Archer's Line Podcast
Journalism's Job Isn't To Pretend. Where's the Evidence of Election Rigging?
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President Trump says the Los Angeles and California elections were rigged. Spencer Pratt lost. Therefore, according to Trump and many of his supporters, something must have gone wrong. There is just one problem. Nobody has produced any evidence. Journalists are often accused of bias when they point out that a claim is unsupported. But saying there is no evidence for a claim isn’t bias. It’s reporting. The media’s responsibility isn’t to act as a referee between two sides of an argument. The media’s responsibility is to determine what the facts are and report them accurately. You know the illustration: One guy says it’s raining outside, the other one says it’s not. The reporter’s job isn’t to say, “Well, different viewpoints, and we’ll have to leave it there.” It’s her job to look out the window and report if it’s raining or not. The standard doesn’t change because the person making the accusation happens to be the President of the United States. California election officials have publicly explained how the vote was conducted. Ballots were counted under established procedures. The results are certified through the same systems that have been used repeatedly in previous elections. Voting tabulations change as more votes are counted. In California, the mail-in ballots aren’t counted until after the same-day votes. That’s why there are delays in how the state reports vote totals. Naturally, same-day tallies would show Spencer Pratt with a healthy number, since Republicans, especially the MAGA variety, have been trained to never vote by mail-in ballot (even though Trump does). Whereas Democrats, especially in this very, very blue city, tend to vote by mail. Add to that that state law says people can mail in ballots up to election day, so long as they’re postmarked by then. That means late mail-ins can take up to a week to get to the vote counters. People are free to dislike our system. They’re free to argue that California’s election laws should be changed. Those are legitimate political debates. But what’s not legitimate is alleging criminal conduct without proof. Even some of the defenses being offered have become almost comical. House Speaker Mike Johnson recently suggested the alleged fraud is so sophisticated and “diabolical” that it cannot be proven. A claim that can’t be proven because the evidence supposedly can’t be found isn’t evidence. It’s the absence of evidence dressed up as an explanation. That certainly wouldn’t fly in any court in a free society. The argument would be laughed out of the room. Yet millions of Americans hear versions of these claims every day, and that creates another challenge for journalism. The audience no longer shares a common information system. Many Trump supporters consume media that reinforces election fraud narratives. More and more, Americans occupy separate realities constructed by different information sources. That doesn’t relieve journalists of their responsibility. In some ways, it makes that responsibility more important. The fact that a portion of the audience may never see accurate reporting isn’t an excuse to stop producing it. The role of journalism isn’t to tell people what they want to hear. It’s to establish what is known, what is unknown, and what can be proven. At the moment, the facts are straightforward. Trump claims the election was rigged. His supporters amplify the claim. No evidence has been presented. Those are the facts. The last time millions of Americans were told an election had been stolen without evidence, some of them eventually acted on that belief. January 6 happened because enough people became convinced that evidence was unnecessary. That may be the most dangerous lesson of all. When citizens are taught that belief matters more than proof, facts become optional. Once facts become optional, democracy becomes fragile. The idea that fair elections are only the ones where your side wins, and that losing somehow "proves" the election was stolen — that leads to what we saw that day. The media can’t force people to accept reality. But it can continue doing its job. It can continue demanding evidence. It can continue reporting what is true. Even if it means the president throws down his microphone, stomps on it, and walks out of the interview. And news media can continue refusing to pretend that unsupported allegations deserve the same weight as documented facts. That is journalism. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. If this article resonates with you, please share it with others. And if you’d like to support Archer’s Line, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Independent journalism only works when readers support it directly. Your subscription helps me continue doing this work without corporate interference, political pressure, or advertisers deciding which questions are safe to ask. 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