Some social media customers declare to have discovered an evidence for Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 election loss. They are saying billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink know-how manipulated votes to learn President-elect Donald Trump.
Starlink is an web supplier that makes use of satellites to offer connectivity; it’s a subsidiary of Musk’s industrial spaceflight firm SpaceX.
“Musk’s Starlink uploaded votes in swing states,” one Nov. 10 Threads submit stated. “Swing state voters went Dem downballot however Trump on the high? Unlikely. Starlink satellites exploding, destroying proof.”
Starlink made headlines in latest weeks when the corporate distributed gear to assist folks regain web entry in hurricane-hit areas. To some, that transfer was further proof of the conspiracy.
“The Russians have entry to Starlink terminals and subsequently the satellites. The Russians are recognized hackers,” stated one other Nov. 10 Threads submit. “Elon Musk and the US gov. despatched Starlink terminals to Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia because of the hurricanes.”
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Different Threads customers summarized the unsubstantiated claims: “Persons are saying Elon Musk used Starlink to steal the U.S. Election for Donald Trump.”
(Screenshots from Threads)
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Election safety specialists and state and native election officers rebutted the claims, saying the 2024 presidential election was safe and there’s no proof of Starlink-related fraud.
“Starlink is suspected by conspiracy theorists not due to what it does, however as a result of Elon Musk owns it,” stated Mike Rothschild, a journalist, creator and conspiracy principle professional.
This conspiracy principle circulated on Threads amid a bigger wave of election denial claims from liberals that mimic Republicans’ false claims about 2020 election fraud.
“Conspiracy theories about misplaced elections being stolen are a pure manner to deal with an sudden final result,” Rothschild stated, including that it’s necessary to “depart conspiracism behind and embrace actuality.”
Election infrastructure is safe
Jen Easterly, director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company, reported Nov. 6 that the company had “no proof of any malicious exercise that had a cloth impression on the safety or integrity of our election infrastructure.”
Officers from swing states that acquired Starlink know-how after the September and October hurricanes additionally stated Starlink know-how couldn’t have been used to learn Trump.
North Carolina’s tabulators and ballot-marking gadgets are by no means related to the web, Patrick Gannon, the North Carolina State Board of Elections spokesperson, stated. Connecting such gear to the web is prohibited by state legislation, he stated.
“Satellite tv for pc-based web gadgets weren’t used to tabulate or add vote counts in North Carolina,” Gannon stated. “As well as, our tabulated outcomes are encrypted from supply to vacation spot stopping outcomes being modified in transit. We now have no proof of any alteration of votes by anybody.”
The opposite six swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — have comparable election safety protocols to make sure voting gear isn’t related to the web throughout poll tabulation.
Even when Starlink had someway been used to switch the vote depend, there are techniques designed to catch tabulation discrepancies, together with risk-limiting audits, canvassing and certification of the election outcomes, stated Michael Specter, a Georgia Tech College assistant professor specializing in election safety.
“None of those are foolproof, however every makes it considerably much less probably that an assault would achieve success,” Specter stated.
Broadly talking, voting machines will not be related to the web, specialists stated. In some states, poll tabulators are briefly related to the web to transmit outcomes when polls shut. And in lots of locations, different election infrastructure, akin to pollbooks with lists of digital voter registration information, have web connectivity.
We discovered little proof Starlink is broadly used throughout elections. Even in Asheville, North Carolina’s Buncombe County, one of many locations hardest hit by Hurricane Helene, election officers instructed PolitiFact that Starlink was not used for any election capabilities.
Genya Coulter, senior election analyst for the OSET Institute, a nonprofit targeted on correct, safe and clear elections, stated she knew Starlink know-how had been used to assist election infrastructure in a single place: Tulare County, California. Trump gained Tulare County with about 60% of the vote.
“A lot of the rural a part of the county has little to no entry to broadband, and Starlink was used to have the digital pollbooks related to a county voter database,” Coulter stated. Pollbooks are lists of digital voter registration information.
Vote tabulators weren’t related to Starlink satellite tv for pc web, she stated, including that the county had about 28,000 in-person voters.
Concerning claims about Russian hackers swaying election outcomes, Coulter stated she was “much less fearful about Russian hackers affecting vote totals and considerably extra involved” with the deluge of incorrect election info that Russian-linked teams distributed on-line earlier than the election and the bomb threats focusing on election infrastructure that officers stated have been “of Russian origin.”
What about experiences of a Starlink satellite tv for pc fireball?
On Nov. 10, a Starlink satellite tv for pc reentered Earth’s ambiance heading southeast from Washington to Texas and exploded.
Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and science information system group chief at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Heart, stated there’s nothing noteworthy about that.
“This isn’t a case of immediately deciding to retire this satellite tv for pc inside the previous week,” McDowell stated. “Such reentries have been taking place nearly every day for the previous few years, they only are at random occasions and random locations on the planet so not usually over the U.S. at night time the place People can see it.”
In accordance with U.S. House Drive information, SpaceX eliminated this specific satellite tv for pc from operation Aug. 2, at which level the satellite tv for pc began decreasing its orbit, McDowell stated. SpaceX deserted the satellite tv for pc Oct. 13, McDowell stated.
Stargazers within the Southwest United States reported seeing fireballs within the early morning hours on Nov. 10. McDowell stated that’s regular: Throughout satellite tv for pc reentry and breakup, observers can generally see fireballs transferring slowly throughout the sky.
Why Democrats gained Senate races whereas Trump gained presidency
A few of the posts that floated the Starlink conspiracy principle pointed to Democratic successes in some down-ballot races as proof that one thing was off within the Trump-Harris outcomes. Though there’s a powerful correlation between votes solid for president and senator, it’s not ironclad. Voters are free to decide on candidates from completely different events for various places of work, and a few fraction of voters do.
Ticket-splitting — when voters select a Democrat for one workplace and a Republican for an additional — has turn out to be much less widespread in latest election cycles as political polarization has elevated. However the follow hasn’t disappeared totally.
Incumbency might help candidates win reelection. As an example, two swing states noticed Democratic incumbents preserve their Senate seats: Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin and Jacky Rosen in Nevada. Their achievements in workplace and voters’ familiarity may need helped these candidates.
Controversy, or a scarcity thereof, can even have an effect on candidates’ campaigns. In Arizona, for instance, Republican Kari Lake got here to voters’ consideration in 2022 when she misplaced a gubernatorial race constructed closely on claims that elections are fraudulent, together with the 2020 presidential race that Biden gained. This 12 months, she misplaced to Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, a retired U.S. Marine and a Latino, in a marketing campaign 12 months during which Latino voters have been pivotal inside the citizens.
Specter stated split-ticket voting “doesn’t present enough proof that any malfeasance has occurred.”
Our ruling
Threads posts stated Musk’s Starlink know-how manipulated votes within the 2024 election to learn Trump.
Federal and state election officers rebutted claims of 2024 election fraud, together with claims that Starlink manipulated the vote counts.
Voting machines aren’t usually related to the web, and longstanding techniques guarantee votes are pretty and precisely tabulated.
We discovered just one occasion — in California, not a swing state — of Starlink know-how getting used to assist election infrastructure, akin to having the digital pollbooks related to a county voter database.
We fee these claims Pants on Fireplace!
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird North Carolina Author Paul Specht contributed to this report.
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