United States 2016 Presidential Election
November 8, 2016
A Russian influence campaign, social-media operations and hack-and-leak were documented by U.S. official investigations. That vote-counting systems altered the recorded result was not established.
Official results
- Hillary Clinton (D)48.2%65,853,514
Popular-vote plurality; 227 electoral votes
- Donald Trump (R)46.1%62,984,828
Won the Electoral College, 304 votes
The Integrity Ledger
What the evidence establishes, and what it does not — side by side, each finding sourced and tiered.
What is established
- Foreign interferenceConfirmed
The Russian government interfered in the election in what the Mueller Report called a “sweeping and systematic fashion”; the Intelligence Community assessed that President Putin ordered an influence campaign that developed a preference for candidate Trump.
- Information operationsConfirmed
The Internet Research Agency ran a social-media operation impersonating Americans and buying political ads; 13 Russian nationals and three entities were indicted in February 2018.
- Foreign interferenceConfirmed
GRU military-intelligence officers (Units 26165 and 74455) hacked the DNC, DCCC and Clinton-campaign accounts and staged the release of stolen material via “Guccifer 2.0” and DCLeaks.
- Foreign interferenceConfirmed
Russian actors probed and targeted U.S. election infrastructure at the state and local level from at least 2014.
What is not established
- Result falsificationDebunked
That vote tallies were altered or voting machines manipulated — not established. DHS assessed the systems Russian actors targeted were not involved in vote tallying, and the Senate Committee saw no evidence votes were changed.
- Information operationsAlleged
That the interference changed the outcome — not established. The Intelligence Community explicitly made no assessment of the campaign’s impact on the result.
Sources:1 - Foreign interferenceContested
The Special Counsel’s investigation did not establish that the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government — an official finding of insufficient evidence, not an exoneration.
Sources:1