The term election denier is a loaded one, but the definition isn't always clear.

Which is why it’s important to define it for the purposes of this USA TODAY package detailing candidates running this year we’ve labeled “election deniers.”

The USA TODAY Network focused on seven key states that sent false electors saying Trump won the 2020 election – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In these seven states, a candidate is included as an election denier if they:

• Were one of the 147 members of Congress who voted against certifying the election results or said they would have if they were in office.
• Have publicly said the 2020 election was “rigged,” “stolen,” marred by voter fraud or otherwise illegitimate — and have not recanted their false claim.
• Or still publicly question the results of the 2020 election, nearly two years after it has been certified.

The Network came to this definition after interviewing some of the country’s most respected experts of election law: Ben Ginsberg, co-chair of the Election Official Legal Defense Network and a longtime Republican election lawyer who represented George W. Bush’s campaign in the 2000 Florida recount; Richard L. Hasen, an author and law professor at UCLA Law School; Adav Noti, senior vice president and legal director of the Campaign Legal Center; and Ian Vandewalker, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Elections & Government Program.

Some candidates complicated the decision of...

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