Appearing on CNN, the primary author of a the Pew study on voting fraud cited by Trump administration officials said they are completely misrepresenting it and there is no indication of voter fraud on the scale they claim.
In a discussion with CNN host Anderson Cooper, David Becker began by noting that the study being used to bolster Trump's belief that there was massive voter fraud in the 2016 election is five years old.
"This study came out almost five years ago now," Becker explained. "What we've seen since then is that, thanks to the work of many in this space, states and local election officials have done a much better job of using data and technology to keep their voter rolls up to date. I think the rolls for the 2016 election were probably the most accurate list we've ever had and they're gonna get better."
"So when Trump,Spicer says the president believes there's been massive voter fraud based on studies and evidence, that's the phrase that's been presented to him, to your knowledge are there any studies or evidence that points to any kind of large scale voter fraud?" host Cooper asked.
"I don't know of any evidence," Becker stated. "I was at Pew and ran the elections team there. I was there eight years, I was a lawyer in the Justice Department in the Voting Rights section there for seven years in the Clinton and second Bush administrations. I don't know of any study that's found significant voter fraud. Election officials across the country studied in their own states, tried to prosecute people who have allegedly committed voter fraud and found only a handful of instances."
"Based on what you've seen of this past election, you would say there's zero evidence of fraud at this point and certainly fraud on the scale that the president is talking about 3 million to 5 million illegal votes," Cooper pressed.
"Any claim that suggests that fraud exists, well it does exist more than zero," Becker said with certainty. "It just doesn't exist much more than zero and any claim beyond that is false and not supported by the evidence."
Watch the video below via CNN:
