Larry Elder Campaign Removes Election Fraud Section From Website After Landslide Loss

Larry Elder has removed a page about voter fraud from his campaign website, following his crushing defeat to Governor Gavin Newsom in California's recall election.

The Republican challenger deleted the section "Stop Fraud," which linked to a separate website called StopCAFraud that wrongly claimed that Newsom had been reinstated as governor before the polls had closed on Tuesday.

A statement on the StopCAFraud site read: "Statistical analyses used to detect fraud in elections held in third-world nations (such as Russia, Venezuela and Iran) have detected fraud in California resulting in Governor Gavin Newsom being reinstated as Governor."

The StopCAFraud website, which was paid for in part by Elder's campaign, also asked visitors to petition California officials "to investigate and ameliorate the twisted results."

It was the latest in several unfounded claims of election fraud made by Elder during the campaign. But as Newsom's victory was becoming clear, the Republican deleted the "Stop Fraud" section from his campaign website.

Using the WayBackMachine, a tool that archives web pages, Newsweek found that the StopCAFraud website had also been heavily altered, with the "Statistical analyses…" passage removed.

Another claim, that "instances of undocumented ballots have been discovered prior to the election date of September 14," has been deleted.

At the time of writing, the StopCAFraud website is asking Californians to fill out an affidavit form if they "experienced any irregularities, interference or intimidation while voting."

Newsweek has contacted Elder's campaign for comment.

In his victory speech on Tuesday night, Newsom said: "I said this many, many times on the campaign trail. We may have defeated Trump, but Trumpism is not dead in this country. The 'big lie,' the January 6 insurrection, all the voting suppression efforts that are happening all across this country,"

Newsom has portrayed the recall as a Republican-driven effort since he launched his campaign earlier this year.

He called the campaigners who promoted the recall petition a "coalition of national Republicans, anti-vaxxers, QAnon conspiracy theorists and anti-immigrant Trump supporters."

Those characterizations were fiercely disputed by the promoters of the recall petition.

Newsom was only the second governor in California's history to face a recall election and the first to defeat one.

In 2003, Democrat Gray Davis was removed from office and replaced by action movie star and Republican candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger. "Governator" Schwarzenegger won re-election in 2006. Since his term ended in 2011, the governorship has been held by Democrats.