election fraud tamper
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">this is not so different from vote suppression/ID but mebbe more about counting the ballots?</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">do i need another category for foreign/ cyber attacks? eg russian meddling?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9/20 i forgot this node s<b>ee USPO vote by mail</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">KKK bogus comm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see voting machines
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EASTMAN justifies election fuckery b/c deep state , also says secret compartment of bogus votes in machines GUK
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-spent-the-last-year-quietly-building-a-legal-juggernaut-to-challenge-election-results-report/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-spent-the-last-year-quietly-building-a-legal-juggernaut-to-challenge-election-results-report/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> As messy and chaotic as <em>Bush v. Gore</em> was in 2000, the 2020 presidential election is shaping up to be even worse. President Donald Trump has refused to commit to accepting the election results if his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, is victorious on Tuesday, November 3 — and Trump has an army of Republican attorneys ready to fight for him in swing states next month. Journalist Anita Kumar, in an <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/27/trump-legal-network-election-day-fight-422035" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">article published in Politico</a> on September 27, stresses that the team of lawyers that Trump's campaign is employing for this election is enormous.</font></p><p style=""><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kumar explains, "Dozens of lawyers from three major law firms have been hired. Thousands of volunteer attorneys and poll watchers across the country have been recruited. Republicans are preparing pre-written legal pleadings that can be hurried to the courthouse the day after the election, as wrangling begins over close results and a crush of mail-in ballots. Attorneys from non-battleground states — including California, New York and Illinois — are being dispatched to more competitive areas and trained on local election laws."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Trump campaign's legal "strategy," according to Kumar, is "mainly focused on the election process in the 17 key states the Trump campaign is targeting, like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan."</b></font></p><p style=""><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">"In total," Kumar observes, "it means the Republican Party will have thousands of people on hand to shape every element of voting — both on Election Day and in the days after. It's a massive undertaking — one the RNC calls its largest election-year legal effort ever. And it's one that could determine the winner of the pandemic-beset 2020 election."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Kumar recalls that in 2000, "the race between George W. Bush and Al Gore didn't end until the Supreme Court weighed in more than a month later." But in 2020, Kumar warns, election officials "expect a more chaotic aftermath." And Democratic attorneys, Kumar emphasizes, are preparing for "battle" as well.</b></font></p><p style=""><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"Democrats have launched their own gargantuan effort, doubling their efforts since 2016,"</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Kumar notes. "They've amassed a team to educate voters, respond to charges of voter suppression and counter foreign interference and misinformation, according to the Biden campaign<b>. The effort is being led by Dana Remus, Biden's general counsel, and Bob Bauer, a former White House counsel during the Obama Administration</b> who joined the campaign full-time this summer."</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Democratic legal team, Kumar adds, also includes "former solicitors general Donald Verrilli and Walter Dellinger, as well as Marc Elias, a nationally recognized Democratic elections lawyer, according to the campaign<b>. Former Attorney General Eric Holder also is involved."</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Countless Democrats — liberals and progressives as well as centrists — are warning that Republicans and the Trump campaign will be relentless in their voter suppression efforts, especially when it comes to people of color. And while <em>Bush v. Gore</em> was centered on the election results in Florida, the legal battles in the 2020 election might take place in multiple swing states, ranging from Pennsylvania to Arizona to North Carolina.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Gwin, a spokesman for Biden's campaign, told Politico, "The Biden campaign has assembled the biggest voter protection program in history to ensure the election runs smoothly and to combat any attempt by Donald Trump to create fear and confusion with our voting system, or interfere in the democratic process."</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 620</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">r<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/revealed-official-files-discredit-brian-kemps-accusation-that-democrats-tried-to-hack-the-georgia-election/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline !important;">evealed: Official files discredit Brian Kemp’s accusation that Democrats tried to hack the Georgia election</a></font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/propublica/" title="Posts by ProPublica " class="author url fn" rel="author" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">ProP</a>ub</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12/18</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/north-carolinas-election-fiasco-about-voter-suppression-not-voter-fraud"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/north-carolinas-election-fiasco-about-voter-suppression-not-voter-fraud</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/gop-sens-ron-johnson-and-marsha-blackburn-are-tied-to-russian-money-and-trump-conspiracy-theories-theyre-not-alone/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/gop-sens-ron-johnson-and-marsha-blackburn-are-tied-to-russian-money-and-trump-conspiracy-theories-theyre-not-alone/</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>GOP Sens. Ron Johnson and Marsha Blackburn are tied to Russian money and Trump conspiracy theories. They’re not alone</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Sophia Tesfaye / Salon October 30, 2019</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nancy Pelosi has announced that the House will finally hold a formal vote dictating the rules for the impeachment inquiry, six weeks after it was launched by a whistleblower’s complaint mysteriously withheld from Congress. And on Tuesday, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman backed up both the initial whistleblower and U.S. diplomat Bill Taylor by testifying that he too was concerned about the Trump administration’s push to use congressionally-allocated military aid to Ukraine to coerce an investigation into Joe Biden.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Congressional Republicans have long since stopped defending Trump on the merits since shortly after the White House released a transcript of a July call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Instead, they’ve sought refuge in increasingly meaningless process arguments. So of course Pelosi agreeing to a formal vote on the rules of impeachment hasn’t stopped Republican complaints about the process. The goalposts will shift once again. No matter what the Democrats agree to, Republicans will complain about procedural unfairness and also refuse to concede the inquiry is legitimate. But how much of Republicans’ unwillingness to hold Trump accountable for his self-dealing is because they’re in on it?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Monday the Washington Post published an interview with a Ukrainian diplomat who claimed to have met with Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., this summer to discuss the baseless conspiracy theory promoted by President Trump that Ukrainian officials had interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton.</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Johnson reportedly met with Ukrainian diplomat Andrii Telizhenko </b>for at least 30 minutes on Capitol Hill in July, and Telizhenko then met with Johnson’s Senate staff for five additional hours. According to the report, “the discussions focused in part on ‘the DNC issue’ — a reference to his unsubstantiated claim that the Democratic National Committee worked with the Ukrainian government in 2016 to gather incriminating information about then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Telizhenko said he could not recall the date of the meeting, but a review of his Facebook page revealed a photo of him and Johnson posted on July 11.”</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Johnson is a vocal Trump defender who has hounded the inspector general of the intelligence community about investigating media leaks regarding the Ukraine call. He has previously admitted that he was told by Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, that Ukraine needed to “get to the bottom of what happened in 2016” in order to receive military aid.</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Johnson told the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, after Sondland told him that, he was assured “if President Trump has that confidence” that the Ukrainians would do his bidding, “then he’ll release the military spending.” Now, as the Post points out, Johnson’s “knowledge of key events” in the case may “complicate his role as a juror in a trial by the Senate.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recall that when Johnson was asked about his defense of Trump’s actions, he snapped at the simple question from NBC News’ Chuck Todd and spun out the same deep state conspiracy theory pushed by the likes of Fox News’ Sean Hannity.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Beyond his apparent involvement in Trump’s Ukraine dealings, Johnson is alleged to have benefited from campaign money illegally funneled from Russia via shell corporations owned by the National Rifle Association, which helped him win his tight 2016 race in Wisconsin.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Political action committees for Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham reportedly accepted $7.35 million in contributions from a Ukrainian-born oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 election. McConnell and Graham are co-sponsors of a new resolution condemning the House impeachment inquiry</span>. At least 50 Senate Republicans, several of whom have refused to publicly comment on the growing Ukraine scandal — citing a need to remain impartial for a likely Senate impeachment trial — have already signed onto that bill. The resolution is currently paused in the Senate Rules Committee until the House votes on impeachment rules later this week.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">As House Democrats’ investigation has rapidly unveiled ever more damaging material regarding Trump’s Ukraine scandal, public support for impeachment has shot up. Reportedly nervous about his wall of defense in the Senate crumbling, the president recently hosted several GOP senators at the White House, including top Johnson, Graham, John Thune of South Dakota and John Kennedy of Louisiana, last week. A day earlier, <b>Thune and Kennedy, had blocked a Democratic bill to provide funding for states to shore up election security. The next day, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., quietly blocked three election-security bills for the second time this year.</b></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“You know, it’s not a good sign if you’re doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result,” Blackburn said on the Senate floor late last week. She is among the Republican senators with close ties to a U.S.-sanctioned Russian politician who is accused of illegally channeling Russian funds through the NRA. Under Senate rules, any individual senator can block a vote on a bill.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Senate Republicans are not prematurely dismissing an impeachment inquiry on which they will probably have to render judgment, they continue to protect Trump’s refusal to clamp down on potential election interference. If Republican charges of a “kangaroo court” are anything, they are a classic case of projection: How can Senate Republicans possibly serve as impartial jurors in a trial of the president, when they are implicated in the same pattern of political malfeasance?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sophia Tesfaye is Salon’s Deputy Politics Editor and resides in Washington, D.C. You can find her on Twitter at @SophiaTesfaye.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/election-03918/north-carolina-election-fraud-board-elections-meeting">https://www.alternet.org/election-03918/north-carolina-election-fraud-board-elections-meeting</a></font></p><div class="headline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="node-title" style="line-height: 52px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; clear: both;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Actual election fraud may have taken place in this North Carolina race — but it looks like it helped the Republican</font></h1></div><div class="teaser" style="margin-bottom: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field field-name-field-teaser field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is a possibility the 9th Congressional District results will simply be thrown out and the election redone.</font></div></div></div></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Friday, the North Carolina Bipartisan State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nc-election-officials-plan-hearing-over-fraud-concerns-in-us-house-race-raising-possibility-of-new-election/2018/11/30/d1fc0450-f4b7-11e8-aeea-b85fd44449f5_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">voted</a> 7-2 to hold a hearing before December 21 over the allegations of election fraud in the race for the 9th Congressional District. This follows the unanimous vote of every Democrat and Republican on the board to <a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article222263905.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">refuse to certify</a> the results earlier this week.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republican Mark Harris defeated Democrat Dan McCready by a razor-thin margin of 905 votes. But the result has been marred by reports of <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/30/18119546/north-carolina-9th-district-election-board-bladen-county" style="text-decoration-line: none;">irregularities with absentee ballots</a> in Bladen County.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democratic attorneys presented multiple sworn affidavits to the Board of Elections from voters, including elderly African-Americans, who reported a young woman unexpectedly arriving at their house to take their ballots, in one case even saying she would fill in votes for offices that were left blank. Another voter reported seeing unauthorized people running election results after the polls closed, while yet another alleged to have overheard people saying that Leslie McCrae Dowless, Jr., a local political operative working with Harris' campaign on absentee ballots, would be paid a $40,000 bonus if Harris won the election.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On top of it all, the absentee ballot numbers in Bladen County are <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/30/18119546/north-carolina-9th-district-election-board-bladen-county" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bizarre</a>, with far more unreturned ballots than in any other county in the district, and with the Republican winning these ballots by 61 to 38 even though registered Democrats led Republicans in accepted absentee ballots by 42 to 19.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Taken together, it is unclear whether any of this was decisive in Harris winning the election, but the irregularities are serious enough that the Board of Elections cannot certify the results.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the greatest twist of irony, Republicans in North Carolina have long used the specter of "voter fraud" to enact draconian identification laws that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/29/the-smoking-gun-proving-north-carolina-republicans-tried-to-disenfranchise-black-voters/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">disproportionately impact people of color</a>. The type of fraud they claim these laws fight — people showing up in person at polling places to cast multiple ballots — <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud-myth" style="text-decoration-line: none;">virtually never happens</a>. Now, one of the most significant potential cases of fraud in the state appears to have been perpetrated to favor the Republican candidate — and no voter ID law would have prevented it.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This House race was one of the most closely-watched in the country. Harris, a controversial Baptist pastor from Charlotte who <a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article73748797.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">led the charge</a> to legislate discrimination of trans people in public restrooms, has argued women should <a href="https://www.alternet.org/mark-harris-defends-his-claim-wives-should-submit" style="text-decoration-line: none;">submit to their husbands</a>, and thinks <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/north-carolina-candidate-congress-criminalize-homosexuality-05e8b5914d7b/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">homosexuality should be criminalized</a>. Earlier this year, he shocked observers when he <a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article210774979.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">unseated</a> incumbent GOP Rep. Robert Pittenger in his primary. Though the 9th District is <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/robert-pittenger/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">very conservative</a>, Harris' liabilities as a candidate made it a <a href="https://shareblue.com/marine-vet-dan-mccready-congress-north-carolina-nc-09/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">close race</a> against McCready, a Marine veteran and green energy investor.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is unclear what happens now. Harris, who was already <a href="https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/news/2018/11/16/newly-elected-nc-congressman-mark-harris-attends-orientation-in-dc" style="text-decoration-line: none;">setting up shop in D.C.</a>, is now in a legal limbo that could prevent him from being seated in Congress. Ultimately, the Board of Elections could end up certifying the results after their investigation, or they could <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nc-election-officials-plan-hearing-over-fraud-concerns-in-us-house-race-raising-possibility-of-new-election/2018/11/30/d1fc0450-f4b7-11e8-aeea-b85fd44449f5_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">throw out the election entirely and do it over</a>. Meanwhile, North Carolina Republicans are <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/30/18119546/north-carolina-9th-district-election-board-bladen-county" style="text-decoration-line: none;">threatening to sue</a> to force the election to be certified as is. And as if all of that were not enough, a bill passed by Republicans in the state legislature made partisan changes to the Board of Elections that will <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nc-election-officials-plan-hearing-over-fraud-concerns-in-us-house-race-raising-possibility-of-new-election/2018/11/30/d1fc0450-f4b7-11e8-aeea-b85fd44449f5_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">dissolve the current membership in a few weeks</a>, creating the potential that their replacements will overturn all of this.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><interaction data-token="5b96855f8198b4e625350260" data-context="true" data-tags="" data-fallback="true" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is no telling what the end result of this process will be. But the whole affair is a test to the integrity of the democratic process — and to people's faith in it.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div>