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Beware Trump’s Election Deniers Sitting on Election Boards!
The election deniers’s movement has spent years getting ready for 2024 with the goal of ensuring that a Republican is elected president.
Sep 29, 2024
For the past four years, former U.S. President Donald Trump has been building a cult of election deniers who believe his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
They don’t care that no one has ever presented a shred of credible evidence to support Trump’s blatantly bogus claim.
Notwithstanding the lack of evidence, 69% of Republicans, including Republican-leaning independents, have said they believe Joe Biden is an illegitimate president, a direct result of Trump’s massive disinformation campaign.
Election deniers are preparing to try to elect Trump at all costs, no matter who the voters choose. An all hands-on-deck legal effort will be required to stop this from happening.
The election deniers’s movement has spent years getting ready for 2024 with the goal of ensuring that a Republican is elected president.
According to a recent study by the Center for Media and Democracy, there are 102 election deniers on election boards in eight battleground states. These election deniers, the study found, have majority power in 15 counties in battleground states, including seven in the critical state of Pennsylvania.
Now they are moving into action, preparing to throw up various roadblocks to help elect Trump.
One of their key lines of attack is to delay and obstruct the certification of the winner in their state. Under the Electoral Count Reform Act—enacted in the aftermath of Trump’s attempted 2020 election coup—the deadline for a state to certify its electors is December 11. Failure to meet that deadline could mean the electoral votes in that state would not be considered in the final tally.
If that happens in one or more states, it could mean that Trump wins the electoral vote majority or alternatively that the race is thrown to the House of Representatives where Republicans are expected to control a majority of state delegations and elect Trump.
(The Constitution provides that if a presidential race ends up in the House, each state delegation gets one vote.)
In 2020, Trump, in his infamous phone call, pressured and threatened Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes that would give Trump the win in Georgia. Raffensperger, a Republican, rejected Trump’s pressure.
Georgia is once again center stage.
Georgia’s State Board of Elections is controlled today by election deniers and has been adopting new last-minute election rules with no plausible justification other than to tilt the state for Trump.
The Georgia Board recently adopted a rule requiring counties to hand count the ballots cast in the state to determine whether the number of paper ballots matches the voting machine count. While small rural counties may be able to comply with this burdensome last-minute requirement, large urban areas, which favor Democrats, don’t have the capacity to do this kind of paper ballot counting. Nor is it necessary.
The conservative Republican attorney general warned that the rule is likely unlawful. The rule is expected to be challenged in court.
This ballot-counting rule follows another rule by the Georgia Board that requires counties to make “reasonable inquiries” into the balloting before certifying the results, another rule subject to abuse by election deniers seeking to obstruct certification. This rule is being challenged in court.
Meanwhile, in Mississippi, a ridiculous challenge has been made in federal court to a rule—similar to one in place in 20 states—that allows a state to count mailed-in ballots received up to five days after Election Day if the ballot is postmarked by Election Day. This challenge, with national implications, was argued Tuesday before a conservative three-judge panel.
Election deniers are preparing to try to elect Trump at all costs, no matter who the voters choose. An all hands-on-deck legal effort will be required to stop this from happening.
Fortunately, that effort is underway.
That effort is being led by former U.S. Solicitors General Seth Waxman and Donald Verrilli Jr., two of the nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates. Also leading the effort are Dana Remus, a former White House counsel, with Covington and Burling; Bob Bauer, a former White House counsel; and John Devany, a Partner at Perkins Coie. They and a team of dozens of lawyers are representing Vice President Kamala Harris and the DNC.
Waxman and Verrilli, along with a third former U.S. solicitor general, the late Walter Dellinger, led the successful defense of the 2020 presidential election results, which included overwhelming victories against the dozens of baseless efforts by Trump and his supporters to try to overturn the Biden victory.
We can be confident that the supremely skilled and talented Waxman and Verrilli with their impressive history of major legal successes, and the team of dedicated colleagues, will protect our elections in the courts this election season.
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At DNC, Sanders Condemns 'Oligarchs' Buying Elections and Blocking Change
"Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Aug 21, 2024
Sen. Bernie Sanders said during his primetime appearance at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night that overturning the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision should be "at the very top" of the party's list of priorities, particularly given the outsized role that billionaires and dark-money groups have played in recent elections.
"Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in his speech to Democratic delegates and activists gathered in Chicago. "For the sake of our democracy, we must overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move toward public funding of elections."
Sanders, a two-time Democratic presidential candidate, argued during his remarks that billionaire and corporate influence on U.S. elections is a major barrier obstructing policy changes that are overwhelmingly popular with the American public.
"These oligarchs tell us we shouldn't tax the rich," said the Vermont senator. "The oligarchs tell us we shouldn't take on price gouging; we shouldn't expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing, and vision; and we shouldn't increase Social Security benefits for struggling seniors."
"Well I've got some bad news for them: That is precisely what we are going to do, and we're going to win this struggle because this is precisely what the American people want from their government," he continued.
Watch Sanders' full speech:
According to the campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets, super PACs—products of the 2010 Citizens United decision—and other outside groups have already spent more than $1 billion on federal elections this cycle, far outpacing previous election years.
The largest spender thus far has been Make America Great Again Inc., a super PAC supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump.
OpenSecrets also found that so-called "guardian angel" megadonors—"a term for big donors who supply 40% or more of a committee's funds and are a political group's top contributor"—have spent nearly $200 million so far this cycle.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee's super PAC, which is funded by Republican billionaires, has spent big on Democratic primary contests this year in an effort to oust lawmakers who have backed a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Two members of the progressive "Squad"—Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.)—recently lost primary contests to AIPAC-backed Democrats.
"We must take on Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Egg, Big Tech, and all the other corporate monopolists whose greed is denying progress for working people."
In recent years, Sanders has repeatedly urged the Democratic Party to ban super PAC spending in its primaries, arguing that it's hypocritical for Democrats to call for campaign finance reform while simultaneously allowing billionaire-funded groups to pour staggering sums into their primary contests.
"What you're seeing from AIPAC and other super PACs is simply outrageous," Sanders said earlier this week. "Democrats often talk about the need to end Citizens United, and we agree. They talk about moving to public funding of elections. But if you're serious about the power of money in politics, you can say today, sorry, no super PACs allowed in primaries."
During his DNC speech on Tuesday, Sanders also demanded an immediate cease-fire to end Israel's "horrific war in Gaza" and said he looks forward to working with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, to pass an agenda that strengthens public education, slashes prescription drug prices, and expands healthcare to all.
"Let us be very clear: This is not a radical agenda," said Sanders. "But let me tell you what a radical agenda is, and that is Trump's Project 2025. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, giving more tax breaks to billionaires is radical. Putting forth budgets to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is radical. Letting polluters destroy our planet is radical."
"We must take on Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Egg, Big Tech, and all the other corporate monopolists whose greed is denying progress for working people," Sanders continued. "On November 5, let us elect Kamala Harris as our president and let us go forward to create the nation we know we can become."
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RFK Jr Running Mate Floats Joining 'Forces With Trump' to Thwart Harris-Walz
"From the beginning of this race, we've said that RFK Jr. is nothing more than a spoiler for Donald Trump, and we're glad that his running mate is finally admitting it," said one Democratic strategist.
Aug 20, 2024
Nicole Shanahan—the billionaire who poured millions of dollars of her own money into Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign before the conspiracy theorist chose her as his running mate—on Tuesday raised the possibility that Kennedy could drop his independent White House bid and throw his support behind former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
"There's two options and one is staying in, forming that new party, but we run the risk of a Kamala Harris and [Minnesota Gov. Tim] Walz presidency, because we draw votes from Trump," Shanahan told Tom Bilyeu during the latest episode of his "Impact Theory" podcast. "Or we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump and... we explain to our base why we're making this decision."
"I will say that Trump has taken genuine, sincere interest in our policiesaround chronic disease," Shanahan added. "He takes it seriously. For that reason, I think it behooves us to sit and see if we can actually make some real change."
During his first term, Trump repeatedly proposed massive cuts in federal funding for medical and scientific research and other programs.
Shanahan said she envisions a situation in which Kennedy "does an incredible job" as Trump's Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary.
Responding to Shanahan's remarks, Democratic National Committee (DNC) communications adviser Lis Smith said in a statement that "Nicole Shanahan isn't even pretending to be a serious VP candidate anymore."
"In one interview alone, she floated RFK Jr. for HHS secretary in a Trump administration, discussed her interest in running for governor of California in 2026, admitted that the Kennedy-Shanahan campaign has no path to victory, and raised the possibility of joining forces with Trump to defeat Vice President Harris," Smith continued.
"From the beginning of this race, we've said that RFK Jr. is nothing more than a spoiler for Donald Trump, and we're glad that his running mate is finally admitting it," she added.
The Washington Postreported last week that Kennedy sought a meeting with the Harris-Walz campaign to discuss a possible job in their administration should they defeat Trump and Republican U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio in November. According to sources, the Harris campaign has so far ignored Kennedy.
While Kennedy called that reporting "fake news," hesaid on social media Tuesday that "as always, I am willing to talk with leaders of any political party to further the goals I have served for 40 years in my career and in this campaign."
Shanahan's interview isn't the first time someone in Kennedy's campaign has given up the game. In April, Rita Palma was fired from her job as Kennedy's New York campaign director after she admitted behind closed doors that her "No. 1 priority" was to take electoral votes away from President Joe Biden, then the presumptive Democratic nominee and the "mutual enemy" of Trump and Kennedy voters.
Earlier this year, More Perfect Unionrevealed that ultrawealthy Trump donors were also bankrolling Kennedy's campaign.
Kennedy chose Shanahan as his running mate after she contributed heavily to his campaign, which has been derided as a potential "spoiler."
"I did not put in tens of millions of dollars to be a spoiler candidate," she said in the interview Tuesday. "They have, unfortunately, turned us into a spoiler. And we don't want to be a spoiler. We wanted to win. We wanted a fair shot."
Shanahan added that the DNC "made that impossible for us."
"They have banned us, shadowbanned us, kept us off stages, manipulated polls, used lawfare against us, sued us in every possible state," she explained.
In 2004, Ralph Nader, who ran an independent campaign for president, was sued in 18 states by the DNC in a bid to keep him off the ballot after he was falsely blamed for spoiling the 2000 election for Republican President George W. Bush.
Some Kennedy supporters recoiled at the thought of him joining forces with Trump. Kennedy campaigner Kyle Kemper toldNBC News he would be "heartbroken" if Kennedy were to "sell his soul" to Trump.
"Don't make a deal with the devil," he pleaded.
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