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Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs on stage

Luke Combs, politics and healing our nation's divide

Department of Veterans Affairs building

Project 2025: The Department of Veterans Affairs

Ducks

The 12 worst House districts: Experts label gerrymandering's dirty dozen

White House with "stop" barrier in front

If Trump wins, should Democrats turn over the keys to the White House?

Mark Esper sitting next to Donald Trump

What would really happen if Trump wins?

Claim: The President may sign an executive order limiting freedom of speech. Fact check: Mixed

President Donald Trump
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Soram Cheon, Medill School
By Soram Cheon, Medill SchoolMay 29, 2020
Soram Cheon, Medill School
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The president can issue an executive on anything he wants, but its impact and legality is a question. Trump signed an executive order that could limit social media companies' legal protections after Twitter began fact-checking on his posts.

According to The Washington Post, lawmakers in Congress and a variety of legal experts from across the political spectrum "doubted the legality of Trump's draft proposal and feared its implications for free speech."

Some in the tech industry even began quietly discussing their legal options, including a potential lawsuit challenging Trump's order, the Post reported.

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election observer in Nevada

An election observer watches ballots being counted in North Las Vegas, Nevada, on Thursday.

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Claim: Election observers have not been allowed to do their jobs. Fact check: False

In the early morning hours on Friday, President Trump tweeted, "The OBSERVERS were not allowed, in any way, shape, or form, to do their job and therefore, votes accepted during this period must be determined to be ILLEGAL VOTES." The president did so as the vote margin in Pennsylvania and Georgia continued to close and even put former Vice President Joe Biden ahead in both states.

State rules vary on who is permitted to monitor the polls. However, across the board most states permit partisan monitors as long as they follow guidelines. On Wednesday, the Trump campaign filed lawsuits in Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania to give observers greater access to viewing the ballot counting process. With no evidence of wrongdoing in Michigan and the ballot counting process largely finished, a lower court dismissed the lawsuit there.

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California ballot processing

California's safeguards against voter fraud include signature matching.

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Claim: California sent 440,000 ballots to people who died or moved. Fact check: Mixed

California election officials sent ballots to all active registered voters for the November election. But in a press release distributed Monday, Election Integrity Project California, a self-described nonpartisan watchdog organization, criticized 440,000 "questionable" mailed ballots.

The organization sent a letter to the California secretary of state, writing that 416,633 Californians who were registered to vote on or before Nov. 4, 2008, have not voted or updated their registrations since that date. Because of this, EIPCa wrote, those voters "likely moved or died." Voters in California are marked as "inactive" if they move within the state and do not re-register to vote. However, there is no law in the state that eliminates voters from the active list because they have not voted.

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Paterson, NJ

The May municipal elections in Paterson, N.J., have been plagued with allegations of election fraud.

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Claim: New Jersey election officials threw out nearly 20 percent of mail-in ballots. Fact check: True

A tweet on June 28 by President Trump cited voter fraud in a New Jersey election in order to bolster his argument against mail-in voting. Trump claimed that nearly 20 percent of ballots in a special election for city council representatives were fraudulent.

The municipal election was held in May in Paterson, N.J., for several city council seats. It was among a handful of elections that Gov. Phil Murphy ordered be completed exclusively by mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic. To make the process easier, Murphy signed an executive order in March for ballots to be sent to all registered voters without the need for an application.

But claims of fraud began appearing in local media as early as election day.

According to a report by NPR, the fraud investigation began after the U.S. Postal Inspection Service informed local law enforcement that hundreds of mail-in ballots were stuffed inside a Paterson mailbox.

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