Voter Suppression & Election Theft by the Republican Party

[pnwguy]

May 12, 2022 20:24:05 GMT andydp said:

May 12, 2022 20:17:28 GMT pnwguy said:

When Gym Jordan is House Speaker in 2023, expect him to name a new committee to investigate Benghazi all over again. And who was the sitting Vice President when this Epic Massacre of American Patriots happened? Hunter Biden's father.  He needs to be subpoenaed before the committee.

The Benghazi attack in 2012 was part of the Deep State's planning to steal the 2020 election for Joe Biden.  These liberal traitors were planning this way in advance, using Jewish space lasers to destroy evidence in Libya.  

Are you doing freelance work for Reps Boebert, Greene or Newsmax ?

Peter Thiel sends me millions directly by PayPal. 

[LFC]

May 12, 2022 20:24:05 GMT andydp said:

Are you doing freelance work for Reps Boebert, Greene or Newsmax ?

Aren't they all just different user interfaces for the same thing?

[LFC]

Another liar loses another bogus court case, but this liar is running for governor of Georgia.

Georgia Judge Laughs David Perdue’s 2020 Election Lawsuit Out Of Court

A state judge in Georgia laughed former U.S. senator and Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate David Perdue out of court, saying in essence that he had no idea what he was talking about when he filed suit late last year over the 2020 election results in Georgia.

Just days after announcing his campaign to become Georgia’s next governor, Perdue sued Fulton County, alleging that through “acts and omissions,” the county “circumvented the majority of the people” in Georgia. Perdue, who lost a special Senate election that year to Sen. Jon Ossoff (D), sought access to ballots in order to conduct a “forensic inspection.”

“Clearly,” the suit alleged, “unlawful counterfeit absentee ballots were counted and certified in the General Election.”

Superior Court Judge Robert C.I. McBurney didn’t buy it.

Perdue’s claims, McBurney wrote, consisted of “speculation, conjecture and paranoia — sufficient fodder for talk shows, op-ed pieces and social media platforms, but far short of what would legally justify a court taking such action.” He said the plaintiffs had failed to state a proper claim for declaratory relief, and granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the case.

Perdue’s suit, which echoed another unsuccessful water-muddying suit in the state, had asked the court’s permission, McBurney wrote, to “effectively empower Petitioners’ unnamed ‘forensic experts’ to intrude upon the sealed ballot materials of tens of thousands of Fulton County voters, hunt for speculative voter fraud or error, and then determine for themselves what the ‘actual’ vote count should have been in the Election.”

“This quixotic journey will not take place,” he said.

[LFC]

Oh, Tina. After illegal release of voting information you then get caught up in another scandal with Mr. MyPillow? You poor, dim, incompetent little thing.

Colorado Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, a hardline Trumper who’s been indicted over an election systems data leak that surfaced at MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium,” is facing yet another ethics investigation — and she has her buddy Lindell to thank for that.

The Colorado Independent Ethics Commission (EIC) on Tuesday approved an ethics complaint against Peters filed by a citizen named Anne Landman, who had previously filed two other complaints against the clerk that have also been approved by the EIC.

The latest complaint alleges that Peters violated Colorado’s Constitution by accepting Lindell’s contributions to her legal defense fund that went far beyond what the state allows elected officials to receive in donations.

The complaint points to an interview Lindell had with local news outlet 9NEWS on April 5, during which the pillow tycoon stated that he’d funneled all the money into Peters’ defense fund himself.

“How much is that?” the 9NEWS reporter asked.

“I don’t know, I probably put in 3, 4, 5, maybe $800,000 of my own money,” Lindell replied.

Under the section of the Colorado’s Constitution cited in Landman’s ethics complaint, the maximum amount or value of a donation/gift is $65.

Oops.

Tina is facing a whole lot more trouble than that but the Colorado GOP is still behind her. That's what fascists do. "Law and order" is never for their own, only for their enemies.

The charges against Peters include attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit attempt to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, identity theft, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty, and failing to comply with the secretary of state.

But Peters is still digging her heels into advancing Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and is currently running for secretary of state with the solid support of the Colorado GOP.

[LFC]

Republicans were for mail-in voting before they were against it.

To me the most striking thing about last night was how much same-day voting, as opposed to early or mail-in voting, has become a central feature of partisan identity for Trumpy Republicans. If you’re for Trump, you vote in person on Election Day. The other stuff is all suspect. The fairly unique dynamics of the 2020 election and its Big Lie aftermath have ossified into doctrines.

This is a pretty dramatic reversal. Republicans long dominated mail-in and no-excuse absentee balloting. That was particularly the case for older Republicans and it was at least part of the GOP’s traditional turnout advantage. But again, now that’s all out the window.

Here's why rather than actually worrying about helping people vote.

The more operational question is whether this will affect the results of actual elections. It’s not like zero Trump Republicans vote early. A few do. Just not many. So presumably those who would struggle to vote in person do use this option. But it does at least open up some vulnerability. It’s just easier to vote on your own schedule and for many by mail. It’s also less risky. If your whole team is voting on Election Day you have extra exposure to the random chance of bad weather and other unpredictable events. I doubt this will be a big issue going forward. But it’s not nothing.

One counter-advantage Republicans have is that they tend to vote in areas with less long lines. Election Day voting is a challenge for Democratic campaigns because people have to wait in long lines. You want to bank as much of the vote as possible before Election Day to avoid that pressure on Election Day, avoid people bailing because they’re waiting for hours. That way there’s fewer numbers of people you have to get to the polls on that one day.

Republicans have some of this problem too. But they tend to be in suburban and rural areas where lines just aren’t as long. Some of that is the result of election practices targeting Democratic and non-white voters. Some of it is underfunding, which can be a passive form of targeting. But some of it is just inherent to Democratic voters being so concentrated in cities.

Ironically mail-in ballots allowed PA's lead Big Liar to win. Hmmmm. What? Oh. THOSE mail-in ballots are valid but not ones cast for Dems against Republicans. Got it.

The other irony is that Mastriano — Big Lie promoter and Jan 6th organizer — now has the exact result that Big Lie jokers use to discredit Biden’s victory. He was losing and then “suddenly” mid-evening he pulled ahead. Clearly fraud. Or just different kinds of voting being favored by different groups. Presumably his supporters won’t have an issue with this.

[LFC]

Ted Cruz could be disbarred for spreading lies about the election.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is facing potential disbarment after throwing himself into ex-President Donald Trump’s scheme to steal the 2020 election through bogus litigation.

The 65 Project, a bipartisan group that aims to hold lawyers who helped Trump try to undo the election accountable, filed a complaint to the State Bar of Texas on Wednesday. The group requested an investigation into Cruz for his work representing Trump and Pennsylvania Republicans in two failed cases in front of the Supreme Court in December.

The complaint argued that Cruz ought to be sanctioned for knowingly peddling lies about election fraud as he sought to have the high court throw out the election results.

The 65 Project noted that while Cruz clearly wasn’t the only lawmaker to try to steal the election on Trump’s behalf, the Texas senator “added the value of his law license to the effort.”

The complaint pointed to how other MAGA attorneys involved in sham election lawsuits have been hit with sanctions since the election, particularly ex-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, whose law license was suspended last year.

“Just as Mr. Giuliani has been disciplined for his conduct, so should Mr. Cruz,” the 65 Project wrote.

The complaint also mentioned Cruz’s efforts to help Trump stoke fury over the election that eventually led to the Capitol insurrection – and that Cruz still objected to certifying the election results even after the attack.

All in all, the GOP senator “chose to offer his professional license to Mr. Trump’s arsenal during the latter’s assault on our democracy,” the group concluded. “He cannot be shielded from the consequences of that decision simply because, unlike Mr. Trump’s other attorneys, he happens to hold high public office.”

In a statement to the New York Times, a Cruz spokesperson accused the 65 Project of being a “far-left dark money smear machine run by a who’s who of shameless Democrat hacks” whose complaint “won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.”

[LFC]

Here's a Republican election official's view from a front row seat to the GOP's attempted coup.

“We built this great community in Arizona, like never before,” said Matta. “We felt so good. A week before the election, we’re looking at each other going like, ‘Alright, what else can we do?’ It’s not very often when we get a chance to say, ‘You know what, we’re sitting pretty.’”

Then, the President of the United States appeared on television. As he started to speak, Matta’s heart sank. The election, Donald Trump said, was a fraud on the American people.

That speech by Trump, falsely claiming victory just after 2 a.m. in Washington, marked the beginning of months of attacks on election workers, like Matta, that continue today. Matta had worked in government for two decades after being bitten by the election security bug during the 2000 Bush v. Gore recount. He had never seen anything like it.

“Instantly, our lives changed,” he recalled in an interview with TPM. “None of us in the whole industry at that moment felt safe and secure. That’s the good name of elections thrown under the bus. And we had worked harder up to that point than we ever had before to make sure the elections were secure.”

That work didn’t matter: They were standing between Trump and power. What Matta witnessed in the 18 months since Trump’s election-night proclamation has made him fear for the future of American democracy: a sustained attack on election workers, and the resulting attrition and political gamesmanship that he says will allow conspiracy theorists and political operatives into key jobs in election administration, including secretary of state positions — the officials who in many state run elections.

The arsonists, in other words, are now arriving at the firehouse.

Matta left state government this month.

“I’m worried that people that only follow a political agenda get into power and have control over our elections,” he said. “If we get to that point, the outlook is bleak.”

Here's how the fascists ran the faudit. Intimidating, mocking, and threatening actual election workers was standard.

After Trump’s election-night address, “we swung into debunking mode,” Matta said. The office began strategizing how to fight back against the misinformation, working out communication strategies to address the President’s lies. But the lies were already bearing fruit.

The calls started rolling into the secretary’s office: Harassment, threats. A mob swarmed the Maricopa County voter tabulation center. Political operatives began their work to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Alex Jones showed up in the state. Soon, Rudy Giuliani arrived too, to meet with state legislators and hold a theatrical “hearing” on supposed voter fraud.

It didn’t end with Joe Biden’s inauguration, of course. A few weeks later, the Republican-controlled state Senate subpoenaed all 2.1 million ballots from Maricopa County, handing them over to a group of privately-funded conspiracy theorists led by the contractor Cyber Ninjas, which began a sham “audit” that included recounting the ballots and inspecting them for bamboo fibers — sure signs of meddling from Asia, the theory went.

Matta witnessed that whole episode first-hand, including as an observer of the “audit” for the secretary of state, where Cyber Ninjas’ audit workers often tried to convince him that he and his colleagues would end up in jail.

At one point, Matta began noticed pro-audit demonstrators with assault rifles eyeing the cars entering the state fairgrounds, where ballots were being stored and recounted at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

He, too, began carrying a gun.

But equally alarming for him was the treatment of millions of voters’ ballots: Matta saw audit workers mistakenly double-count 100 overseas and military ballots, but only after they’d mistakenly believed they’d uncovered evidence of fraud. Later, when the audit contractors moved into a new building, rain dripped from a leaky roof directly onto ballot boxes, and Matta saw ballots sag in the humid, un-air-conditioned room.

“They didn’t even know how many ballots they had,” he scoffed a year later, in an interview with TPM. “Their numbers didn’t jive at all.”

The audit also revealed the disdain that Trump’s true believers had for the state employees.

Audit workers were “questioning our integrity, our democratic allegiances, our sexuality,” he recalled. “It was tough to walk through that everyday.”

At the end of the ordeal, he found a “very creepy” gift box waiting on a table for him. Inside was a plastic cockroach that audit workers had repeatedly placed on his phone, a bottle of Pepto Bismol (a reference to the pink shirts that secretary of state observers were forced to wear), a seat-saver for a Trump rally with Matta’s name on it, a ticket stub for audit bankroller Patrick Byrne’s “Deep Rig” conspiracy theory movie, red and green pens, and a pack of Gas-X, which Matta said referred to the audit workers’ repeated taunts to the state observers that they should be anxious about the outcome of the audit — they would, after all, soon be behind bars.

“They were always saying, ‘Are you nervous? Because you’re going to jail.’”

I said it before and this just further confirms it; I don't believe their results because they had no idea what they were doing other than pushing for the answer they required. In the end I'm convinced they took the official and clearly accurate tally, made it look ever so slightly better for Biden as a fig leaf, and said that they actually came up with those counts. BULL SHIT!

[LFC]

Looks like Arizona Republicans have punched the numbers and determined that, despite overwhelming popularity and virtually zero evidence of fraud, any and all early voting must die. The piece below didn't mention two major points that go hand in hand with this kind of assault on elections. The first is that the working poor, not necessarily the GOP's strongest demographic, have the hardest time getting time free to vote on Election Day. The second is the push we've seen in other states, notably Georgia, to close an inordinate number of polling places in Democratic strongholds to ensure those voters have long wait times.

Arizona Republicans Want Another Chance To Eliminate Early Voting
­­Earlier this year, the Republican Party of ARIZONA sued in state court, asserting that nearly all of the state’s early voting measures — like drop boxes and absentee voting — were illegal and Arizonans should only be able to vote on Election Day itself. This despite nearly 90% of the state’s voters opting to cast their ballots early in 2020.

The state’s Supreme Court, to which the GOP had sought to have the case expedited, rejected the effort on procedural grounds, saying the Republican Party should have started the argument in a lower court.

Well, they’re back, in a lower court, making essentially the same argument, with certain exceptions such as for voters who aren’t home on Election Day and the elderly.

Voting rights groups are understandably concerned about this effort. As the League of Women Voters said last month, eliminating early voting “unjustly targets voters in underserved communities, the elderly, voters with disabilities, and those who live in rural communities or lack reliable transportation to the polls including Native Americans.” While early voting is supported by the vast majority of Arizonans, limiting it may disproportionately hurt groups that tend to vote Democratic.

A lawyer for the party said that, actually, the effort to eliminate the preferred voting method of the vast majority of Arizonans wasn’t about any of that. It was really about the integrity of the secret ballot. He imagined union toughs intimidating a voter who they knew had requested, but not returned, a ballot: “Hey, by the way, Mr. Voter, we know you haven’t returned your ballot and you have it somewhere in there, here’s the union line and you’d better vote that line, and we’ll just stand here to make sure you cast your ballot,” said the attorney, Alexander Kolodin, Capitol Media Services reported. Okay then.

Every time a Republican speaks about election integrity my gag reflex gets triggered.

[LFC]

Suddenly Pennsylvania Republicans are desperate to NOT talk about mail-in ballots. It's almost like they were never really an actual issue for the party, just an excuse to make trouble and assault democracy.

The GOP really needs Pennsylvania Republican Senate hopeful David McCormick, who’s currently locked in a near dead heat with Trump-backed rival Dr. Mehmet Oz, to knock it off with the whole “count the mail-in ballots” thing and just stick to the damn script, please.

McCormick filed a lawsuit late Monday demanding that all the state’s county boards of elections include undated mail-in ballots in their vote tallies of the race, which is likely headed toward an automatic recount as Oz’s already razor-thin lead continues to shrink. The lawsuit followed a federal appeals court ruling last week that found that the state must count undated ballots from recent elections — including the May primaries.

But the Republican National Committee and Pennsylvania Republican Party aren’t having it: The New York Times reports that they plan on intervening in an attempt to block McCormick’s bid.

The irony of the Republican hopeful’s lawsuit is blinding: It directly cites voter disenfranchisement as its argument against discounting undated ballots.

“The Boards’ refusal to count ballots due solely to the lack of a handwritten date on the exterior mailing envelope — a technical requirement that a plurality of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has already deemed not mandatory — disenfranchises registered voters of both political parties who chose to exercise their right under Commonwealth law to vote absentee or by mail, in violation of the Free Elections provision of the Commonwealth Constitution,” the lawsuit argued.

The Pennsylvania GOP put out a statement on Monday night vehemently denouncing the candidate’s lawsuit, saying “we absolutely object to the counting of undated mail-in ballots.”

The party also warned McCormick to stop muddying the election fraud narrative that Republicans have been working tirelessly to manufacture.

“We have worked hard towards restoring confidence in our elections, and we call upon everyone to respect, uphold and follow the clear law on this issue,” the Pennsylvania GOP said.

[goldenvalley]

May 24, 2022 16:32:29 GMT LFC said:

Looks like Arizona Republicans have punched the numbers and determined that, despite overwhelming popularity and virtually zero evidence of fraud, any and all early voting must die. The piece below didn't mention two major points that go hand in hand with this kind of assault on elections. The first is that the working poor, not necessarily the GOP's strongest demographic, have the hardest time getting time free to vote on Election Day. The second is the push we've seen in other states, notably Georgia, to close an inordinate number of polling places in Democratic strongholds to ensure those voters have long wait times.

Arizona Republicans Want Another Chance To Eliminate Early Voting
­­Earlier this year, the Republican Party of ARIZONA sued in state court, asserting that nearly all of the state’s early voting measures — like drop boxes and absentee voting — were illegal and Arizonans should only be able to vote on Election Day itself. This despite nearly 90% of the state’s voters opting to cast their ballots early in 2020.

snip

A lawyer for the party said that, actually, the effort to eliminate the preferred voting method of the vast majority of Arizonans wasn’t about any of that. It was really about the integrity of the secret ballot. He imagined union toughs intimidating a voter who they knew had requested, but not returned, a ballot: “Hey, by the way, Mr. Voter, we know you haven’t returned your ballot and you have it somewhere in there, here’s the union line and you’d better vote that line, and we’ll just stand here to make sure you cast your ballot,” said the attorney, Alexander Kolodin, Capitol Media Services reported. Okay then.

Every time a Republican speaks about election integrity my gag reflex gets triggered.

This is a disgusting and BS turn of events.  For years political parties hovered around voting rolls at polling places, noticed who had voted and who didn't and sent precinct walkers to knock on the doors of those who hadn't yet voted.  

Vote by mail...even just changing the name from absentee ballot to vote by mail ballot allowed the voter easier access to exercising the right to vote because the name was understandable...even in Arizona.

The biggest change came in 1991, when the state Legislature passed a law that stated any voter could cast an absentee ballot. At the time, only a few other states offered no-excuse voting by mail.

County recorders from both political parties broadly supported the change, said Helen Purcell, a Republican and former longtime Maricopa County recorder.

Republicans saw it as a tool to turn out older voters, especially retirees, said Chuck Coughlin, who worked for multiple GOP campaigns, including that of former Gov. Jan Brewer.

"The idea was to give those people an easy way to participate in civic life out here, and that was thought to be a positive thing at that time, and it was and is," said Coughlin, CEO of HighGround consulting firm. (Coughlin is now a "party not declared" voter.)

In 2007, the state created a permanent early voting list so that voters could automatically get a mail ballot for each election.

"It worked like a charm for years," said F. Ann Rodriguez, a Democrat and Pima County recorder who retired after the 2020 election. "It's been very successful."

California's laws were created at about the same time.  Nothing controversial then, just a way to make voting more accessible to everyone.  Election laws should be voter centered, not based on what is easier for elections official or more manipulatable by political parties and candidates.  

[LFC]

Pennsylvania is dragging out its own faudit. That ensures it encompasses Election Day so they can drop some lies shortly beforehand.

Pennsylvania GOP Drags Out Tortured Fake Election Audit For Another Six Months
Yippee, Pennsylvania Republican senators have extended their inquiry contract in their bogus 2020 election audit through Nov. 18. We’ll definitely find something by then, right guys?? (That is, if we take it on good faith that they’re actually trying to find something and not, say, deliberately spin a fake narrative about voter fraud to undermine people’s trust in the elections process!)

• Wisconsin Republicans similarly established a new contract earlier this month to carry on with their fake election audit–except they didn’t bother putting an end date.

As TPM’s Matt Shuham artfully put it:

“The bogus “investigation” of Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Wisconsin could extend forever into the horizon, melting into our collective consciousness until the human project comes to a sputtering end, and all memory of our presence lies deep in the neurons of our vertebrae’d brethren.”

[LFC]

Charges have been filed over Florida ghost candidates.

Three Floridians were charged Tuesday in relation to an alleged 2020 scheme to run sham candidates in local elections, part of a convoluted plot with murky links to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

State prosecutors said in a press release that they charged political consultants Eric Foglesong and Benjamin Paris in relation to the scheme, as well as alleged sham candidate Jestine Iannotti, one of a series of no-namers to run in multiple state elections in Florida in 2020.

Gaetz has not been charged or formally accused of any wrongdoing in the case.

“In 2020, Rep. Matt Gaetz was traveling the country to re-elect President Trump and secure America First allies in Congress,” a Gaetz spokesperson told TPM in a statement. “He had nothing to do with recruiting a third-party candidate in a central Florida state senate race.”

The locale where the scheme allegedly took place could lend the charges national significance.

It’s Seminole County, the suburban Orlando area where Gaetz associate Joel Greenberg rampaged as tax collector, trying to turn the office into an outpost of cryptocurrency while allegedly participating in sex trafficking.

Iannotti ran for state Senate in Seminole County as an unaffiliated candidate. She faced two opponents: Patricia Sigman, a Democratic labor attorney, and current State Sen. Jason Brodeur (R), a Gaetz associate.

Iannotti ran without any real campaign. The limited promotional materials that were released show a beaming African American woman. Iannotti is white.

At the time of the election, Iannotti was not seen in public. It later emerged that she had reportedly applied for a Swedish residency permit before the 2020 election, and later moved to Stockholm.

Her absence – and questions about fundraising for her race – stoked speculation that she was a so-called “ghost candidate,” candidates who lack party affiliation and exist to channel off votes from other contenders.

[LFC]

In Wisconsin it appears that a fake Trump elector is now about to chair the board that controls elections. Welcome to fascism where the truth doesn't matter, only that the "right" people are placed in power.

Republican Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) member Robert Spindell, who was one of the fake Trump electors in the MAGA scheme to overturn the 2020 election, now appears poised to become the chair of the six-member board after a fellow GOP commissioner abruptly resigned on Wednesday.

The departing Republican commissioner, Dean Knudson, announced his resignation during a meeting with the declaration that “I cannot be effective in my role representing Republicans on the commission,” per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The WEC is tasked with administering elections in the state, and has become a target of those who falsely claim Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

Knudson, who has pushed back against the lie that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump, said it was “clear” to him that there was a “deep desire” among Wisconsin GOP leaders that he not be the chair of the WEC.

“Two of my core values are to practice service above self and to display personal integrity. And to me, that integrity demands acknowledging the truth even when the truth is painful,” the Republican commissioner said. “In this case, the painful truth is that President Trump lost the election in 2020 — lost the election in Wisconsin in 2020. And the loss was not due to election fraud.”

Knudson stated that he was staying on the commission until Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) chooses his replacement. Vos has played ball with his fellow party members’ crusade to legitimize ex-President Donald Trump’s attacks on the 2020 election, including by starting an investigation into the results and keeping that investigation funded long past its initial end-date.

Knudson’s upcoming departure leaves Spindell as the only eligible candidate to become WEC chair, a role which will oversee the 2024 elections.

The chair position switches between the three Republicans and three Democrats on the commission every two years. The current chair is a Democrat.

On Wednesday, the commission voted 5-1 to push back its election of the next chair to June, with Spindell being the one “no” vote.

The only chair position he should have is a seat in a prison cell for his treason.

[LFC]

Trump's hand picked successor to be governor of Georgia got stomped. Now Brian Kemp, who did his share of Trump support but slipped in his full blown oral servicing of the gap between his doughy butt cheeks (unlike Little Lindsey), is facing the "voter fraud" lie. The true MAGAts continue to eat the unfaithful. Oh, yeah. Perdue's now a piece of shit. Who couldn't see that coming.

Donald Trump’s Save America PAC sent out an email blast Tuesday morning pushing bizarre claims Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s landslide win for the Republican nomination for governor was the result of voter fraud. The move, apparently a desperate bid to save face, comes after Kemp defeated his Trump-endorsed rival David Perdue in the primary race last week in a major blow to Trump’s reputation as a Republican kingmaker. It was the third time in three weeks a Trump-endorsed candidate lost, per Politico. Under the heading, “ICYMI: Something Stinks in Georgia,” the Save America PAC linked to a five-day old article of the same name penned by journalist Emerald Robinson. The article, which argued that Kemp’s victory was “suspect” because a Trump endorsement is “the single most powerful force in the universe of American politics,” speculated that “obvious fraud” had rigged the election results. Trump’s amplification of those claims on Tuesday comes as Kemp’s camp has reportedly been working to mend ties with the former president, who claimed at a Wyoming rally over the weekend that “we actually did great in Georgia.” Privately, according to The Washington Post, he expressed frustration with Perdue’s loss and described him as an embarrassment.

[goldenvalley]

May 31, 2022 19:36:59 GMT LFC said:

Trump's hand picked successor to be governor of Georgia got stomped. Now Brian Kemp, who did his share of Trump support but slipped in his full blown oral servicing of the gap between his doughy butt cheeks (unlike Little Lindsey), is facing the "voter fraud" lie. The true MAGAts continue to eat the unfaithful. Oh, yeah. Perdue's now a piece of shit. Who couldn't see that coming.

Donald Trump’s Save America PAC sent out an email blast Tuesday morning pushing bizarre claims Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s landslide win for the Republican nomination for governor was the result of voter fraud. The move, apparently a desperate bid to save face, comes after Kemp defeated his Trump-endorsed rival David Perdue in the primary race last week in a major blow to Trump’s reputation as a Republican kingmaker. It was the third time in three weeks a Trump-endorsed candidate lost, per Politico. Under the heading, “ICYMI: Something Stinks in Georgia,” the Save America PAC linked to a five-day old article of the same name penned by journalist Emerald Robinson. The article, which argued that Kemp’s victory was “suspect” because a Trump endorsement is “the single most powerful force in the universe of American politics,” speculated that “obvious fraud” had rigged the election results. Trump’s amplification of those claims on Tuesday comes as Kemp’s camp has reportedly been working to mend ties with the former president, who claimed at a Wyoming rally over the weekend that “we actually did great in Georgia.” Privately, according to The Washington Post, he expressed frustration with Perdue’s loss and described him as an embarrassment.

I'm happy to see this.  It makes it all the more clear that these jerks claim fraud only when Trump or his favored few lose elections.

I read about another Rep candidate earlier today who, when confronted with the lack of claims about election fraud in the recent primary said, well the election was fine in his state because only Republicans are allowed to vote in the primary and they don't cheat.  That's the real claim...only Democrats cheat.   

[pnwguy]

May 31, 2022 20:56:40 GMT goldenvalley said:

That's the real claim...only Democrats only know how to cheat.   

FIFY

"No election is safe if Democrats are included in it"

[LFC]

Politico obtained tapes of Republicans telling their "army" how they are going to steal elections in swing states. It's out in the open now. If Republicans don't win they'll screech "FRAUD!" and gum everything up in hopes of forcing the decision away from the voters. American democracy is dead.

Video recordings of Republican Party operatives meeting with grassroots activists provide an inside look at a multi-pronged strategy to target and potentially overturn votes in Democratic precincts: Install trained recruits as regular poll workers and put them in direct contact with party attorneys.

The plan, as outlined by a Republican National Committee staffer in Michigan, includes utilizing rules designed to provide political balance among poll workers to install party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, developing a website to connect those workers to local lawyers and establishing a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts.

“Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than [as] a poll challenger,” said Matthew Seifried, the RNC’s election integrity director for Michigan, stressing the importance of obtaining official designations as poll workers in a meeting with GOP activists in Wayne County last Nov. 6. It is one of a series of recordings of GOP meetings between summer of 2021 and May of this year obtained by POLITICO.

Backing up those front-line workers, “it’s going to be an army,” Seifried promised at an Oct. 5 training session. “We’re going to have more lawyers than we’ve ever recruited, because let’s be honest, that’s where it’s going to be fought, right?”

Picking fascist DA's to use the law to subvert democracy is key.

“Remember, guys, we’re trying to build out a nationwide district attorney network. Your local district attorney, as we always say, is more powerful than your congressman,” Griffin said during a Sept. 21 meeting. “They’re the ones that can seat a grand jury. They’re the ones that can start an investigation, issue subpoenas, make sure that records are retained, etc.,” he said.

It's the Trump strategy on steroids.

“This is completely unprecedented in the history of American elections that a political party would be working at this granular level to put a network together,” said Nick Penniman, founder and CEO of Issue One, an election watchdog group. “It looks like now the Trump forces are going directly after the legal system itself and that should concern everyone.”

The recordings are among the first windows into what former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon, who’s been urging listeners to his podcast to take on election leadership positions, calls “the precinct strategy.”

But Penniman, the election watchdog, believes the strategy is designed to create enough disputes to justify intervention by GOP-controlled state legislatures, who declined to take such steps in 2020.

“Come election day you create massive failure of certification” in Democratic precincts, Penniman said. “The real hope is that you can throw the choosing of electors to state legislatures.”

[pnwguy]

"I saw this guy cheat right in front of me"

"What evidence do you have?"

"I took a picture of him. See, he was as black as the ace of spades"

[goldenvalley]

Jun 1, 2022 18:11:49 GMT LFC said:

Politico obtained tapes of Republicans telling their "army" how they are going to steal elections in swing states. It's out in the open now. If Republicans don't win they'll screech "FRAUD!" and gum everything up in hopes of forcing the decision away from the voters. American democracy is dead.

Video recordings of Republican Party operatives meeting with grassroots activists provide an inside look at a multi-pronged strategy to target and potentially overturn votes in Democratic precincts: Install trained recruits as regular poll workers and put them in direct contact with party attorneys.

The plan, as outlined by a Republican National Committee staffer in Michigan, includes utilizing rules designed to provide political balance among poll workers to install party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, developing a website to connect those workers to local lawyers and establishing a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts.

“Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than [as] a poll challenger,” said Matthew Seifried, the RNC’s election integrity director for Michigan, stressing the importance of obtaining official designations as poll workers in a meeting with GOP activists in Wayne County last Nov. 6. It is one of a series of recordings of GOP meetings between summer of 2021 and May of this year obtained by POLITICO.

Backing up those front-line workers, “it’s going to be an army,” Seifried promised at an Oct. 5 training session. “We’re going to have more lawyers than we’ve ever recruited, because let’s be honest, that’s where it’s going to be fought, right?”

Picking fascist DA's to use the law to subvert democracy is key.

“Remember, guys, we’re trying to build out a nationwide district attorney network. Your local district attorney, as we always say, is more powerful than your congressman,” Griffin said during a Sept. 21 meeting. “They’re the ones that can seat a grand jury. They’re the ones that can start an investigation, issue subpoenas, make sure that records are retained, etc.,” he said.

It's the Trump strategy on steroids.

“This is completely unprecedented in the history of American elections that a political party would be working at this granular level to put a network together,” said Nick Penniman, founder and CEO of Issue One, an election watchdog group. “It looks like now the Trump forces are going directly after the legal system itself and that should concern everyone.”

The recordings are among the first windows into what former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon, who’s been urging listeners to his podcast to take on election leadership positions, calls “the precinct strategy.”

But Penniman, the election watchdog, believes the strategy is designed to create enough disputes to justify intervention by GOP-controlled state legislatures, who declined to take such steps in 2020.

“Come election day you create massive failure of certification” in Democratic precincts, Penniman said. “The real hope is that you can throw the choosing of electors to state legislatures.”

More flooding the zone with s*&t.  Gonna see a lot of stuff in the courts...how many cases will never make it because the pleading are deficient.  It was 60 last time around.

[LFC]

Another flat out liar is running to be in charge of elections, this time in New Mexico.

Another Conspiracy Theory-Addled Election Denier Is Now Secretary Of State Nom

Audrey Trujillo, a GOP candidate for New Mexico secretary of state who thinks the 2020 election was a “coup,” is now the Republican nominee to be her state’s top elections official after running in the GOP primary on Tuesday unopposed.

• Trujillo has argued that the U.S. voting system is “no better than any other communist country like Venezuela or any of these other states where our elections are being manipulated.”

• She’s also posted cartoonishly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine, which the candidate now claims she doesn’t remember posting.

• Trujillo is the second election denier to win the GOP’s support to be secretary of state after the Michigan GOP voted to endorse Kristina Karamo, a secretary of state hopeful who’s aligned with QAnon and also claims the Devil is lurking everywhere.

Well I have to agree with that last point. The Devil is lurking everywhere ... in the Republican Party.

[goldenvalley]

Jun 9, 2022 14:46:39 GMT LFC said:

Another flat out liar is running to be in charge of elections, this time in New Mexico.

Another Conspiracy Theory-Addled Election Denier Is Now Secretary Of State Nom

Audrey Trujillo, a GOP candidate for New Mexico secretary of state who thinks the 2020 election was a “coup,” is now the Republican nominee to be her state’s top elections official after running in the GOP primary on Tuesday unopposed.

• Trujillo has argued that the U.S. voting system is “no better than any other communist country like Venezuela or any of these other states where our elections are being manipulated.”

• She’s also posted cartoonishly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine, which the candidate now claims she doesn’t remember posting.

• Trujillo is the second election denier to win the GOP’s support to be secretary of state after the Michigan GOP voted to endorse Kristina Karamo, a secretary of state hopeful who’s aligned with QAnon and also claims the Devil is lurking everywhere.

Well I have to agree with that last point. The Devil is lurking everywhere ... in the Republican Party.

This person could, I suppose, just ignore all the laws and probably regulations about elections that now exist and make up her own version.  Even in the current age, there are judges that will not sanction that.  But the damage would already be done.  And the legislature would be spending all its time amending the statutes.

[pnwguy]

Jun 9, 2022 14:46:39 GMT LFC said:

Well I have to agree with that last point. The Devil is lurking everywhere ... in the Republican Party.

FIFY 

[LFC]

The FBI is looking into the wannabe election thieves in Arizona.

Arizona Senate President Karen Fann and Mesa Republican Senator Kelly Townsend were subpoenaed by the FBI for an on-going investigation into President Donald Trump’s alleged pressure campaign on state officials to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

“President Fann received a FOIA in the form of a subpoena by the FBI as part of the Biden Administration’s political theatrics as they look into ‘January 6,’” Kim Quintero, Director of Communications for Arizona Senate Republicans said in a statement to the Arizona Mirror. “Nonetheless, President Fann is fully cooperating in releasing whatever emails and text messages they are requesting.”

Fann, a Prescott Republican, hired and helped lead the “audit” of Maricopa County’s 2020 Presidential election results. She was also in communication with a number of Trump allies such as OANN correspondent Christina Bobb — who also worked for the Trump campaign and sent emails to Fann on behalf of Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani in December 2020 that included witness declarations, statements and expert testimony. Bobb’s non-profit would also supply volunteers for the “audit” itself as well as funding.

Quintero also confirmed that Townsend, a staunch supporter of the “audit” efforts and bogus election fraud claims, was issued a similar subpoena. Quintero said she is not aware of any other senator who wsa issued a subpoena.

“We have no reason to believe (Fann and Townsend) will be called to testify in Washington D.C.,” Quintero said. “The documents expressly say that she is not to comment on the matter, so this is all we can release at this time.”

[LFC]

The Atlanta grand jury investigating election meddling is issuing subpoenas, including to Little Lindsey Graham. I expect a monumental hissy fit from this twerp.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and several members of the legal team that sought to keep former President Donald Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election were issued subpoenas from a Georgia grand jury on Tuesday.

The subpoenas went to Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, in addition to Graham. Attorneys who worked on Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election, including John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis, and Cleta Mitchell were also sent the documents.

A Fulton County grand jury empaneled to investigate Trump’s effort to block President Joe Biden’s win in Georgia issued the subpoenas on Tuesday, with a superior court judge signing off on them the same day.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and local news outlet 11Alive first reported the subpoenas. TPM obtained them separately.

Per the subpoenas, Fulton County DA Fani Willis is focusing on two phone calls that Graham had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in 2020.

During the calls, Graham purportedly asked about “reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump,” the court documents said.

[goldenvalley]

Jul 5, 2022 20:11:33 GMT LFC said:

The Atlanta grand jury investigating election meddling is issuing subpoenas, including to Little Lindsey Graham. I expect a monumental hissy fit from this twerp.

During the calls, Graham purportedly asked about “reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump,” the court documents said.

Really Lindsey, I thought you were smart.  Sure ask to reexamine ballots because they might show fraud. Don't explain your desired result...someone might think you only care about "fraud" if it adversely impacts your candidate.