According to Fred Lucas at The Heritage Foundation, people on both sides of the political divide are questioning the disparity in the number of votes between 2020 and 2024. A disclaimer is that all the votes are not yet counted, so the situation can still change. However, at this time, President-elect Donald Trump has nearly the same number of votes as he received in 2020 -- 73.3 million votes now compared to 74.2 million in 2020. On the other hand, Biden received 81.2 million votes in 2020, and Harris has 69 million votes – a difference of approximately 12 million votes.
Lucas
wrote that some people on the Left believe that Trump must have cheated to win
the 2024 election, while some people on the Right think that the discrepancy
shows that the 2020 election was rigged. Lucas quoted Hans von Spakovsky,
manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation, to
show that the difference proves nothing.
“Turnout of voters can vary greatly from
election to election, from race to race, and from state to state,” von
Spakovsky told The Daily Signal. “In a typical national election, turnout in
different states can also vary greatly. It depends entirely on the candidates,
the issues, and the interest voters have in the candidates or the extent of
their concern over issues like the economy. When they don’t like their choices,
they don’t turn out.”
It's easier to register today and then
vote than at any other time in recent history, he noted.
“There have been absolutely zero reports
of anyone being kept from voting and certainly if 20 million people were
somehow being kept from voting, that is not something you could keep secret,”
von Spakovsky said.
With votes still being counted in several
states, turnout for 2024 is on track to be about 62.25% of registered voters,
with a total of 152.9 million voters, according to the Election Lab at the
University of Florida. That would be down from a 66.38% turnout in 2020, when
159.7 million voters cast ballots.
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