In an article by Gateway Pundit that erroneously said that ‘simple math’ shows that Biden fraudulently claimed 13 million illegal votes, the number of registered voters confuses the voting population to come to unsupported conclusions.
The article can be seen here and quote a tweet (here) by former National Security Agency (NSA) official Bill Binney, who wrote in part: “With 212 million registered voters and 66.2% of the vote, 140,344M voted. If Trump got 74M now, it’s just 66,344M for Biden. These numbers do not match what we are told. Lies and more Lies! The article says that Binney’s tweet is proof that ‘more people voted in the countrywide election in 2020 than were eligible to vote.’
Binney’s figure for the number of votes cast for Trump is generally correct (74,222,958 votes, here). He also posted links to the website World Population Review’s version of registered voters (here) and an article by the Washington Post (here), which are the source of the 212 million and 66.2% figures, respectively.
The Gateway Pundit tried to follow Binney’s steps and drew similar conclusions.
The Gateway Pundit found that there were 213.8 million registered voters and calculated: ‘If we had 213.8 million registered voters in the US and 66.2% of all voters voted in the 2020 election, is it equal to 141.5 [million] voters who voted in the 2020 election (Binney shows 140 million which is essentially the same). If President Trump won 74 million votes, that would leave only 67.5 million votes for Biden. That means 13 million duplicate or made-up ballots were created and counted for Biden! ”
However, both Binney and The Gateway Pundit confused registered voters for voters. The Washington Post never reported that 66.2% of registered voters voted in the 2020 presidential election. Rather, they reported that 66.2% of the total eligible population – which also includes residents of adults who were not registered – voted here.
The story of the Washington Post links to the website of the Frequently Asked Questions of the US Election Project, which describes the voting population as the number of citizens eligible to vote, adapted for the mentally handicapped, military personnel, civilians living in living abroad and, depending on state law, criminals (here).
The website further explains that the voting population is different from the number of registered voters, and explains its use of the term and states: ‘The way in which qualifying persons can register to vote differs between countries. North Dakota does not have voter registration. Other states have a policy known as ‘Election Day Registration’. ‘(Here)
The US election project gives the voting right figure more than 239 million (www.electproject.org/2020g) – a figure more than 25 million higher than the Gateway Pundit.
If we apply the 66.2% percentage to this figure, as the Washington Post clearly intended, about 158.6 million votes should have been cast, which is more than the combined number of votes cast for Biden and Trump. Other votes may have been cast or spoiled for third-party candidates.
The Washington Post story has apparently been updated and now says 66.3% of the voting population voted. The Gateway Pundit’s article is in no way wrong.
VERDICT
Untrue. The Washington Post said 66.2% of the total voting population cast a vote in the 2020 presidential election, not registered voters. Bill Binney and The Gateway Pundit applied the number of registered voters to this unrelated percentage, reported by the Washington Post. They then claimed that the misuse of the figures was wrongly proof of election fraud.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work here to control social media posts.