The editorial board of the conservative Wall Street Journal has issued a sharp rebuttal to the latest conspiracy theory circulating within the MAGA movement regarding the 2020 presidential election, labelling it an effort to indulge former President Donald Trump's "nonsense."
Fulton County Error Fuels New Claims
Five years after Joe Biden's narrow victory in Georgia, a recent admission by an attorney for the Fulton County Elections Board has reignited debunked claims. The lawyer conceded during a December hearing that poll workers failed to sign tabulator tapes for the county's early voting ballots, calling it a violation of procedural rules.
This clerical error, affecting approximately 315,000 votes, was swiftly seized upon by pro-Trump media figures and influencers. Outlets like The Federalist and Townhall presented the mistake as vindication for Trump's persistent but baseless assertion that the election was stolen from him.
WSJ Pours Cold Water on Conspiracy
In a detailed editorial this week, the Wall Street Journal board systematically dismantled the new narrative. The board noted that Georgia's 2020 ballots were counted three times – twice by scanner and once by hand – totalling five million votes.
While criticising the "sloppiness" in Fulton County's process, the editors emphasised that an error by poll workers is not grounds to discard legally cast votes. "An error by poll workers isn't a reason to throw out tens or hundreds of thousands of ballots cast by Georgians who did nothing wrong," they wrote.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump famously pressured to "find" votes, stated that while the signature requirement was a procedural rule, "outright fraud was not a concern." He affirmed all voters were verified with photo ID and their ballots were lawfully cast.
A Political Ploy and a Warning to the GOP
The editorial board suggested the issue is receiving disproportionate attention because Raffensperger is currently running for Governor, and his GOP primary opponents are exploiting the Fulton County mistake. Crucially, those opponents have provided no evidence the ballots themselves were fraudulent.
The board saved its strongest criticism for Republicans who continue to enable Trump's election denialism. "Mr. Trump will never admit his 2020 claims were partisan nonsense," they wrote. "But Republicans who care about the future could do their man a favor by refusing to keep indulging them."
This stance highlights the ongoing tension between the Murdoch-owned paper and Trump, who recently filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Journal and Rupert Murdoch over a separate report. Despite the legal battle and the paper's criticism of the president since his return to the White House, Murdoch has sought to maintain a relationship with the commander-in-chief.
