Category: 2020 Election

About those voters who left the GOP this year? Things have now normalized.

Washington Post logo

In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot, some news organizations and pundits jumped onto the convenient narrative that large numbers of registered Republicans were suddenly leaving the party. But as others pointed out at the time, it was still too early to draw definitive conclusions.

It turned out that the hesitancy was well founded. As more states published updated voter registration numbers, it became apparent that the predicted flood of voters abandoning the GOP was, at best, no more than a modest stream.

Although reports of the death of the Republican Party were greatly exaggerated (or, really, entirely unfounded), it’s true that the number of Republicans deciding to change their party affiliation was greater than normal — at least briefly. It’s possible they were spurred on by some combination of Donald Trump’s loss, attempted subversion of the 2020 election and some GOP members’ support for the impeachment and removal of the former president. Continue reading.

Trump voter in Pennsylvania convicted of voter fraud

MSNBC Logo

As a Trump voter in Pennsylvania is convicted of casting a ballot for his dead mother, whatever happened to the reward money offered by Texas’ Dan Patrick?

In the wake of Donald Trump’s defeat six months ago, Republicans launched a desperate search for illegally cast ballots to help justify the GOP’s conspiracy theories. But despite all the hysterical rhetoric, only a handful of legitimate allegations have been raised, and some involve Republicans casting illegal ballots for Trump on behalf of dead relatives.

Take Bruce Bartman, for example. The Washington Post reported this morning:

Weeks before Election Day, Bruce Bartman mailed his mother’s absentee ballot with a check mark next to President Donald Trump’s name. The problem was, his mother had been dead since 2008. Bartman, 70, pleaded guilty on Friday to a charge of felony perjury and unlawful voting — and blamed his decision to cast the fraudulent ballot on consuming too many false claims about the election.

Continue reading.

Outfit Running Arizona ‘Election Audit’ Insists On Secrecy, Rejects Transparency

National Memo logo

The firm running an audit of election results in Arizona’s largest county is refusing to make public the procedures it is using in its review of more than 2 million ballots cast in the state in the 2020 election — even though a judge ordered it to do so because of concerns raised over the legality of its process.

Cyber Ninjas — which is run by a Donald Trump-supporting conspiracy theoristwho pushed lies about voter fraud in the 2020 election — said in a court filing on Sunday that it should not have to release its procedures, citing that they are “confidential” and subject to legislative privilege, the Arizona Republic reported.

A judge on Friday had ordered the firm, tapped by Republican state Senate President Karen Fann to oversee the audit, to release its procedures after concerns were raised by the media and Arizona’s secretary of state about whether it was following state election laws. Continue reading.

Trump campaign sent to collections by City of Albuquerque over unpaid bills: report

Raw Story Logo

According to a report from KOB4, the city of Albuquerque is sending former president Donald Trump to collection over unpaid bills dating back to a rally he held in the city in 2019.

At issue is close to $200,000 in security costs the city incurred after Trump spent the night in local hotel as well as the costs of “blocking off parts of downtown, paying police officers overtime and covering the paid time off expenses of city workers who had to stay home,” the report states.

According to Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, “We actually treated it like any other debt, and so it goes through a somewhat process where you send a bunch of letters out. We got no response from those letters. And then automatically, it does go to an agency that helps try and collect debts, and so that’s those annoying phone calls you get that say, you know, you owe money to so-and-so like now, Trump is getting those.” Continue reading.

Fox News hosts accused of conspiring behind the scenes with Trump attorneys as network faces lawsuit

“The Fox anchors decided to join forces with Giuliani and Powell to disseminate disinformation about Smartmatic”

A new court filing argues that Fox News anchors cannot hide behind the First Amendment after helping former president Donald Trump and his allies spread election lies.

Voting technology company Smartmatic filed a 120-page motion asking a New York state court to reject the conservative network’s attempt to dismiss a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit by claiming its coverage was protected speech, arguing those protections should not apply because anchors knew election fraud claims were untrue, reported Law & Crime.

“This is not a game. The First Amendment does not provide the Fox Defendants a Get Out Of Jail Free card,” the motion argues. “The Fox Defendants do not get a do-over with their reporting now that they have been sued.” Continue reading.

The great capitulation of Trump’s voter fraud crusade

Washington Post logo

The 2020 election is a case study in how unproved claims can be weaponized. For decades, former president Donald Trump’s party warned of significant voter fraud while successfully pushing policies such as voter ID. In 2016, Trump laid a predicate for contesting an election by suggesting there was massive fraud, even in an election he had won. By 2020, when Trump lost, it culminated in a huge portion of the electorate believing a “stolen election” theory for which there is vanishingly little actual evidence.

Some have done more than raise questions, though. They, like Trump and often in search of his allies’ support, have alleged actual massive fraud.

But now they’ve been asked to account for it. And crucially and increasingly, they have backed down. Continue reading.

Smartmatic says disinformation on Fox News about the election was ‘no accident.’

New York Times logo

The election technology company Smartmatic pushed back on Monday against Fox News’s argument that it had covered the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election responsibly, stating that Fox anchors had played along as guests pushed election-related conspiracy theories.

“The First Amendment does not provide the Fox defendants a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Smartmatic’s lawyer, J. Erik Connolly, wrote in a brief filed in New York State Supreme Court. “The Fox defendants do not get a do-over with their reporting now that they have been sued.”

The brief came in response to motions filed by Fox Corporation and three current and former Fox hosts — Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Lou Dobbs — to dismiss a Smartmatic lawsuit accusing them of defamation. Continue reading.

Kristen Clarke faced abuse for taking on Trump. Now she’s poised to lead Justice Department’s civil rights team.

Washington Post logo

President Donald Trump was waging his baseless assault on the presidential election results last fall when Kristen Clarke, head of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, opened her inbox to a stream of vicious threats over her efforts to fight back and protect the rights of voters.

Openly misogynistic, littered with racial epithets, the messages were of the variety that seeks to debase and intimidate prominent minority women. “May you be found guilty by military tribunal and executed by hanging,” one email read.

Clarke, who is Black, posted it on Twitter. Continue reading.

Republicans across the country are helping Dominion make its case against the defendants’ lies

Raw Story Logo

Baseless Republican attacks on Dominion Voting Systems may come back to bite major Donald Trump supporters in the wallet. That’s because the company appears to be losing significant business in jurisdictions where Republicans control decisions about which vendors will supply voting equipment.

To collect damages the company must show that it suffered financial harm. In that regard, various elected Republicans around the country are helping Dominion make its case as the defendants’ lies about Dominion machines are causing it to lose millions of dollars of business.

In separate lawsuits, Dominion is seeking actual damages of $1.6 billion from Fox News, and $1.3 billion each from Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and the My Pillow Guy, Mike Lindell. It is also seeking punitive damages. Continue reading.

How non-religious voters became a key part of Trump’s downfall

AlterNet Logo

For all the predictions and talk of a slump in support among evangelicals, it appears Donald Trump’s election loss was not at the hands of religious voters.

2020 U.S. presidential election results by faith. And by and large there was very little notable change in the vote choice of religious groups between 2016 and 2020 – in fact, for most faiths, support for Trump ticked up slightly. Instead, it was among those who do not identify with any religion that Trump saw a noticeable drop.

Despite exit poll data initially pointing toward a drop in white evangelical support for Trump in 2020, the latest data shows this not to be the case. The data is based on the Cooperative Election Study, which has become the gold standard for assessing vote choice because of its sample size and its ability to accurately represent the voting population of the United States. Continue reading.