() – Elon Musk promoted several debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election during his first one-on-one meeting Thursday in Pennsylvania, as he urged voters in the key state to support former President Donald Trump.
When asked by an audience member present at the event in suburban Philadelphia about alleged “fraud” in 2020, Musk offered a somewhat rambling response filled with basic inaccuracies and clearly false claims about the US election.
“When you have mail-in ballots and there is no proof of citizenship, it becomes almost impossible to prove fraud, that’s the problem,” Musk falsely claimed.
Voter fraud is rare, but when it occurs, it is usually detected thanks to the layers of safeguards built into voting processes, according to nonpartisan election experts.
Musk’s comments on stage in front of Pennsylvania voters were consistent with much of the criticism of the events that the billionaire has made on his social media platform X, where he regularly promotes debunked pro-Trump conspiracy theories.
“There are very strange things that happen that are statistically improbable,” Musk continued. “So there’s always a question about, say, Dominion voting machines. It’s weird that I think they’re used in Philadelphia and Maricopa County, but not many other places. Doesn’t that seem like a great coincidence?”
Dominion Voting Systems, the company falsely accused by Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others of rigging the 2020 election, was awarded $787 million by Fox News to settle a defamation lawsuit related to its repeated broadcasts of false claims.
In a statement, a Dominion spokesperson responded to Musk’s claims late Thursday.
“Fact: Dominion does not serve Philadelphia County. Fact: Dominion voting systems already rely on voter-verified paper ballots. Fact: Manual counts and audits of such paper ballots have repeatedly shown that Dominion machines produce accurate results. These are not matters of opinion. “They are verifiable facts,” the company said.
Musk’s suggestion that there were systematic irregularities in Arizona and Pennsylvania in 2020 is false. Democratic and Republican officials in both states have repeatedly claimed that the results, which showed President Joe Biden defeated Trump, were accurate and verified.
However, Dominion machines were used in 2020 in Maricopa County, Arizona, home to the state’s largest city, Phoenix. But Musk incorrectly claimed that Dominion software was also used in Philadelphia. The city used ES&S machines, according to Verified Voting, which tracks voting equipment used in counties across the country.
ES&S did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk’s allegations.
At the event, Musk also repeated a fallacy that Trump often mentions at his own rallies, urging the US to fully transition to “paper ballots.”
“We should only use paper ballots, counted by hand,” Musk said. “That’s all. I am a technologist. “I know a lot about computers, and since I know it, the last thing I would do is trust the computer program.”
As previously reported, more than 98% of US voters live in jurisdictions that already have fully auditable paper tests. Still, Trump routinely says the country needs to start using paper ballots.
Add Comment