Conservative commentator Victor Davis Hanson is now reportedly raising fresh questions about the unprecedented voter turnout seen during the 2020 presidential election, arguing that the dramatic increase cannot be explained by population growth alone and pointing instead to sweeping election rule changes implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hanson made the remarks Tuesday during an episode of his podcast for the Daily Signal, where he discussed President Donald Trump’s recent address to the nation and the ongoing debate surrounding the 2020 election.
President Trump has repeatedly maintained that the election he lost to former President Joe Biden was “rigged.” However, no evidence of fraud affecting the outcome of the election has been presented. Multiple state audits, including Republican-led reviews in Georgia and Arizona, as well as numerous court cases, concluded that no significant fraud altered the results of the 2020 contest.
Hanson’s comments followed Trump’s address in which the president claimed China sought to influence the 2020 election. Even so, one of Trump’s own advisers acknowledged there was “zero evidence” that any votes had been changed.
During the podcast, Hanson focused less on allegations of vote manipulation and more on the changes to election procedures that occurred during the pandemic. He argued that those changes fundamentally altered how Americans cast their ballots.
According to Hanson, absentee voting expanded dramatically during the 2020 election cycle, with what had traditionally been absentee ballots becoming broadly rebranded as mail-in voting. He claimed that mail-in ballots accounted for nearly 70% of voting nationwide during the election.
Hanson also argued that voter registration requirements changed during the pandemic, asserting that individuals could register to vote without presenting traditional forms of identification such as a driver’s license. He said that voters who lacked identification could be assigned a number that allowed them to register and vote the same day.
He contended that these changes significantly reshaped the American electoral system.
“That changed radically the entire American electoral system in one direction for the left,” Hanson said during the podcast.
Rather than focusing on claims of election fraud, Hanson suggested greater attention should be paid to the procedural changes that occurred during the pandemic. He said he was uncertain whether those changes were legal or illegal but argued that they permanently altered the voting process.
“And so that’s what I wish he would concentrate on,” Hanson said. “I don’t know if it was illegal or legal, but the way that it did it altered the way we, we voted.”
Hanson also questioned the historic level of participation recorded in the 2020 election. He argued that population growth alone could not account for the surge in voters and pointed to the fact that more ballots were cast in 2020 than in the 2024 election.
“If you look at population increases, there’s no way in the world that you would get so many voters voting in the 2000 — more people voted in 2020 than in 2024,” Hanson said. “It was just astounding. It was just a sudden rise of voters.”
According to the Pew Research Center, voter turnout reached 66% in the 2020 presidential election, marking the highest level of participation since 1908.
Hanson maintained that the unprecedented turnout was closely tied to the election rule changes adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing those policies produced a dramatic shift in how Americans participated in the election.
[READ MORE: CNN Legal Analyst Says NYC Mayor Has ‘Zero’ Authority to Arrest Netanyahu]
