The US 2020 Presidential Election

[Albany Rifles]

If you want to get money out of elections, ban K street and public sector union lobbying. What The Zuck did (he really is a malevolent force) was virtually privatize the collection and counting of votes.

Having lived in DC...burn K Street to the ground.

I want all elections to be publicly funded.

[TopHatter]

Judge dismisses Fulton County ballot review case in Georgia

ATLANTA (AP) — A judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit that alleged fraud in Georgia’s most populous county during the 2020 election. The suit sought a review of some 147,000 absentee ballots in search of illegitimate votes.

The lawsuit was originally filed in December and said there was evidence of fraudulent ballots and improper ballot counting in Fulton County. It was filed by nine Georgia voters and spearheaded by Garland Favorito, a longtime critic of Georgia’s election systems.

Henry County Superior Court Chief Judge Brian Amero’s order dismissing the case says the Georgia voters who brought the lawsuit “failed to allege a particularized injury” and therefore lacked the standing to claim that their state constitutional rights to equal protection and due process had been violated.

“All citizens of Georgia have a right to know whether or not counterfeit ballots were injected into the Fulton Co. election results, how many were injected, where they came from and how we can prevent it from happening again in future elections,” Favorito wrote in an email. “It is not adequate for any organizations to secretly tell us there are no counterfeit ballots and refuse to let the public inspect them.”

He added that his team had “prepared diligently to show the evidence of our allegations” at a hearing Amero had previously scheduled for Nov. 15.

Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts celebrated the lawsuit’s dismissal.

“Today was a win for democracy,” he said in an emailed statement. “This lawsuit was the result of the Big Lie, which is nothing more than a meritless conspiracy theory being spread by people who simply cannot accept that their side lost. Its defeat here today should echo throughout the nation.”

The ballot review effort in Fulton County was one of a number of similar reviews and audits that supporters of former President Donald Trump and others pursued after alleging fraud during the 2020 general election. State and federal election election officials have repeatedly said there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the election.

Angered by his narrow loss in a traditionally red state, Trump focused his fury on Georgia, and particularly on Fulton County. He and his allies harshly criticized top Republican elected officials in the state for not acting to overturn his loss.

The lawsuit filed by Favorito and others relied heavily on sworn affidavits from several people who participated in a hand recount of the ballots that stemmed from a state audit requirement. They asserted that they saw suspicious-looking absentee ballots that looked as if they had been marked by machine rather than by hand and had not been creased as they would have been to fit in an envelope.

During a hearing last month, Amero had asked or an update into any investigations by the secretary of state’s office and Georgia Bureau of Investigation into allegations of fraudulent or counterfeit ballots in Fulton County.

Lawyers with the state attorney general’s office on Tuesday filed a response brief that details investigative steps taken in response to the claims. Investigators interviewed witnesses and examined about 1,000 absentee ballots and ballot images. They did not uncover any ballots matching those described by the people who swore affidavits or that otherwise appeared to be fraudulent or counterfeit, the brief says.

Investigators examined the ballots in the batches and box identified by one person who participated the hand count, but all had been creased and none appeared to have been marked by a computer. The woman then told investigators she may have been mistaken and gave them another box number, but investigators determined that the box-batch combination she cited didn’t exist.
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[TopHatter]

Republicans continue to push election conspiracies at Trump-backed Michigan rally

Several Donald Trump-backed elected officials and candidates for state office gathered on the steps of the Michigan state Capitol building Tuesday to demand a “forensic audit” of the 2020 presidential election, repeating many of the same unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud that the former president and his supporters have been pushing for almost a year.

The event’s organizers had initially expected around 100 people to show up for the rally, but Michigan state police said Monday they were preparing for a much larger crowd after former President Donald Trump urged his supporters to attend. According to a report from Sinclair Broadcast Group, roughly 300 to 400 people were present at the state capitol in Lansing when the rally began at noon.

Trump had promoted the event in an Oct. 8 statement, writing, “Big Michigan Rally coming up on Oct. 12th, on the Capitol steps in Lansing, where Patriots will demand a Forensic Audit of the 2020 Presidential Election Scam. The Voter Fraud is beyond what anyone can believe. Anyone who cares about our Great Country should attend, because unless we look to the past and fix what happened, we won’t have a future or a Country.”

Three Trump-endorsed candidates spoke at the rally: Kristina Karamo, who is running for secretary of state; Matt DePerno, who is running for attorney general; and state Rep. Steve Carra, who is trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, a Republican who voted for Trump’s impeachment following the violence on Jan. 6. State Reps. John Reilly and Daire Rendon also spoke, with Rendon saying she’s seen “a lot of evidence” of fraud. Rendon was reportedly wearing a “Q” button at the event, representing the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory.

Other speakers included former Dominion Voting Systems contractor Mellissa Carone, whose outlandish and erroneous claims about alleged ballot fraud in Detroit became the subject of a "Saturday Night Live" skit after she appeared alongside Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani at a Michigan House panel last December. Carone is running in 2022 for the Michigan House seat currently held by Reilly, who can no longer seek reelection because of term limits. Despite being introduced at Tuesday’s rally as a Trump-backed candidate, Carone clarified that she has yet to receive the former president’s coveted endorsement.

Despite no credible evidence of electoral fraud, Republican politicians and activists across the country have been pushing for “forensic audits,” like the one that occurred this year in Arizona’s Maricopa County, in a quixotic attempt to overturn the November election. The Maricopa review, which was undertaken by pro-Trump partisans, eventually concluded that Joe Biden had won the county. Liz Harris, an Arizona Republican who supported the audit, was among the speakers at Tuesday’s rally in Michigan.

While Michigan’s electoral votes went to Trump in 2016, Biden narrowly won the state in 2020. In March, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced that the state had completed 250 audits, all of which “confirmed the integrity and accuracy of the 2020 general election.”

Numerous Republican lawmakers and candidates have refused to admit that Trump lost the election in the months since far-right rioters attempted to stop the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6. An August Yahoo News/YouGov survey found that66 percent of Republicans said "the election was rigged and stolen from Trump," while just 18 percent said "Joe Biden won fair and square." Those results are in line with a September CNN poll that found 78 percent of Republicans saying Biden did not win, and 54 percent saying there was solid evidence to support their belief despite no such evidence existing.

Across the country, Republicans who say the election was stolen are contesting secretary of state races. The position typically denotes a state’s top election official, raising fears of what might happen if the offices are won by candidates who say the last election was illegitimate. According to Reuters, 10 of the 15 Republican candidates for secretary of state in five key battleground states are still questioning whether Trump actually lost.

At a House Oversight Committee hearing last week, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., was asked who won the election in Arizona and replied, "We don't know. There are a lot of issues with this election that took place.”

"There's the problem," said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who asked Biggs the question. "Donald Trump refused to accept the results, and unfortunately we have one of the world's great political parties, which has followed him off of the ledge of this electoral lunacy, and it's dangerous for democracy."

At that same hearing, the Republican vice chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors expressed concern that the review was just the start.

“This is without a doubt the biggest threat to our democracy in my lifetime,” Bill Gates, the vice chairman, said. “If elected officials continue to choose party over truth, then these procedures are going to continue on these privately funded, government-backed attacks on legitimate elections.”

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, the second-highest ranking House Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, refused to say the election wasn’t stolen. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who was the third-highest ranking Republican in the House until she was ousted from the position earlier this year after voting for Trump’s second impeachment, criticized Scalise for his comments.

“Millions of Americans have been sold a fraud that the election was stolen,” Cheney tweeted. “Republicans have a duty to tell the American people that this is not true. Perpetuating the Big Lie is an attack on the core of our constitutional republic.”

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee released a damning report revealing new details about how Trump and his allies attempted to pressure the Justice Department into overturning his defeat in the 2020 election. The report was the result of an eight-month investigation into Trump’s efforts to undermine the outcome of the election, culminating in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

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[TopHatter]

Pressure mounts on ex-DoJ official Jeff Clark over Trump’s ‘election subversion scheme’

Jeffrey Clark, a former top environmental lawyer at the Trump justice department accused of plotting with Trump to undermine the 2020 election results in Georgia and other states, is facing ethics investigations in Washington that could lead to possible disbarment, as well as a watchdog inquiry that might result in a criminal referral.

The mounting scrutiny of the ex-assistant attorney general, who led the justice department’s environment division for almost two years and then ran its civil division, was provoked by a report from the Senate judiciary committee whose Democratic chairman, Richard Durbin, has asked the DC bar’s disciplinary counsel to examine Clark’s conduct and possibly sanction him.

The panel’s exhaustive 394-page report followed an eight-month inquiry, and included voluntary testimony from former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue, revealing how Clark schemed privately with Trump about ways to pressure Rosen to help launch an inquiry into baseless charges of voting fraud in Georgia and other states that Joe Biden won.

The report noted Clark repeatedly tried to “induce Rosen into helping Trump’s election subversion scheme”, including by telling Rosen that if he agreed to join their cabal to overturn election results, Clark would turn down an offer Trump had made him to become attorney general in place of Rosen.

Clark was asked by the Senate panel to testify voluntarily in July but declined, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The Senate report was shared with the House select committee that has been investigating the 6 January attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, and Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results. On 13 October, the committee issued a subpoena seeking deposition testimony, and it requested records from Clark on 29 October, after reportedly struggling to get his cooperation.

“It’s no mystery why Clark is playing hard to get with Congress,” said former justice department inspector general Michael Bromwich in an interview with the Guardian. “He faces a meaningful threat of criminal liability based on the facts contained in the Senate report.

“The Senate report provides overwhelming evidence that Jeffrey Clark became a witting pawn of Trump’s in trying to launch a coup in the justice department, which would then serve as the launching pad for the broader coup whose aim was to overturn the results of the election.”

Clark’s covert efforts to help Trump have been under scrutiny by the current inspector general at the justice department, Michael Horowitz, since January, when news reports surfaced about his machinations with Trump to help overturn the election results by spurring an investigation in Georgia focused on baseless claims of voting fraud.

It’s unclear when the inspector general inquiry will be concluded, but depending on the findings, a criminal referral could result.

The Senate report provided new details about the secretive pressure tactics deployed by Trump and Clark to persuade Rosen to accede to their schemes to help nullify Biden’s win, even after Trump staunch ally, attorney general William Barr, publicly stated on 1 December that the election results were not marred by fraud that “could have effected a different outcome in the election”.

Strikingly, the report described a bizarre multi-hour White House meeting on 3 January that was attended by Trump, Rosen, Clark and other top administration lawyers, where Trump initially showed strong interest in ousting Rosen, who had been resisting pressures from Clark to open an inquiry into fraud allegations, and replacing him with Clark.

According to Rosen’s testimony, Trump began the meeting by taking an aggressive posture and declaring: “One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren’t going to do anything to overturn the election.”

At the end of the meeting, Trump dropped the covert scheme to oust Rosen after Rosen’s deputy Donoghue told Trump that he, Rosen and others, including the two top White House attorneys, would resign in protest.

Pat Cipollone, the top White House lawyer, condemned Trump’s plan as a “murder-suicide pact,” according to the Senate report.

The Senate report formally recommended that the DC bar’s disciplinary counsel “evaluate Clark’s conduct to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted”.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a top Democrat on the judiciary panel, in a statement to the Guardian said: “Either Jeffrey Clark was an enterprising sycophant looking to score points with a transactional president, or he was a cog in a much larger election-theft scheme. [Why not both? - TH]

“Clark’s testimony under oath will be very important to arrive at the full truth, which is why it’s very hard to imagine he avoids testifying – either before Congress or a grand jury.”

Before the release of the Senate report, ABC News unearthed emails revealing that Clark tried to get Rosen and his deputy to approve a letter he drafted on 28 December that would have pressed Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp to “convene a special session” of the state legislature to examine unfounded allegations of voting fraud before 6 January, when Congress met to certify the results.

The Senate GOP’s minority in a separate report offered a tepid defense for Trump and Clark’s actions, stating that Trump “listened to all data points” at the White House meeting where several resignations were threatened, and “rejected” the path Clark promoted with Trump’s apparent blessings. Grassley also faulted the Democrats for issuing their report before hearing from Clark and receiving more documents.

Still, two days before the majority report, about three dozen prominent lawyers and former DoJ officials signed an ethics complaint orchestrated by Lawyers Defending American Democracy which also asked the DC disciplinary counsel to investigate Clark’s conduct with an eye to sanctions.

The lawyers wrote that Clark “made false statements about the integrity of the election in a concerted effort to disseminate an official statement of the United States Department of Justice that the election results in multiple states were unreliable”.

Trump nominated Clark in mid-2017 to serve as assistant attorney general of the DoJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, but he was only narrowly confirmed in October 2018.
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[zraver]

Looks like 2020, wasn't so pure after all.

Racine County, Wisconsin law enforcement blew the 2020 election integrity question wide open on Thursday after an investigation into one nursing home. It revealed not only that state election officials flagrantly broke the law and ordered health-care employees to help them, but that the problem likely runs much deeper throughout the swing state’s other 71 counties.

An “election statute was in fact not just broken, but shattered by members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission,” Sheriff Christopher Schmaling said during a Thursday press conference in which he and Sgt. Michael Luell detailed the findings of an investigation into Ridgewood Care Facility.
What Happened in Racine County?


The investigation came about when a woman named Judy signed a sworn affidavit with the Wisconsin Elections Commission after she discovered that her mother, who had died on Oct. 9, 2020 after a period of severe cognitive decline, had voted in the 2020 presidential election. The affidavit was later passed along as a complaint to the county district attorney.

Judy alleged that her mother Shirley’s mental state had deteriorated so far that she was having hallucinations and wasn’t able to recall what she had eaten during a day or even what day it was. According to Judy, her mother couldn’t see — her glasses were broken, and she couldn’t even recognize her own daughter — so even if she were of a sound mind, she wouldn’t have known whether someone assisting her with a ballot had voted according to her wishes.

Luell, who led the investigation at the request of the district attorney, found an unusual spike in voting at this care facility: 42 people had voted in the 2020 presidential election. That number is usually 10. Furthermore, in 2020, 38 people had requested absentee ballots, up from the usual 0-3 in normal years.

When Luell attempted to contact the families of these voters to check whether their loved ones had the cognitive capacity to cast a vote, seven replied no, and almost all of them hadn’t voted since 2012. One of the family members said his mother would ask him who he was, meaning she didn’t recognize her own son. She hadn’t voted since 2012 — yet MyVote Wisconsin revealed she voted twice in 2020.
Wisconsin Election Commission Broke the Law


This surge in voting was the result of Wisconsin Elections Commission officials breaking state law. The commission — which is made up of six commissioners, including three Democrats and three Republicans, who are appointed by legislative leaders or the governor and serve as an agency in the executive branch under the governor — authorized nursing home employees to help residents vote, which Luell noted “is a direct violation of law.”

According to Luell, employees would ask residents how they voted in the past and then vote according to that party. In other words, if Judy’s mother “could only recall JFK,” staff would vote Democrat for her.

According to state law, however, nursing home staff can’t assist residents with voting. In fact, nobody can help the voter other than a relative or “special voting deputies,” which are people appointed by municipal clerks or elections boards to conduct absentee voting at care facilities.

In March, however, the Wisconsin Elections Commission sent out a letter mandating that municipalities should not use the “special voting deputy process.”

“Ladies and gentleman, it’s not a process. It’s the law,” Luell said, citing state Statute 6.875.

The original letter was issued under the guise of COVID guidelines. Nevertheless, in September, after the governors’ lockdown orders had expired and the initial shock of the pandemic had passed, the Wisconsin Elections Commission sent a letter to all residential care facilities telling the workers how to help residents vote, including even marking the ballot for them, in direct violation of state law.

Racine law enforcement looked at 2020 visitor logs and found that other visitors were let into the nursing home throughout the pandemic, about 900 times between the decision in March not to use special voting deputies and November 2020. Those visitors included someone to clean the fish tanks and birdcages and even DoorDash delivery people.

“Those people were allowed into the Ridgewood Care Facility, but heaven forbid we make an exception for special voting deputies,” Luell said.

Under Wisconsin state statute 12.13, breaking these laws about special voting deputies constitutes “election fraud,” which is a felony.

“We’re just one of 72 counties, Racine County,” Schmaling noted. “Ridgeland is one of 11 facilities within our county. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of these facilities throughout the entire state of Wisconsin. We would be foolish, we would be foolish to think for a moment that this integrity issue, this violation of the statute, occurred to just this small group of people at one care facility in one county in the entire state. I would submit to you that this needs the attorney general’s investigation,” the sheriff said, calling for the AG to launch an immediate probe into the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Add It to the List


This bombshell investigation is only the latest in the long list of malfeasant actions by the Wisconsin Elections Commission, especially regarding the 2020 election. As Wisconsin radio host and lawyer Dan O’Donnell put it, the commission “was downright derelict in its duty to fairly and impartially oversee an election.”

As O’Donnell documented, the commission unlawfully allowed clerks to “cure” ballots, illegally permitted clerks to go home on election night and return to finish counting in the morning, and illegally told clerks they could relocate polling locations in the weeks before the election.

Furthermore, the commission failed to issue relevant laws and rules for training municipal election workers, special voting deputies, and election inspections. Worse, it failed to investigate voter rolls for the hundreds of thousands there incorrectly, including more than 45,000 first-time voters whose names didn’t match Department of Transportation records, among other issues.

As The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway outlines in her new book “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections,” the Wisconsin Elections Commission also wrongly kept third-party candidates off the ballot, including Kanye West and the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins. Third parties can significantly affect elections in the Dairy State.

“Following the [Legislative Audit Bureau] report, what Sheriff Schmaling has uncovered + disclosed might only be tip of the iceberg of fraud in the 2020 election. The Legislature must be given the time, resources, and cooperation of election officials to conduct a complete investigation of allegations,” tweeted Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin following the Racine press conference. “Using elderly residents with cognitive decline to commit election fraud is reprehensible, and should concern every Wisconsinite and American.”

Johnson continued: “If Democrats will stoop this low to impact elections, one can only imagine what else they’re willing to do.”

[DOR]

Johnson continued: “If Democrats will stoop this low to impact elections, one can only imagine what else they’re willing to do.”

Aside from the JFK reference, any indication that one party or the other was directing this?

[zraver]

Nope, but whom is less important than what. It was not a flawless perfect election.

[TopHatter]

Nope, but whom is less important than what. It was not a flawless perfect election.

Who has claimed it was a flawless perfect election? A source is needed for that claim.

Indeed, there are already posts on this very thread about Republican-perpetrated election fraud in 2020.

[zraver]

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates...e-history-dhs/

Just one of many such claims.

As for fraud arrests... They are nationwide. Use Google dude.

https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov...ting-and-fraud

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisond...is-widespread/

[DOR]

And yet ... and yet ... and yet ... not a single case has been shown to have any impact on the outcome!

It's almost as if it's a non-issue designed to obstruct and confuse!

[zraver]

Fraud does not require success.... But if want impact as many as 1 in 7 voters would not have voted for Joe if the Hunter laptop story had not been supressed and labeled Russian dusinfo. Or the sudden massive spikes in turnout in Dem counties with CTCL embeds from zuck buck's.

[TopHatter]

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates...e-history-dhs/

Just one of many such claims.

You should read the links that you post:

Election infrastructure officials: 2020 election was "most secure in American history"


In a joint statement, members of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council, CISA Assistant Director, the National Secretaries of State, and others called the 2020 election the "most secure in American history"

CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council are under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security.

The statement from the agencies said there is "there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

"While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too," the statement said. "When you have questions, turn to elections officials as trusted voices as they administer elections."

The statement refers to the electronic voting systems like Dominion that were used. Not that there was zero fraud perpetrated by individual persons, which there always is.

"Most secure" means that there was no changing of votes due to "Chinese thermostats"

"Most secure" means that the Dominion voting machines were not hacked by Venezuela or any other country.

"Most secure" means that the batshit claims of these lunatics are just that: Batshit claims by lunatics.




I repeat, nobody has claimed that this was a "flawless perfect election" as you have asserted. That sort of hyperbolic alternate-reality nonsense is the domain of narcissists, con men and cultists.

As for fraud arrests... They are nationwide. Use Google dude.

https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov...ting-and-fraud

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisond...is-widespread/

I never mentioned fraud arrests. Or even claimed a lack of fraud. Perhaps you can link to my post or posts where I did.

[DOR]

Fraud does not require success.... But if want impact as many as 1 in 7 voters would not have voted for Joe if the Hunter laptop story had not been supressed and labeled Russian dusinfo. Or the sudden massive spikes in turnout in Dem counties with CTCL embeds from zuck buck's.

Is that original, or Fox?

[statquo]

I'll never understand the undying loyalty to Donald Trump and the manifestation of his excuses within his supporters. He's not going to hire you if you continue to push his lies. The guy lost the Presidency, Senate and House in 4 years, but it was because the election was 'stolen' which was the reason he lost. None of his blunders were his fault. Just unfair media coverage. Please.

I remember 2003 pre-Iraq War, Canada, Germany, France etc. all saying it was wrong and that there were no WMDs. The US ignored them, changed French fries into Freedom Fries, and what to you know, they were right all along. Jump to 2020, wouldn't there be a vested interest from these other countries, if the US elections were actually stolen? Especially a country like Canada which is right next door? If the US election was actually rigged, wouldn't they need to sound the alarm and put in necessary precautions in their own elections, which they just had? Wouldn't there be intelligence sharing? This is the real world. Not Donald "No I don't take any responsibility' Trump's magical, senile imagination.

It's been sad seeing grown, respectable adults who support Trump do this still. Supporting his presidency is one thing, maybe you got something out of it you liked. Supporting his excuses for losing is embarassing. I think a lot of us are well past our maxed out intake of second hand embarassment from this. I expect this type of stuff from college aged Democrats, not grown ass adults. Let's get back to the real world here. It's been almost a full year since Trump lost the election. It's time to move on and admit you got fooled (Probably by Facebook). And you don't even have to admit it to anyone, just tell yourself you got fooled and you'll be forgiven.

[zraver]

Is that original, or Fox?

A study quoted by Mollie Hemmingway