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Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy. We need your help. More Info ### I would like to contribute One Time Monthly Yearly Join Now ![](\\" ![](\\" Donald Trump stated on February 28, 2023 in a Truth Social post: The 2020 election could not have been fair because “Los Angeles County agreed, during litigation, that there were 1.2 million ineligible voters after the election.” ![\\"true\\"](\\" false/33efdb6633e5e2fdc2d4e2f63383a1e0.jpg.\\") ![\\"false\\"](\\" false.jpg\\") * National * Elections * California * Donald Trump ![\\"Republican](\\" Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at the California Republican Party 2016 Convention in Burlingame, Calif., Friday, April 29, 2016. Jeff Chiu / AP ![\\"Amy](\\" By Amy Sherman March 9, 2023 # In swipe at Fox News, Trump misleads about Los Angeles County election #### If Your Time is short * Judicial Watch, a conservative group, entered a legal settlement in 2019 with Los Angeles County and the secretary of state to require the county to remove inactive registered voters. * The county said that it removed about 1.2 million inactive people from its voter rolls after the 2022 election because they had not voted in recent elections, including the 2020 election. * There is no evidence that the presence of inactive voters led to an unfair or fraudulent election. See the sources for this fact-check Former President Donald Trump, who continues to falsely call the 2020 election \"rigged,\" pointed to litigation in Los Angeles County as one sign that the election wasn’t fair. \"Let\'s ask Rupert Murdoch — So how can the election have been ‘fair and balanced’ if Los Angeles County agreed, during litigation, that there were 1.2 million ineligible voters after the election? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Our elections are Third World!\" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Feb. 28. Trump linked to an article by Judicial Watch, a conservative activist group that reached a settlement in 2019 with Los Angeles County to clear its voter rolls of longtime inactive voters. But Trump’s statement could create the impression that having inactive voters on the rolls signals an unfair election, and he hasn’t provided evidence to support that allegation. Trump didn’t directly state in his post that he was referring to the 2020 election as unfair, but it seems likely he was talking about that election because after that race he feuded with Fox News, which has \"fair and balanced\" as its former motto. Trump attacked Fox News in 2020 after it accurately called Arizona for Joe Biden. Murdoch chairs Fox News’ parent company. The recent release of messages between Fox News pundits and executives showed that some at the network knew post-election statements by Trump allies were wrong, but the network aired them anyway. Murdoch told an editor at the New York Post that some of Trump’s statements were \"bull—- and damaging.\" The messages have been released as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News. We emailed a Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, to ask for his evidence and what year Trump was referring to and did not get a response to that question. \"Having ineligible voters on voting rolls is a clear threat to election integrity,\" Cheung said. Trump has long spread falsehoods about voter fraud in California and about what the legal settlement means. Federal law has rules about removing inactive voters The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires states to register eligible U.S. citizens when they obtain a driver’s license. Unsurprisingly, these \"active registered voters\" often move from the address in their voter file without informing election officials, said Judd Choate, Colorado election director who teaches classes on the act. If the state learns that voters have moved without providing a new address, that state can \"inactivate\" that voter’s registration unless or until those voters update their registration or vote in a future election. The National Voter Registration Act prohibits states from canceling inactive voter registrations until the state holds that registration in the inactive status for two election cycles. (A few states are exempt from the act.) Every state following the act will have thousands or millions of inactive voters. For example, Trump’s home state, Florida, inactivated about 375,000 voters in 2022 and as of August 2022 had more than 1 million inactive voters. Having inactive voters is a \"good sign,\" Choate said. It means that election officials are working to identify voters who no longer live there and properly inactivate them under federal law. \"If President Trump took my class, his posting on Truth Social would receive an ‘F,’\" Choate said. #### Featured Fact-check ![](\\" black/4590875651af69b2c789ceab409664dd.jpg\\") ![](\\" black/72988380e8c8bd188dc360d11552e4a0.jpg\\") X posts stated on August 5, 2024 in an X post Tim Walz “changed the Minnesota flag so it could resemble the Somalian flag.” ![\\"true\\"](\\" false/33efdb6633e5e2fdc2d4e2f63383a1e0.jpg.\\") ![\\"false\\"](\\" false.jpg\\") By Jeff Cercone • August 6, 2024 Judicial Watch and Los Angeles County reached a settlement to clean up voter rolls In January 2019, Judicial Watch, Los Angeles County and the California secretary of state reached a settlement agreement that required the county to remove inactive registrations in compliance with federal law. Led by attorney and Trump supporter Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch has filed numerous lawsuits challenging jurisdictions over voter rolls. The agreement said that all parties agreed there was no admission of liability or wrongdoing by the state or county. It doesn’t mention voter or election fraud. In accordance with that settlement agreement, the county sent a Feb. 15 update to Judicial Watch that said there were about 5.6 million active voters on the rolls and about 527,000 inactive voters, but zero who had been inactive for two consecutive federal elections. The county removed about 1.2 million voters from the inactive voter list following the 2022 general election, which aligned with federal requirements and the inactivity through two federal election cycles (2020 and 2022), said Mike Sanchez, a Los Angeles County elections office spokesperson. Sanchez said, \"Any voters who were inactive in 2020 who appeared to vote would have been activated; therefore none of those (who) moved from ‘inactive’ to ‘cancel’ had voted at any time in the period covered by two federal election cycles.\" We found no evidence that the existence of inactive registrants meant that the election was unfair to Trump. Democratic candidates regularly win elections in left-leaning Los Angeles County. Biden won the county by more than 1.8 million votes. Trump’s statement about \"ineligible voters\" could create the impression that they were ineligible to vote because they didn’t meet basic requirements, such as being 18, a U.S. citizen and a county resident. That’s different from an \"inactive voter\" who at one time was eligible, but became inactive. Nationwide, inactive registrations as a percentage of all registrations were about 9% in 2022. California was an outlier on the high side with about 16% — around the same as West Virginia. Los Angeles County is America\'s largest election jurisdiction, so it follows that it would have a disproportionate share of inactive voters, said Rachel Orey, an elections expert at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. \"The presence of inactive voters does not indicate fraud: a voter\'s categorization as ‘inactive’ means that they are eligible and registered but have not tried to vote in recent elections and failed to respond to an official mailer from the election office,\" Orey said. Our ruling Trump said that the 2020 election could not have been fair because \"Los Angeles County agreed, during litigation, that there were 1.2 million ineligible voters after the election.\" Los Angeles County reached a settlement with Judicial Watch in 2019 agreeing to clear the voter rolls of inactive voters. The county cleared about 1.2 million inactive voters after the 2022 election because they had not voted in recent elections, including the 2020 election. Trump’s statement that the settlement signals that the election was unfair is also incorrect. Trump lost Los Angeles county by about 1.8 million in 2020. The people who were later removed from the rolls did not vote at all, so they had no influence on the outcome. We rate this statement False. **RELATED** : PANTS ON FIRE: Trump’s latest California voter fraud claim as baseless as past allegations **RELATED** : Do outsized voter rolls signify fraud? No, experts say **RELATED** : Fact-checking 2024 presidential candidates, who’s running #### Read About Our Process The Principles of the Truth-O-Meter ### Our Sources Truth Social, Donald Trump post, Feb. 28, 2023 U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Election administration and voting survey 2020 comprehensive report CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy, Tweet, Feb. 27, 2023 Voting Rights Lab, CA A 1206, Introduced Feb. 16, 2023 Miami Herald, See how party affiliation has changed in Florida since the 2018 election, Aug. 22, 2022 Washington Post, Highlights from new Fox News documents released in Dominion lawsuit, March 7, 2023 PolitiFact, Pants On Fire for Trump\'s claim about \'serious voter fraud\' in California, Nov. 28, 2016 Email interview, Steven Cheung, Donald Trump campaign spokesperson, March 2, 2023 Email interview, Mike Sanchez, Los Angeles County elections office spokesperson, March 1, 2023 Email interview, Rachel Orey, associate director of the elections project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, March 8, 2023 Email interview, Judd Choate, Colorado state election director, March 8, 2023 ## Browse the Truth-O-Meter ### More by Amy Sherman ![](\\" ![](\\" Rick Scott stated on August 28, 2024 in a post on X: “This month alone, more than 16,000 non-citizens have been removed from the voter rolls in 3 states.” ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") By Samantha Putterman • August 29, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Donald Trump stated on August 23, 2024 in a speech in Las Vegas: “Kamala cast the tiebreaking vote to hire 87,000 new IRS agents to go after your tip income.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Amy Sherman • August 28, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Tim Walz stated on August 14, 2024 in a speech in California: Former President Donald Trump “cut overtime benefits for millions of workers.” ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Amy Sherman • August 20, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Pete Buttigieg stated on August 11, 2024 in an interview on CNN State of the Union: Gov. Tim Walz delivered paid family leave in Minnesota but “Republicans are blocking” a Biden-Harris proposal. ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" mostly-true.jpg\\") By Amy Sherman • August 16, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Donald Trump stated on August 8, 2024 in a press conference: Says his Jan. 6, 2021, speech on the White House Ellipse drew the “same number of people,” as the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Louis Jacobson • August 9, 2024 ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/322c808c00e73c217d17772ddd5a0eb5.jpg\\") ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/8b142c91ebe468a84a192e6df2b7b994.jpg\\") Instagram posts stated on August 2, 2024 in a video: In Pompano Beach, Florida, Somali immigrants illegally in the U.S. were in line to get driver’s licenses and “all you need to vote is a driver\'s license.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu • August 7, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Donald Trump stated on July 27, 2024 in a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota: During the 2020 Minnesota riots after George Floyd’s murder, Gov. Tim Walz didn’t call in the National Guard, “so, I sent in the National Guard to save Minneapolis.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Amy Sherman • August 7, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Donald Trump stated on August 3, 2024 in a rally in Atlanta: Kamala Harris “supports mandatory gun confiscation.” ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Amy Sherman • August 7, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Donald Trump stated on July 24, 2024 in a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina: Kamala Harris “wants to defund the police.” ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Amy Sherman • July 30, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Donald Trump stated on July 24, 2024 in a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina: Kamala Harris “supported abolishing ICE.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Amy Sherman • July 29, 2024 ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/322c808c00e73c217d17772ddd5a0eb5.jpg\\") ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/8b142c91ebe468a84a192e6df2b7b994.jpg\\") Instagram posts stated on July 22, 2024 in an Instagram post: There are nine states “where Biden’s name can’t be removed and no one can be added. That’s over 130 electoral votes in the toilet.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Ranjan Jindal • July 23, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Kamala Harris stated on July 17, 2024 in a campaign video: \"Unlike Mike Pence, (J.D.) Vance said he would have carried out Trump\'s plan to overturn the 2020 election.\" ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" mostly-true.jpg\\") By Amy Sherman • July 18, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Kari Lake stated on July 16, 2024 in in a speech at RNC in Milwaukee: “Just last week, Ruben Gallego voted to let the millions of people who poured into our country illegally cast a ballot in this upcoming election.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Amy Sherman • July 17, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Joe Biden stated on July 13, 2024 in a statement to the media: “The idea that there’s political violence or violence in America like this is just unheard of.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Louis Jacobson • July 15, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Tom Cotton stated on June 16, 2024 in an interview on CNN\'s State of the Union: “The weapons that Ukraine used in the early days of this war to fend off the Russian invasion are the weapons that Donald Trump sent, that Barack Obama and Joe Biden had refused to send.” ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") By Amy Sherman • July 2, 2024 ### In swipe at Fox News, Trump misleads about Los Angeles County election * ![](\\" ![](\\" Instagram posts stated on August 27, 2024 in an Instagram post: California S.B. 1174 eliminates the requirement for voter ID at polling places. ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Sofia Ahmed • August 30, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" X posts stated on August 29, 2024 in X posts: President Joe Biden “did a campaign ad at the graves in Arlington in 2020.” ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Loreben Tuquero • August 30, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" X posts stated on August 16, 2024 in a video: Video shows “Kamala Harris describing how she can ruin lives with the \'swipe of a pen.’\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu • August 30, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on August 25, 2024 in a post: Kamala Harris’ “plan to tax unrecognized Capital Gains mean(s) if your house goes up in value you will have to pay that Tax Even if you don’t sell your House!” ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Sara Swann • August 30, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on August 25, 2024 in a Facebook post: “There’s no such thing as menopause.” ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Madison Czopek • August 30, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Instagram posts stated on August 27, 2024 in an Instagram post: “Hollywood actor Kurt Russell just said: ‘It is now proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden CHEATED in the 2020 election with mail-in ballots.’” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Caleb McCullough • August 30, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Kamala Harris stated on August 22, 2024 in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention: Former President Donald Trump \"intends to enact what, in effect, is a national sales tax ... that would raise prices on middle-class families by almost $4,000 a year.\" ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") By Louis Jacobson • August 30, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Viral image stated on August 27, 2024 in a Facebook post: “Kurt Russell forms a new non-woke actors alliance with Roseanne Barr and Tim Allen.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Ciara O\'Rourke • August 30, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Viral image stated on August 23, 2024 in an X post: Photo of former President Donald Trump after an assassination attempt was generated by artificial intelligence. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Ciara O\'Rourke • August 30, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" X posts stated on August 28, 2024 in an X post: C-SPAN captions for a JD Vance speech said, “Single person clapping.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Ciara O\'Rourke • August 30, 2024 Load more ### Support independent fact-checking. 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The 2020 election could not have been fair because Los Angeles County agreed during litigation that there were 12 million ineligible voters after the election