False: 15,000 dead people voted for Joe Biden, and the election was rigged.

By: Arron Williams
February 15 2023

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Context

An Instagram video of Andrew Tate claiming that 15,000 dead people voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election is being widely shared. In the clip, Tate explains that people have been going on death registers, getting the social security numbers of dead people, and using them for mail-in ballots. He claims the election was rigged in favor of Joe Biden. The video has over 100,000 views and likes. 

In Fact

Former president Donald Trump spread dead voter claims in the 2020 U.S. election which were widely circulated by his supporters. There is no evidence that 15,000 dead people voted in the election, and claims of dead voters have been repeatedly debunked.

A 2021 Guardian article reports claims of 5,000 dead people voting in Georgia were proven wrong when state officials confirmed only four cases of dead voter fraud. Each of these four cases involved family members submitting votes for deceased relatives. Similarly, a 2020 BBC report investigated claims of 10,000 dead voters in Michigan. The number came from a list that purported to show deceased people that also voted in the election. The BBC took a sample of 31 people from the list at random and found 28 to be alive. The database is flawed, and the list combined data for genuine voters with records of deceased people from across the U.S. that shared the same name and birth month. Furthermore, two 2020 fact checks and one 2022 report by AP News reported on dead voter claims in Nevada, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona. State and election officials told AP news that there was no evidence to support these claims, and AP News labeled the claims as false.

The claim of dead people voting through mail-in-ballots was spread to push skepticism and doubt about the legitimacy of Biden's victory. These claims have been used to suggest the election was fraudulent and, as Tate claims, rigged.  

However, in a 2021 AP News review that investigated every potential case of voter fraud in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, there were fewer than 475 cases of voter fraud. The review states, "The cases could not throw the outcome into question even if all the potentially fraudulent votes were for Biden, which they were not." The review further explains that "The cases were isolated. There was no widespread, coordinated deceit." Experts also told AP news that credible examinations show that there was no widespread fraud and that voter fraud is rare. There is no evidence to support that the election was rigged.

Around the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, claims of voter fraud resurfaced alongside assertions that the election was rigged. For example, Logically fact-checked the claim that spikes in the number of votes in Michigan indicated voter fraud. However, the claim was found to be false, as no evidence was found to suggest fraud in Michigan. Other fact-checks about the 2022 midterms are available in the fact-checking library. 

The Verdict

There is no evidence of 15,000 dead people voting in the 2020 election. Investigations into these claims have debunked them, and officials have stated that there is no evidence of the election being rigged. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.