Election Fraud Claims Should Meet The Standard We’d Demand In Court
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(OPINION) Imagine you are accused of something you did not do. You walk into a courtroom. You would not want the jury deciding your fate based on a rumor, a viral post or how someone felt about you. You would want evidence. Real evidence, the kind that can be examined, questioned and tested in the open. You would insist on it, because your freedom depended on it.
That same commitment to evidence should guide how we judge our elections. When someone claims an election was stolen, we have ways to investigate: public records, audits, recounts and legal challenges. Each gives us an opportunity to move beyond suspicion and ask what actually happened.
A claim does not become evidence because someone repeats it on a podcast, publishes it on a website, or delivers it in a confident speech. Those sources may bring real evidence to our attention. But we still have to examine it. Where did it come from? Can it be verified? Does it support the conclusion being drawn?
I have found this a sobering thing to discuss with people who have come to distrust our elections. The courtroom question brings the conversation into focus: What is the actual evidence, and would it hold up under scrutiny? It is a question we would want asked if we were the accused. We owe one another the same care when the accusation concerns our votes.
The arguments making the rounds
Consider a few of the arguments making the rounds.
Some take a single problem and treat it as proof the whole thing is rotten. One machine jams, one ineligible name is found on the rolls, one precinct has a long line, and suddenly the entire result is called rigged.
Every real problem deserves attention. An eligible voter prevented from voting has suffered a wrong, even if that one vote would not change the winner. But establishing that something went wrong is different from establishing that an election was stolen. We need to ask what happened, who was affected, how widespread the problem was, and whether it could have changed the outcome. The conclusion should fit the evidence.
Others mistake something normal for something sinister. “The numbers changed overnight, so something is wrong.” But reported totals change as more ballots are counted. Different communities and different kinds of ballots may favor different candidates, and states have different rules for when ballots can be processed and counted. A shift in the totals calls for an explanation. By itself, it does not establish wrongdoing. Careful counting takes time. Slow is not the same as crooked.
Then there is the argument that no evidence could ever satisfy. When an audit finds no support for an allegation, that becomes proof the cover-up ran deep. When officials open their books, the openness itself is called a trick. An argument that treats every possible answer as proof of guilt is no longer asking a question. It has decided the verdict and will not hear the case.
We can ask ourselves a useful question here: What evidence would lead me to change my mind? If the answer is “nothing,” we have stopped investigating. That is true whether we are certain an election was stolen or certain that nothing could possibly have gone wrong.
And some simply dislike the rules. One person worries that mail voting invites fraud. Another worries that voter ID requirements keep eligible people from voting. Those debates deserve evidence and serious public consideration.
Legislatures have a role in setting election rules, and courts have a role in determining whether those rules comply with the law and protect people’s rights. Whenever possible, disputes should be resolved before people cast their ballots.
But disagreeing with a rule does not establish fraud. An election conducted under lawful rules does not become illegitimate because we would have preferred different ones.
We saw these distinctions matter after the 2020 election. More than 60 legal challenges questioned or sought to overturn the results. Some were withdrawn or dismissed on procedural grounds. Others were considered on their merits and rejected. Those differences matter. A procedural dismissal is not a judgment about the evidence.
Taken together, however, the challenges did not establish fraud sufficient to overturn the presidential result. Judges appointed by presidents of both parties rejected efforts to undo it.
That record deserves more weight than an allegation repeated with confidence. And the principle must apply regardless of which party benefits. A standard earns its meaning when we accept it even though our preferred candidate has lost.
The cost of giving up
There is a quieter argument underneath all the others, and it may be the most corrosive. It says the whole thing is rigged anyway, so why bother. It asks nothing and checks nothing, and it feels like wisdom while it is really surrender. It invites us to withdraw, to stop showing up, to let someone else decide. A free people cannot afford it. Self-government has always asked more of us than cynicism does.
I am not asking anyone to trust elections simply because they are told to. Trust that cannot be questioned is not worth much. I am asking something harder and more hopeful: that we take questions seriously enough to investigate them, and take evidence seriously enough to let it change our minds.
That means demanding corrections when problems are found. It also means accepting results when careful scrutiny gives us good reason to accept them. Our responsibility does not end when the answer disappoints us.
The courtroom gives us an ideal worth carrying into public life: accusations should be tested, the accused should have a fair chance to answer, and power should not get to decide the truth by volume or by force. Our institutions do not always live up to that ideal. Holding them accountable requires the patience and rigor the ideal demands.
We can bring that same care to our elections. We can ask for evidence, weigh it honestly, protect every eligible person’s right to vote, and refuse to dismiss one another’s ballots on a rumor.
If our own freedom were at stake, we would insist on a fair weighing of the facts. Our neighbors deserve that same standard. So does the democracy we share.
This piece was originally published in FaVS News.
Terry Kyllo is the executive director of Paths to Understanding: Gathering Neighbors, Growing Trust. He is passionate about renewing civil society and democracy by helping communities build trust across deep divides—because he believes we are living too divided, and we do not have to live this way. A Lutheran pastor, Terry works through local practice, media, and public leadership to bring neighbors back into relationship, so we can build a world where everyone belongs and everyone can thrive.