Trump team doubles down on debunked voter fraud claims

In a Sunday morning (12 February) interview, Senior White House Adviser Stephen Miller repeated claims of widespread voter fraud which have no supporting evidence, and brought up statistics that have already been debunked, even by the academics whose paper he cited.

President Donald Trump had revisited the claim that thousands of voters from Massachusetts were bussed into neighbouring New Hampshire to vote against him, losing him the state, on Thursday (9 February) during a private meeting with senior Republicans. The president and his team have so far offered no evidence for the claims.

Trump added that the unproven voter fraud caused the loss of the former Republican Senator for the state, Kelly Ayotte. An aide to Ayotte told the Boston Globe that she does not believe that was the reason for her loss.

When asked about the statements on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Miller said that the issue was "widely known by anyone who's worked in New Hampshire politics". "It's very real. It's very serious." he said, before adding: "This morning, on this show, is not the venue for me to lay out all the evidence."

Miller than also cited a study that claimed 14% of non-citizens are registered to vote in America that had originally been publicised in The Monkey Cage - a section of the Washington Post that deals with political scientists. The same newspaper later published a rebuttal of the findings, including a letter signed by numerous high profile political scientists which said the study "has been shown to be incorrect".

"The scholarly political science community has generally rejected the findings in the Richman et al. study and we believe it should not be cited or used in any debate over fraudulent voting," the letter concluded.

Though pushed by Stephanopoulos to provide evidence for people being bussed into New Hampshire, Miller only claimed that people in the state were "aware of the problem".

"For the record, you have provided zero evidence that the president was the victim of massive voter fraud in New Hampshire," Stephanopoulos told Miller.

President Trump later tweeted praise for his advisor: "Congratulations Stephen Miller- on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!"