, not Stolen
The eight Republican attorneys conducted a deep legal review of all 64 court cases filed by Trump and his supporters to contest the 2020 results. The final report, with 280 reference citations, provided unequivocal evidence that Trump lost. They found there was “ no credible evidence that fraud changed the outcome even in a single precinct, let alone in any state.”
The attorneys “also examined, point by point, every fraud accusation made in social media and in the public forum by those who claimed the election was stolen.” They found no improper vote counts, no voting machine rigging, no absentee ballot fraud, no voter identification fraud and no blocking of observers during the vote count.
The report’s authors include three prominent retired federal judges ( Thomas Griffith, Michael McConnell and J. Michael Luttig), former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg, longtime congressional senior aide David Hoppe and former Sens. John Danforth (Mo.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.).
They urged “fellow conservatives to cease obsessing over the results of the 2020 election.”
It’s interesting that 81 percent of adults surveyed in an ABC News/Ispos poll will accept the results of our upcoming Nov. 5 election. This means 19 percent of Americans — the ill-informed and gullible — have accepted Trump and GOP officials’ Stop the Steal pretense. Furthermore, 67 percent of Americans feel Trump isn’t prepared to accept the outcome unless he wins.
Patriotic Americans should feel sad for the 2020 election deniers, who have been hoodwinked, led down a dark rabbit hole, and given disinformation, misinformation and blatant propaganda. The 2020 Stop the Steal conspiracy theory movement has been proven — beyond a shadow of doubt — to be fallacious.
You should feel very comfortable voting on Nov. 5. Why? Close and contested elections are a part of American history, and all states have processes in place to handle just such situations. It is critical that citizens understand how these systems work so that they trust the results. Trusted elections are the foundation of our democracy.
On Nov. 5, don’t fret. Vote!
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.