Trump did not win two-thirds of election lawsuits ‘where merits considered’

Donald Trump and his allies filed dozens of lawsuits in state and federal courts seeking to challenge the results of the 2020 election. Some Trump-friendly websites make it seem like the former president prevailed in the majority of them.

The Feb. 7 headline of an article from the Epoch Times, a media outlet backed by the Falun Gong religious movement, said: "Trump Won Two-Thirds of Election Lawsuits Where Merits Considered."

"Of the 22 cases that have been heard by the courts and decided on their merits, Trump and Republicans have prevailed in 15," the site wrote. "This means Trump has won two-thirds of the cases fully adjudicated by the courts."

The article was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) 

The Epoch Times attributed the tally to John Droz Jr., who it described as a "physicist and environmental advocate in Morehead City, N.C." Droz is a political activist who has denied the science of climate change and advocated against legislation aimed at mitigating sea-level rise.

None of the lawsuits filed by Trump and his supporters have proved there was fraud, and judges across the political spectrum have rejected their cases. But we wanted to take a closer look at the claim that the challenges were more successful than they appear.

The Epoch Times’ headline gives the impression that Trump won several election-related lawsuits on their merits. But only one of the cases cited by the article was decided after Nov. 3, many were not exclusively about Trump, and some were not related to the general presidential election at all.

"No one from the Epoch Times spoke to me about their article, so they made their own conclusions," Droz told PolitiFact.

After we reached out to the Epoch Times for a comment, the website changed its headline to read: "In Two-Thirds of Election Lawsuits Where Merits Considered Decisions Are Favorable to Trump."

In its article, the Epoch Times cited an analysis of "81 lawsuits that were filed in connection with the Nov. 3, 2020 presidential election."

Droz and a team of volunteers spearheaded that work and published their findings in a public spreadsheet. It includes cases spanning from March to December 2020 and links to copies of lawsuits published by the Healthy Elections Project, an initiative from Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Between November and December, Trump and his allies lost dozens of lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results. Some cases were rejected because plaintiffs failed to prove widespread voter fraud.

In a statement on his website, Droz conceded that the majority of the cases he logged have nothing to do with allegations of voter fraud. The Epoch Times also included that disclaimer in its article.

"The article (and our former and current headlines) clearly indicate that these are lawsuits related to the election, not about the election results," the Epoch Times’ public relations team wrote in an email. "And the article (and the Droz spreadsheet) indicate the cases involve Trump or the GOP — a lawsuit's outcome can be favorable to Trump even if he is not the plaintiff."

In his spreadsheet, Droz found that "Trump and/or the GOP plaintiff prevailed in 15 out of 21 cases decided on the merits" related to the election. "Decided on merits" a note in the spreadsheet says, means the plaintiff "was able to argue the facts of the case, and, if applicable, given opportunity to present evidence via discovery." 

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