State of elections since 2020
ATLANTA (AP) — The conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines that erupted during the 2020 presidential contest flared this week in a remote New Mexico county in what could be just a preview of the kind of chaos election experts fear is coming in the fall midterms and in 2024.
The governing commission in Otero County refused to certify the local results of the state’s June 7 primary because of the equipment, in what was seen as another instance of how the falsehoods spread by former President Donald Trump and his allies have infected elections and threaten the democratic process.
“We are in scary territory,” said Jennifer Morrell, a former election official in Colorado and Utah who now advises federal, state and local officials. “If this can happen here, where next? It’s like a cancer, a virus. It’s metastasizing and growing.”
There is no evidence of widespread fraud or manipulation of voting equipment in the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden. But that hasn’t stopped the false claims, particularly those about Dominion machines.
“I have huge concerns with these voting machines,” Otero County Commissioner Vickie Marquardt said Monday as she and her two fellow commissioners — all Republicans — voted unanimously. “When I certify stuff that I don’t know is right, I feel like I’m being dishonest because in my heart I don’t know if it is right.”
The commissioners in the conservative, pro-Trump county could point to no actual problems with the Dominion equipment.
New Mexico's secretary of state asked the state Supreme Court to step in and order the county to certify the votes, and the high court did so on Wednesday. That would ensure that the nearly 7,400 ballots that were cast in Otero County are recorded as legal votes. The deadline for county certification is Friday.
In the weeks and months following the election, various Trump allies claimed that Dominion voting systems had somehow been manipulated as part of an elaborate scheme to steal the election.
On Monday, the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol presented testimony that Trump was told repeatedly that his claims of a stolen election and rigged voting systems were false and dangerous. That included pushback from his inner circle to the claims about Dominion voting systems, which are used by jurisdictions in 27 states.
Former Attorney General William Barr, in a videotaped interview with House investigators, said he spoke with Trump about the “idiotic claims” surrounding Dominion.
Barr said he found them to be “among the most disturbing allegations” because they were “made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people." He added that the claims were doing a “grave disservice to the country.”
Trump ignored that, and his allies persisted in attacking Dominion. According to the House panel, the day after Barr spoke with Trump, the president released a video in which he claimed without proof that “with the turn of a dial or the change of a chip, you can press a button for Trump and the vote goes to Biden.”
Dominion has filed defamation lawsuits against various Trump associates and conservative media organizations, including Fox News.
The company said in a statement Wednesday that the action by the Otero County commissioners was “yet another example of how lies about Dominion have damaged our company and diminished the public’s faith in elections.”
Otero County, with a population of about 67,000, went for Trump by nearly 62% in 2020. One of the commissioners is Cowboys for Trump co-founder Couy Griffin, who was convicted of entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds — though not the building — during the Jan. 6 uprising.
New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said the commissioners were violating the law and their oaths of office in refusing to certify the vote. She said that there is a process to deal with any problems that arise with an election but that the commissioners did not specify any.
“Unfortunately, when one county decides to act completely outside the law, it gives credence to others who may want to do the same thing," she said. "We have the potential to see this spread and have a domino effect.”
Numerous procedures are in place, including pre- and post-testing of voting equipment and post-election audits that ensure machines are working properly. In New Mexico, voters mark their paper ballots by hand. The ballots are then fed into a scanner to tally the results.
Vulnerabilities do exist, as with any technology, but election officials work to identify and fix them. A recent advisory issued by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency highlighted certain vulnerabilities discovered in Dominion voting systems and provided recommendations to election officials.
But those pushing false claims about voting systems want more than just paper ballots cast by hand -- they also want ballots to be counted entirely by hand. Experts say this is unreliable, time-consuming, labor-intensive and entirely unnecessary given the various safeguards.
Among the most prominent advocates for this is Jim Marchant, a former state lawmaker who on Tuesday was selected as the Republican nominee for secretary of state in Nevada. Marchant is among a group of “America First” candidates seeking to oversee elections while denying the outcome of the last one.
continues.....
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Comments
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For some of us, it ain't lookin' good. Not at all.
Pro-Trump Republicans’ primary wins raise alarm about US democracy
More at link.Crucial races from Nevada to South Carolina returned candidates who back ‘big lie’ of stolen election while Democrats lost Hispanic votes in south Texas
In pivotal primary races from Nevada to South Carolina on Tuesday, Republican voters chose candidates who fervently embraced Donald Trump’s lie about a stolen election, prompting warnings from Democrats that US democracy will be at stake in the November elections.
Victories of pro-Trump candidates in Nevada set the stage for match-ups between election-deniers and embattled Democrats in a state both parties see as critical in the midterms.
"It's a sad and beautiful world"-Roberto Benigni0 -
2022 Midterm elections U.S. Supreme Court Constitutions Redistricting Legislature Voting State courts Congress North Carolina Pennsylvania Government and politics ElectionsJustices seem poised to hear elections case pressed by GOPBy MARK SHERMAN and GARY D. ROBERTSONToday
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court seems poised to take on a new elections case being pressed by Republicans that could increase the power of state lawmakers over races for Congress and the presidency, as well as redistricting, and cut state courts out of the equation.
The issue has arisen repeatedly in cases from North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where Democratic majorities on the states’ highest courts have invoked voting protections in their state constitutions to frustrate the plans of Republican-dominated legislatures.
Already, four conservative Supreme Court justices have noted their interest in deciding whether state courts, finding violations of their state constitutions, can order changes to federal elections and the once-a-decade redrawing of congressional districts. The Supreme Court has never invoked what is known as the independent state legislature doctrine, although three justices advanced it in the Bush v. Gore case that settled the 2000 presidential election.
“The issue is almost certain to keep arising until the Court definitively resolves it,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in March.
It only takes four of the nine justices to agree to hear a case. A majority of five is needed for an eventual decision.
Many election law experts are alarmed by the prospect that the justices might seek to reduce state courts' powers over elections.
“A ruling endorsing a strong or muscular reading of the independent state legislature theory would potentially give state legislatures even more power to curtail voting rights and provide a pathway for litigation to subvert the election outcomes expressing the will of the people,” law professor Richard Hasen wrote in an email.
But if the justices are going to get involved, Hasen said, “it does make sense for the Court to do it outside the context of an election with national implications.”
The court could say as early as Tuesday, or perhaps the following week, whether it will hear an appeal filed by North Carolina Republicans. The appeal challenges a state court ruling that threw out the congressional districts drawn by the General Assembly that made GOP candidates likely victors in 10 of the state's 14 congressional districts.
The North Carolina Supreme Court held that the boundaries violated state constitution provisions protecting free elections and freedoms of speech and association by handicapping voters who support Democrats.
The new map that eventually emerged and is being used this year gives Democrats a good chance to win six seats, and possibly a seventh in a new toss-up district.
Pennsylvania's top court also selected a map that Republicans say probably will lead to the election of more Democrats, as the two parties battle for control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections in November. An appeal from Pennsylvania also is waiting, if the court for some reason passes on the North Carolina case.
Nationally, the parties fought to a draw in redistricting, which leaves Republicans positioned to win control of the House even if they come up just short of winning a majority of the national vote.
If the GOP does well in November, the party also could capture seats on state supreme courts, including in North Carolina, that might allow for the drawing of more slanted maps that previous courts rejected. Two court seats held by North Carolina Democrats are on the ballot this year and Republicans need to win just one to take control of the court for the first time since 2017.
In their appeal to the nation's high court, North Carolina Republicans wrote that it is time for the Supreme Court to weigh in on the elections clause in the U.S. Constitution, which gives each state’s legislature the responsibility to determine “the times, places and manner” of holding congressional elections.
“Activist judges and allied plaintiffs have proved time and time again that they believe state courts have the ultimate say over congressional maps, no matter what the U.S. Constitution says,” North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger said when the appeal was filed in March.
The Supreme Court generally does not disturb state court rulings that are rooted in state law.
But four Supreme Court justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh — have said the court should step in to decide whether state courts had improperly taken powers given by the U.S. Constitution to state lawmakers.
That was the argument that Thomas and two other conservative justices put forward in Bush v. Gore, although that case was decided on other grounds.
If the court takes up the North Carolina case and rules in the GOP’s favor, North Carolina Republicans could draw new maps for 2024 elections with less worry that the state Supreme Court would strike them down.
Defenders of state court involvement argue that state lawmakers would also gain the power to pass provisions that would suppress voting, subject only to challenge in federal courts. Delegating power to election boards and secretaries of state to manage federal elections in emergencies also could be questioned legally, some scholars said.
“Its adoption would radically change our elections,” Ethan Herenstein and Tom Wolf, both with the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program at the New York University Law School, wrote earlier this month.
___
Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina.
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
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imagine that.....2022 Midterm elections U.S. Supreme Court Congress Weekend Reads Nevada Presidential elections Elections Government and politics Election 2020 Donald TrumpElection deniers quiet on fraud claims after primary winsBy STEVE PEOPLES and SAM METZ16 Jun 2022
Nevada Republican Jim Marchant insisted there hadn't been a legitimate election in his state in more than a decade. All of Nevada's election winners since 2006, he said on a recent podcast, were “installed by the deep-state cabal.”
But when Marchant won the Republican nomination for Nevada secretary of state this week, he immediately celebrated the victory as legitimate.
“I am beyond humbled by the overwhelming support of our campaign. Nevadans made their voices heard,” Marchant declared on social media.
Such inconsistency has become a hallmark of election deniers in Republican primary contests across the U.S. in this year's midterms. Dozens of GOP candidates who sought former President Donald Trump's backing in Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere have spent months parroting his baseless claims of 2020 election fraud but then declared victory without raising such concerns in their own elections.
Amid such seeming hypocrisy, many Republican candidates are still vowing to pursue a series of election reforms that could make it more difficult to vote — particularly for those who traditionally support Democrats — in the name of election integrity.
Democratic National Committee Chair Jamie Harrison warned that “MAGA Republicans will do anything in their desperate chase for power."
“From undermining our democracy by spreading Trump’s Big Lie, to laying the groundwork to try to cancel votes when they don’t agree with the outcome, but falling silent if they win, this is today’s Republican Party,” Harrison told The Associated Press.
In Nevada on Tuesday, Marchant was among a slate of election deniers who secured their places on the November ballot without questioning the legitimacy of the results. The group included candidates for Senate, state treasurer and a Las Vegas-area congressional seat. That's even as the majority of counties relied upon Dominion voting machines, which continue to be the target of conspiracy theories by Trump and his allies.
The phenomenon extends well beyond Nevada.
In Pennsylvania, Republican nominee for governor Doug Mastriano spearheaded a state Senate hearing in which witnesses — including former Trump campaign attorneys Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani — aired false claims about mass voter fraud. Mastriano also was outside the U.S. Capitol when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building during the deadly 2021 insurrection. And he later tried to bring a partisan election audit to Pennsylvania before he was stripped of his committee chairmanship by his own party.
Mastriano made no mention of voter fraud as he declared victory in Pennsylvania's Republican primary for governor last month.
“God is good,” a smiling Mastriano told cheering supporters.
The Mastriano campaign declined to respond to a question about the apparent double standard.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also ignored questions about his contradictory positions on voter fraud.
Paxton won his fiercely contested primary last month after spending much of the last year championing Trump's bogus claims of election fraud. In the aftermath of Joe Biden’s presidential win, Paxton filed a legal challenge to the election results in four battleground states. He asked the U.S. Supreme Court to set them aside and allow the Republican-controlled state legislatures to determine the winner.
Seventeen other Republican state attorneys general supported the effort.
The high court rejected the challenge three days after the lawsuit was filed, finding Texas did not have standing to sue other states over how they conduct their elections. And the state bar moved to discipline Paxton just days after his primary win, claiming his leading role in petitioning the Supreme Court to block Biden’s victory was “dishonest.”
State and federal election officials across the country and Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the election was tainted. The former president’s allegations of fraud also were roundly rejected by courts, including by judges he appointed.
But after nearly two years of Trump's constant claims that the election was “stolen,” which have been embraced by hundreds of Republican candidates across the U.S. seeking his support, an extraordinary number of Americans have lost faith in the U.S. election system.
Only 45% of U.S. adults said they have significant confidence that votes in the 2022 midterm election will be counted accurately, and 30% have some confidence, according to a February AP-NORC poll. Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to be very confident, 66% vs. 24%.
Polling continues to show most Republicans have doubts about the 2020 presidential election. In July 2021, 68% of adults -- but only 33% of Republicans -- said Biden was legitimately elected president, according to an AP-NORC poll. Sixty-six percent of Republicans said he was not legitimately elected.
In addition to key state officials, several Trump-backed Senate candidates promoted the specter of election fraud over and over — except when delivering their primary victory speeches in recent weeks.
Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker repeatedly claimed Biden's victory was tainted by fraud over the last year and even called for seven swing states Trump lost to vote again. Ohio GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance claimed the 2020 election was “rigged" or “stolen.” North Carolina Senate nominee Ted Budd, a Republican congressman, refused on the day of his May primary victory to say that Biden won the 2020 presidential election. And Pennsylvania Republican nominee for Senate Mehmet Oz said there was “definitely” widespread fraud in his state, even as the evidence says otherwise.
None raised similar claims about their own primary victories.
In Nevada, state GOP Chair Michael McDonald said Marchant acknowledging his primary win wasn’t hypocritical because he continued to have questions about vote-counting in the Las Vegas area.
“He was questioning the results last night, even though he was winning, which I found admirable,” McDonald said, recounting a 1:30 a.m. phone call with Marchant.
Marchant did not respond to requests for comment, but his campaign consultant Rory McShane said he continued to have questions about voting in Clark County, which leans Democratic and is where the vast majority of the state's population lives, despite the race being called for him.
There may be no more vocal proponent of Trump's baseless claims of election fraud falsehoods than Marchant, a 66-year-old former failed congressional candidate.
Marchant was present in Carson City when the party sent a dueling slate of electoral votes to Congress in December 2020. Throughout the primary, he was a fixture at rural county commission meetings during discussions about Dominion voting machines and potentially switching to hand-counting ballots. And he has toured the country with other 2020 election denialists, using phrases and terminology associated with QAnon conspiracy theorists.
Cisco Aguilar, the Democrat running against Marchant, described the Republican's statements about the 2020 election, voting machines and mail-in ballots as out of touch with reality.
In an interview, Aguilar said he feels immense responsibility after Marchant’s victory and said he's now weighing questions he hadn’t anticipated when he entered the race, such as whether agreeing to a debate would be giving a conspiracy theorist a platform.
“He’s created a massive fear among a subgroup of individuals here in Nevada,” Aguilar said. “I don’t even know if you can have a debate with someone who is unwilling to listen.”
___
Peoples reported from New York and Metz reported from Salt Lake City. Associated Press writers Hannah Fingerhut in Washington, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
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Elections with 90-10 outcomes are in our future.09/15/1998 & 09/16/1998, Mansfield, MA; 08/29/00 08/30/00, Mansfield, MA; 07/02/03, 07/03/03, Mansfield, MA; 09/28/04, 09/29/04, Boston, MA; 09/22/05, Halifax, NS; 05/24/06, 05/25/06, Boston, MA; 07/22/06, 07/23/06, Gorge, WA; 06/27/2008, Hartford; 06/28/08, 06/30/08, Mansfield; 08/18/2009, O2, London, UK; 10/30/09, 10/31/09, Philadelphia, PA; 05/15/10, Hartford, CT; 05/17/10, Boston, MA; 05/20/10, 05/21/10, NY, NY; 06/22/10, Dublin, IRE; 06/23/10, Northern Ireland; 09/03/11, 09/04/11, Alpine Valley, WI; 09/11/11, 09/12/11, Toronto, Ont; 09/14/11, Ottawa, Ont; 09/15/11, Hamilton, Ont; 07/02/2012, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/04/2012 & 07/05/2012, Berlin, Germany; 07/07/2012, Stockholm, Sweden; 09/30/2012, Missoula, MT; 07/16/2013, London, Ont; 07/19/2013, Chicago, IL; 10/15/2013 & 10/16/2013, Worcester, MA; 10/21/2013 & 10/22/2013, Philadelphia, PA; 10/25/2013, Hartford, CT; 11/29/2013, Portland, OR; 11/30/2013, Spokane, WA; 12/04/2013, Vancouver, BC; 12/06/2013, Seattle, WA; 10/03/2014, St. Louis. MO; 10/22/2014, Denver, CO; 10/26/2015, New York, NY; 04/23/2016, New Orleans, LA; 04/28/2016 & 04/29/2016, Philadelphia, PA; 05/01/2016 & 05/02/2016, New York, NY; 05/08/2016, Ottawa, Ont.; 05/10/2016 & 05/12/2016, Toronto, Ont.; 08/05/2016 & 08/07/2016, Boston, MA; 08/20/2016 & 08/22/2016, Chicago, IL; 07/01/2018, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/03/2018, Krakow, Poland; 07/05/2018, Berlin, Germany; 09/02/2018 & 09/04/2018, Boston, MA; 09/08/2022, Toronto, Ont; 09/11/2022, New York, NY; 09/14/2022, Camden, NJ; 09/02/2023, St. Paul, MN; 05/04/2024 & 05/06/2024, Vancouver, BC; 05/10/2024, Portland, OR; 05/03/2025, New Orleans, LA;
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
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So you're saying we're going to become more aligned?Halifax2TheMax said:Elections with 90-10 outcomes are in our future.
'05 - TO, '06 - TO 1, '08 - NYC 1 & 2, '09 - TO, Chi 1 & 2, '10 - Buffalo, NYC 1 & 2, '11 - TO 1 & 2, Hamilton, '13 - Buffalo, Brooklyn 1 & 2, '15 - Global Citizen, '16 - TO 1 & 2, Chi 2
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 10 -
I feel like this has been growing for some time. 20 years ago it felt like when Republicans won't an election, it was be patriotic, be American, and support you president. If a democrat won, all those same people went quiet.Now it's evolved to.. if our guy won the election is completely legitimate. If anyone else won it's fraud. Like it's inconceivable an election can be lost. From the outside looking in, it seems pretty crazy.0
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2022 Midterm elections Elections Colorado Voting Presidential elections Election recounts Election 2020 Campaign 2016 Congress Government and politicsParroting Trump, GOP primary losers cast doubt on electionsBy NICHOLAS RICCARDIToday
DENVER (AP) — It was no shock that state Rep. Ron Hanks and Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters handily lost their recent Republican primaries in Colorado for U.S. Senate and secretary of state.
Hanks was outspent 14-to-1 by his rival. Peters, who was vying to become Colorado's top elections official, had been indicted on seven felony charges alleging she helped orchestrate a breach of her voting system's hard drive.
But this past week, both candidates formally requested recounts of their primary elections from June 28, suggesting widespread irregularities seen by no one other than their own campaigns and allies.
“I have reasons to believe extensive malfeasance occurred in the June 2022 primary,” Peters wrote in her recount request, “and that the apparent outcome of this election does not reflect the will of Colorado voters not only for myself but also for many other America First statewide and local primary candidates.”
America First is a coalition of conservative candidates and officeholders who, among other things, promote the falsehood that Democrat Joe Biden did not win the 2020 presidential election.
This idea has seeped deeply into this year's Republican primaries, which have revealed a new political strategy among numerous candidates: running on a platform that denies President Donald Trump's defeat two years ago. As some of those candidates lose their own races, they are reaching new frontiers in election denial by insisting that those primaries, too, were rigged.
“There's a clear reason they're doing it, and it's a much broader, coordinated attack on the freedom to vote across the country,” said Joanna Lydgate of States United Action. Her group supports election officials who recognize the validity of the 2020 election.
Noting that she coaches youth basketball, Lydgate added another reason: “Really, what this is is people who are sore losers, people who don't want to accept defeat."
The primary losers have an obvious role model: Trump himself.
After his first election loss during his 2016 run for the White House, in the Iowa caucuses, Trump baselessly claimed fraud and demanded an investigation. When he was elected president later that year, he claimed that fraud was the reason Democrat Hillary Clinton won more votes than he did. Trump set up a commission to try to prove that. That commission was disbanded when it failed to produce any evidence.
After his 2020 defeat, Trump and his supporters lost 63 of 64 legal challenges to the election. Trump continued to blame fraud, without evidence, even after his own attorney general and election reviews in the states failed to turn up any widespread wrongdoing that would have any impact on the outcome.
This year's post-primary election denial may be a preview for November, when Republicans face Democrats in thousands of races across the country. The GOP is expected to do well — an expectation that could set the stage for more false claims of fraud when some of those candidates lose.
Still, some Republicans aren't waiting for Democratic voters to weigh in before making unsubstantiated fraud claims.
Some recent candidates who have done that are relatively marginal ones.
In Georgia, Trump's two recruits to challenge the state's governor and secretary of state — former Sen. David Perdue and former Rep. Jodi Hice — admitted defeat after they lost the May primaries. But Kandiss Taylor, a fringe candidate who won only 3% of the primary vote for governor, refused to concede, claiming there was widespread cheating.
In South Carolina, Republican Harrison Musselwhite — who goes by Trucker Bob — lost his primary against Gov. Henry McMaster by 66 percentage points. Still, he complained of problems with the election to the state party, as did another losing GOP contender, Lauren Martel, who ran for for attorney general. The party rejected their claims.
Others who have cried fraud are more prominent.
Joey Gilbert, who came in second in the Nevada Republican primary for governor, posted a Facebook video days after the June tally showing him 26,000 votes short. “These elections, the way they’ve been run, it’s like Swiss cheese,” he said. "There’s too many holes.”
Gilbert, who attended Trump's rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, before the riot at the U.S. Capitol, demanded a recount. The results appear unlikely to substantially change the final tally. He did not return messages seeking comment.
In Arizona, former newscaster Kari Lake won Trump's endorsement in her quest for the party's nomination for governor, insisting that he won the presidency in 2020. This past week, she told supporters that her top opponent in the primary “might be trying to set the stage for another steal” in next month's primary.
That earned her a rebuke from Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican who has endorsed Lake's chief rival, Karin Taylor Robson.
“The 2022 elections haven’t even been held yet, and already we’re seeing speculation doubting the results – especially if certain candidates lose,” Ducey tweeted. “It’s one of the most irresponsible things I can imagine.”
Lake's campaign did not return messages seeking comment.
In Colorado, county clerk Peters immediately questioned the primary results once the tally showed her losing badly in the secretary of state's race. Claiming fraud as she trailed former county clerk Pam Anderson, a regular debunker of Trump's election lies, Peters said: “Looking at the results, it’s just so obvious it should be flipped.”
She and Senate candidate Hanks repeated Trump's election lies, a position that had won them strong support last spring at the 3,000-strong GOP state assembly, a convention attended by the party's strongest activists. Both candidates, in letters to the secretary of state’s office this past week demanding a recount, cited that support in explaining why they could not have lost their primaries.
Hanks referred a reporter to an email address for media for the two candidates, though no one responded to questions sent to that address.
The activists who attend the GOP gathering are just a small fraction of the 600,000 who voted in the June primary. According to preliminary results, Peters lost by 88,000 votes and Hanks by 56,000 votes.
Their recount letters gave reasons why the candidates believed those vote tallies were “being artificially controlled.”
The Colorado Secretary of State's office said a recount will cost $236,000 for each candidate. As of Friday night, the deadline set by the office to receive the money, neither candidate had paid, according to spokeswoman Annie Orloff.
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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections
and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics
_____________________________________SIGNATURE________________________________________________
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
How is this different than 2016?Zod said:I feel like this has been growing for some time. 20 years ago it felt like when Republicans won't an election, it was be patriotic, be American, and support you president. If a democrat won, all those same people went quiet.Now it's evolved to.. if our guy won the election is completely legitimate. If anyone else won it's fraud. Like it's inconceivable an election can be lost. From the outside looking in, it seems pretty crazy.
I know the usuals are going to say I’m just both siding it. But I don’t see how anyone can deny that’s what happened from 2016-2020. So to only criticize one party doesn’t seem fair.0 -
mickeyrat said:imagine that.....2022 Midterm elections U.S. Supreme Court Congress Weekend Reads Nevada Presidential elections Elections Government and politics Election 2020 Donald TrumpElection deniers quiet on fraud claims after primary winsBy STEVE PEOPLES and SAM METZ16 Jun 2022
Nevada Republican Jim Marchant insisted there hadn't been a legitimate election in his state in more than a decade. All of Nevada's election winners since 2006, he said on a recent podcast, were “installed by the deep-state cabal.”
But when Marchant won the Republican nomination for Nevada secretary of state this week, he immediately celebrated the victory as legitimate.
“I am beyond humbled by the overwhelming support of our campaign. Nevadans made their voices heard,” Marchant declared on social media.
Such inconsistency has become a hallmark of election deniers in Republican primary contests across the U.S. in this year's midterms. Dozens of GOP candidates who sought former President Donald Trump's backing in Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere have spent months parroting his baseless claims of 2020 election fraud but then declared victory without raising such concerns in their own elections.
Amid such seeming hypocrisy, many Republican candidates are still vowing to pursue a series of election reforms that could make it more difficult to vote — particularly for those who traditionally support Democrats — in the name of election integrity.
Democratic National Committee Chair Jamie Harrison warned that “MAGA Republicans will do anything in their desperate chase for power."
“From undermining our democracy by spreading Trump’s Big Lie, to laying the groundwork to try to cancel votes when they don’t agree with the outcome, but falling silent if they win, this is today’s Republican Party,” Harrison told The Associated Press.
In Nevada on Tuesday, Marchant was among a slate of election deniers who secured their places on the November ballot without questioning the legitimacy of the results. The group included candidates for Senate, state treasurer and a Las Vegas-area congressional seat. That's even as the majority of counties relied upon Dominion voting machines, which continue to be the target of conspiracy theories by Trump and his allies.
The phenomenon extends well beyond Nevada.
In Pennsylvania, Republican nominee for governor Doug Mastriano spearheaded a state Senate hearing in which witnesses — including former Trump campaign attorneys Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani — aired false claims about mass voter fraud. Mastriano also was outside the U.S. Capitol when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building during the deadly 2021 insurrection. And he later tried to bring a partisan election audit to Pennsylvania before he was stripped of his committee chairmanship by his own party.
Mastriano made no mention of voter fraud as he declared victory in Pennsylvania's Republican primary for governor last month.
“God is good,” a smiling Mastriano told cheering supporters.
The Mastriano campaign declined to respond to a question about the apparent double standard.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also ignored questions about his contradictory positions on voter fraud.
Paxton won his fiercely contested primary last month after spending much of the last year championing Trump's bogus claims of election fraud. In the aftermath of Joe Biden’s presidential win, Paxton filed a legal challenge to the election results in four battleground states. He asked the U.S. Supreme Court to set them aside and allow the Republican-controlled state legislatures to determine the winner.
Seventeen other Republican state attorneys general supported the effort.
The high court rejected the challenge three days after the lawsuit was filed, finding Texas did not have standing to sue other states over how they conduct their elections. And the state bar moved to discipline Paxton just days after his primary win, claiming his leading role in petitioning the Supreme Court to block Biden’s victory was “dishonest.”
State and federal election officials across the country and Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the election was tainted. The former president’s allegations of fraud also were roundly rejected by courts, including by judges he appointed.
But after nearly two years of Trump's constant claims that the election was “stolen,” which have been embraced by hundreds of Republican candidates across the U.S. seeking his support, an extraordinary number of Americans have lost faith in the U.S. election system.
Only 45% of U.S. adults said they have significant confidence that votes in the 2022 midterm election will be counted accurately, and 30% have some confidence, according to a February AP-NORC poll. Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to be very confident, 66% vs. 24%.
Polling continues to show most Republicans have doubts about the 2020 presidential election. In July 2021, 68% of adults -- but only 33% of Republicans -- said Biden was legitimately elected president, according to an AP-NORC poll. Sixty-six percent of Republicans said he was not legitimately elected.
In addition to key state officials, several Trump-backed Senate candidates promoted the specter of election fraud over and over — except when delivering their primary victory speeches in recent weeks.
Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker repeatedly claimed Biden's victory was tainted by fraud over the last year and even called for seven swing states Trump lost to vote again. Ohio GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance claimed the 2020 election was “rigged" or “stolen.” North Carolina Senate nominee Ted Budd, a Republican congressman, refused on the day of his May primary victory to say that Biden won the 2020 presidential election. And Pennsylvania Republican nominee for Senate Mehmet Oz said there was “definitely” widespread fraud in his state, even as the evidence says otherwise.
None raised similar claims about their own primary victories.
In Nevada, state GOP Chair Michael McDonald said Marchant acknowledging his primary win wasn’t hypocritical because he continued to have questions about vote-counting in the Las Vegas area.
“He was questioning the results last night, even though he was winning, which I found admirable,” McDonald said, recounting a 1:30 a.m. phone call with Marchant.
Marchant did not respond to requests for comment, but his campaign consultant Rory McShane said he continued to have questions about voting in Clark County, which leans Democratic and is where the vast majority of the state's population lives, despite the race being called for him.
There may be no more vocal proponent of Trump's baseless claims of election fraud falsehoods than Marchant, a 66-year-old former failed congressional candidate.
Marchant was present in Carson City when the party sent a dueling slate of electoral votes to Congress in December 2020. Throughout the primary, he was a fixture at rural county commission meetings during discussions about Dominion voting machines and potentially switching to hand-counting ballots. And he has toured the country with other 2020 election denialists, using phrases and terminology associated with QAnon conspiracy theorists.
Cisco Aguilar, the Democrat running against Marchant, described the Republican's statements about the 2020 election, voting machines and mail-in ballots as out of touch with reality.
In an interview, Aguilar said he feels immense responsibility after Marchant’s victory and said he's now weighing questions he hadn’t anticipated when he entered the race, such as whether agreeing to a debate would be giving a conspiracy theorist a platform.
“He’s created a massive fear among a subgroup of individuals here in Nevada,” Aguilar said. “I don’t even know if you can have a debate with someone who is unwilling to listen.”
___
Peoples reported from New York and Metz reported from Salt Lake City. Associated Press writers Hannah Fingerhut in Washington, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
Not surprised to see something like this happen in the armpit of the west.
"It's a sad and beautiful world"-Roberto Benigni0 -
Are you saying that people on the left claimed the election was rigged, stolen, a fraud? Asking for multiple recounts and filing multiple frivolous lawsuits?mace1229 said:
How is this different than 2016?Zod said:I feel like this has been growing for some time. 20 years ago it felt like when Republicans won't an election, it was be patriotic, be American, and support you president. If a democrat won, all those same people went quiet.Now it's evolved to.. if our guy won the election is completely legitimate. If anyone else won it's fraud. Like it's inconceivable an election can be lost. From the outside looking in, it seems pretty crazy.
I know the usuals are going to say I’m just both siding it. But I don’t see how anyone can deny that’s what happened from 2016-2020. So to only criticize one party doesn’t seem fair.
I don't recall that ever happening.
I do recall democrats being freaked out that a con-artist with the solid backing of white supremacists and vlad poo tin won.
In 2020 and I'm sure in every ensuing election in our lifetime the regressives will throw tantrums and scream "it was rigged" every time one of their candidates loses. But if they win, whether by 1 vote or a million, they will claim everything was perfect and it was a beautiful well run election.0 -
Bentleyspop said:
Are you saying that people on the left claimed the election was rigged, stolen, a fraud? Asking for multiple recounts and filing multiple frivolous lawsuits?mace1229 said:
How is this different than 2016?Zod said:I feel like this has been growing for some time. 20 years ago it felt like when Republicans won't an election, it was be patriotic, be American, and support you president. If a democrat won, all those same people went quiet.Now it's evolved to.. if our guy won the election is completely legitimate. If anyone else won it's fraud. Like it's inconceivable an election can be lost. From the outside looking in, it seems pretty crazy.
I know the usuals are going to say I’m just both siding it. But I don’t see how anyone can deny that’s what happened from 2016-2020. So to only criticize one party doesn’t seem fair.
I don't recall that ever happening.
I do recall democrats being freaked out that a con-artist with the solid backing of white supremacists and vlad poo tin won.
In 2020 and I'm sure in every ensuing election in our lifetime the regressives will throw tantrums and scream "it was rigged" every time one of their candidates loses. But if they win, whether by 1 vote or a million, they will claim everything was perfect and it was a beautiful well run election.Did Clinton not concede within eight hours of election day 2016?
it’s concerning middle right like mace have views such as “it’s both parties.” Clinton conceded immediately, and trump said six months before the election, thru today, “either I win or it’s rigged.” Has any democrat made that claim? Voting for that ace is supporting authoritarianism in America
the fact that trump asked for help from a murderous dictator and was subsequently investigated for that does not equate to the authoritarian rhetoric from republicans0 -
If I recall, Al Gore conceded once SCOTUS stepped in and stopped the recount that the white nationalists in khakis and popped collar polo shirts couldn’t stop through their intimidation and glass banging. My memory is shit but I think there was a peaceful transition of power with Al on the dias at the Capitol to swear in Shrub. Hillary also called POOTWH and conceded and, if I remember correctly, Obama toured POS POOTWH through the WH.09/15/1998 & 09/16/1998, Mansfield, MA; 08/29/00 08/30/00, Mansfield, MA; 07/02/03, 07/03/03, Mansfield, MA; 09/28/04, 09/29/04, Boston, MA; 09/22/05, Halifax, NS; 05/24/06, 05/25/06, Boston, MA; 07/22/06, 07/23/06, Gorge, WA; 06/27/2008, Hartford; 06/28/08, 06/30/08, Mansfield; 08/18/2009, O2, London, UK; 10/30/09, 10/31/09, Philadelphia, PA; 05/15/10, Hartford, CT; 05/17/10, Boston, MA; 05/20/10, 05/21/10, NY, NY; 06/22/10, Dublin, IRE; 06/23/10, Northern Ireland; 09/03/11, 09/04/11, Alpine Valley, WI; 09/11/11, 09/12/11, Toronto, Ont; 09/14/11, Ottawa, Ont; 09/15/11, Hamilton, Ont; 07/02/2012, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/04/2012 & 07/05/2012, Berlin, Germany; 07/07/2012, Stockholm, Sweden; 09/30/2012, Missoula, MT; 07/16/2013, London, Ont; 07/19/2013, Chicago, IL; 10/15/2013 & 10/16/2013, Worcester, MA; 10/21/2013 & 10/22/2013, Philadelphia, PA; 10/25/2013, Hartford, CT; 11/29/2013, Portland, OR; 11/30/2013, Spokane, WA; 12/04/2013, Vancouver, BC; 12/06/2013, Seattle, WA; 10/03/2014, St. Louis. MO; 10/22/2014, Denver, CO; 10/26/2015, New York, NY; 04/23/2016, New Orleans, LA; 04/28/2016 & 04/29/2016, Philadelphia, PA; 05/01/2016 & 05/02/2016, New York, NY; 05/08/2016, Ottawa, Ont.; 05/10/2016 & 05/12/2016, Toronto, Ont.; 08/05/2016 & 08/07/2016, Boston, MA; 08/20/2016 & 08/22/2016, Chicago, IL; 07/01/2018, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/03/2018, Krakow, Poland; 07/05/2018, Berlin, Germany; 09/02/2018 & 09/04/2018, Boston, MA; 09/08/2022, Toronto, Ont; 09/11/2022, New York, NY; 09/14/2022, Camden, NJ; 09/02/2023, St. Paul, MN; 05/04/2024 & 05/06/2024, Vancouver, BC; 05/10/2024, Portland, OR; 05/03/2025, New Orleans, LA;
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©0 -
This is all true but in 1992, 1996, 2008, 2012, 2020 it was all rigged by Venezuelan voting machines.Halifax2TheMax said:If I recall, Al Gore conceded once SCOTUS stepped in and stopped the recount that the white nationalists in khakis and popped collar polo shirts couldn’t stop through their intimidation and glass banging. My memory is shit but I think there was a peaceful transition of power with Al on the dias at the Capitol to swear in Shrub. Hillary also called POOTWH and conceded and, if I remember correctly, Obama toured POS POOTWH through the WH.0 -
And Italian satellites, no?Bentleyspop said:
This is all true but in 1992, 1996, 2008, 2012, 2020 it was all rigged by Venezuelan voting machines.Halifax2TheMax said:If I recall, Al Gore conceded once SCOTUS stepped in and stopped the recount that the white nationalists in khakis and popped collar polo shirts couldn’t stop through their intimidation and glass banging. My memory is shit but I think there was a peaceful transition of power with Al on the dias at the Capitol to swear in Shrub. Hillary also called POOTWH and conceded and, if I remember correctly, Obama toured POS POOTWH through the WH.09/15/1998 & 09/16/1998, Mansfield, MA; 08/29/00 08/30/00, Mansfield, MA; 07/02/03, 07/03/03, Mansfield, MA; 09/28/04, 09/29/04, Boston, MA; 09/22/05, Halifax, NS; 05/24/06, 05/25/06, Boston, MA; 07/22/06, 07/23/06, Gorge, WA; 06/27/2008, Hartford; 06/28/08, 06/30/08, Mansfield; 08/18/2009, O2, London, UK; 10/30/09, 10/31/09, Philadelphia, PA; 05/15/10, Hartford, CT; 05/17/10, Boston, MA; 05/20/10, 05/21/10, NY, NY; 06/22/10, Dublin, IRE; 06/23/10, Northern Ireland; 09/03/11, 09/04/11, Alpine Valley, WI; 09/11/11, 09/12/11, Toronto, Ont; 09/14/11, Ottawa, Ont; 09/15/11, Hamilton, Ont; 07/02/2012, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/04/2012 & 07/05/2012, Berlin, Germany; 07/07/2012, Stockholm, Sweden; 09/30/2012, Missoula, MT; 07/16/2013, London, Ont; 07/19/2013, Chicago, IL; 10/15/2013 & 10/16/2013, Worcester, MA; 10/21/2013 & 10/22/2013, Philadelphia, PA; 10/25/2013, Hartford, CT; 11/29/2013, Portland, OR; 11/30/2013, Spokane, WA; 12/04/2013, Vancouver, BC; 12/06/2013, Seattle, WA; 10/03/2014, St. Louis. MO; 10/22/2014, Denver, CO; 10/26/2015, New York, NY; 04/23/2016, New Orleans, LA; 04/28/2016 & 04/29/2016, Philadelphia, PA; 05/01/2016 & 05/02/2016, New York, NY; 05/08/2016, Ottawa, Ont.; 05/10/2016 & 05/12/2016, Toronto, Ont.; 08/05/2016 & 08/07/2016, Boston, MA; 08/20/2016 & 08/22/2016, Chicago, IL; 07/01/2018, Prague, Czech Republic; 07/03/2018, Krakow, Poland; 07/05/2018, Berlin, Germany; 09/02/2018 & 09/04/2018, Boston, MA; 09/08/2022, Toronto, Ont; 09/11/2022, New York, NY; 09/14/2022, Camden, NJ; 09/02/2023, St. Paul, MN; 05/04/2024 & 05/06/2024, Vancouver, BC; 05/10/2024, Portland, OR; 05/03/2025, New Orleans, LA;
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©0 -
Italy has satellites?Halifax2TheMax said:
And Italian satellites, no?Bentleyspop said:
This is all true but in 1992, 1996, 2008, 2012, 2020 it was all rigged by Venezuelan voting machines.Halifax2TheMax said:If I recall, Al Gore conceded once SCOTUS stepped in and stopped the recount that the white nationalists in khakis and popped collar polo shirts couldn’t stop through their intimidation and glass banging. My memory is shit but I think there was a peaceful transition of power with Al on the dias at the Capitol to swear in Shrub. Hillary also called POOTWH and conceded and, if I remember correctly, Obama toured POS POOTWH through the WH.
Probably controlled by the illuminati0 -
Bentleyspop said:
Italy has satellites?Halifax2TheMax said:
And Italian satellites, no?Bentleyspop said:
This is all true but in 1992, 1996, 2008, 2012, 2020 it was all rigged by Venezuelan voting machines.Halifax2TheMax said:If I recall, Al Gore conceded once SCOTUS stepped in and stopped the recount that the white nationalists in khakis and popped collar polo shirts couldn’t stop through their intimidation and glass banging. My memory is shit but I think there was a peaceful transition of power with Al on the dias at the Capitol to swear in Shrub. Hillary also called POOTWH and conceded and, if I remember correctly, Obama toured POS POOTWH through the WH.
Probably controlled by the illuminati
they are known as the satellnati
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memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '140 -
I don't believe in Venezuelan voting machines but I do believe there are Jewish space lasersBentleyspop said:
This is all true but in 1992, 1996, 2008, 2012, 2020 it was all rigged by Venezuelan voting machines.Halifax2TheMax said:If I recall, Al Gore conceded once SCOTUS stepped in and stopped the recount that the white nationalists in khakis and popped collar polo shirts couldn’t stop through their intimidation and glass banging. My memory is shit but I think there was a peaceful transition of power with Al on the dias at the Capitol to swear in Shrub. Hillary also called POOTWH and conceded and, if I remember correctly, Obama toured POS POOTWH through the WH.Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana; 2025: Pitt1, Pitt20 -
They definitely do exist. As a Soros employee I can attest to that...Gern Blansten said:
I don't believe in Venezuelan voting machines but I do believe there are Jewish space lasersBentleyspop said:
This is all true but in 1992, 1996, 2008, 2012, 2020 it was all rigged by Venezuelan voting machines.Halifax2TheMax said:If I recall, Al Gore conceded once SCOTUS stepped in and stopped the recount that the white nationalists in khakis and popped collar polo shirts couldn’t stop through their intimidation and glass banging. My memory is shit but I think there was a peaceful transition of power with Al on the dias at the Capitol to swear in Shrub. Hillary also called POOTWH and conceded and, if I remember correctly, Obama toured POS POOTWH through the WH.
0 -
That's too big to be a religious space lazer.1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine
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