Trump, Allies Continue to Blow Smoke

Post-Election Day, Trump and his campaign have mostly produced a series of allegations and anecdotes of reported misdoing rather than concrete, credible evidence of voter fraud.  Nonetheless they continue to come up with baseless charges—today's storyline promulgated by Trump and his allies focused on Dominion Voting Systems.  This charge prompted election security officials to issue a statement that, "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised." While Republicans reported a legal win in Pennsylvania, overall the Trump litigation effort seems to be foundering badly.  Most concerning, while this drama plays out, the Trump administration has resisted providing resources for the transition.





https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
November 12, 2020

JOINT STATEMENT FROM ELECTIONS INFRASTRUCTURE GOVERNMENT COORDINATING COUNCIL & THE ELECTION INFRASTRUCTURE SECTOR COORDINATING EXECUTIVE COMMITTEES

WASHINGTON – The members of Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC) Executive Committee – Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Assistant Director Bob Kolasky, U.S. Election Assistance Commission Chair Benjamin Hovland, National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) President Maggie Toulouse Oliver, National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) President Lori Augino, and Escambia County (Florida) Supervisor of Elections David Stafford – and the members of the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council (SCC) – Chair Brian Hancock (Unisyn Voting Solutions), Vice Chair Sam Derheimer (Hart InterCivic), Chris Wlaschin (Election Systems & Software), Ericka Haas (Electronic Registration Information Center), and Maria Bianchi (Democracy Works) - released the following statement:

“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result.

“When states have close elections, many will recount ballots. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.

“Other security measures like pre-election testing, state certification of voting equipment, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s (EAC) certification of voting equipment help to build additional confidence in the voting systems used in 2020.

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

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from November 9 or 10, 2020

TEAM TRUMP TALKERS | ELECTION INTEGRITY AND LAWSUITS

Beginning today, the Trump Campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated:

 

Toplines

·   This election is far from over.

·   Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor. 

·   Legal votes decide who is president, not the news media.

·   The American people are entitled to an honest election: that means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots.

·   This is the only way to ensure the public has full confidence in our election.

·   It remains shocking that the Biden campaign refuses to agree with this basic principle and wants ballots counted even if they are fraudulent, manufactured, or cast by ineligible or deceased voters.

·   Only a party engaged in wrongdoing would unlawfully keep observers out of the count room – and then fight in court to block their access.  

·   What is Biden hiding?

·   President Trump will not rest until the American People have the honest vote count they deserve and that Democracy demands.

The Legal Team

·   President Trump’s campaign is running the most impressive legal effort in American political history.

·   The Trump Campaign will employ the legal process to ensure every legal ballot is counted, which will result in President Trump’s reelection.

·   We are preparing to announce recount requests in key states with razor-thin margins, and Team Trump will hold rallies with the President’s supporters focused on these efforts.

·   In Georgia, Former Congressman Doug Collins will lead the effort. We have also moved nearly 100 team members from Florida to Georgia, doubling our Georgia team.

·   In Arizona, Kory Langhofer will lead our effort.

·   In Pennsylvania, Ron Hicks will lead our effort.

·   Team Trump is also assembling surrogates and lawyers nationwide and fundraising for our legal defense fund.

·   In addition to our legal leadership at Trump Campaign HQ, Representatives Jim Jordan and Scott Perry, along with former White House Chief Reince Priebus are closely involved.

 

State Legislator Talkers

·   The Constitution gives state legislators authority to set the times, places, and manners of holding federal elections and the power to direct the manner of selecting electors for the electoral college.

·   The laws as written by state legislatures ensure every legal vote counts, not court settlements, executive official guidance, or what the media says.

·   State legislatures are representatives of the people—they represent urban, suburban, and rural districts and work together to find consensus and compromise, unlike through judicial or executive fiat

·   If election rules need to be reformed to protect election integrity, counteract fraud, and give voice to the will of the people, state legislatures have the power to reform the process under the Constitution.

 

Arizona Lawsuit

·   The Trump Campaign and the RNC have sued in Arizona alleging that Maricopa County incorrectly rejected votes cast by in-person voters on Election Day.

·   When a machine detects an overvote on a ballot, poll workers should inform in-person voters of the error and give them an equal opportunity to correct the issue.

·   Instead, poll workers in Maricopa County pressed, and told voters to press, a green button to override the error.

·   The result is that the voting machines disregarded votes cast by voters in person on Election Day in Maricopa County.

·   The campaign has collected declarations from voters who witnessed the problem and alleges that the problem occurred on a large scale in Maricopa County. 

·   Voters can submit additional declarations at DontTouchTheGreenButton.com

·   The suit asks for the manual inspection of overvoted ballots that were cast in-person, the same way that elections officials examined overvoted ballots that were mailed in or dropped off.

 

Nevada Lawsuit

·  President Trump has long fought to ensure the integrity of Nevada’s election for the good of the nation, and the Trump Campaign stands with Jill Stokke, a 79 year-old legally blind voter whose vote was stolen, in the fight against voter disenfranchisement in Nevada.

o   Upon arriving to vote in person last week, Stokke was told she had already voted by mail and that the signature was verified on the ballot she never sent. 

 

·  Ms. Stokke filed suit in federal court with a clear mission: to vindicate the rights of Nevadans who were disenfranchised by the chaos and lack of security in the Democrats’ rush to universal vote-by-mail, to protect transparency and security measures adopted under the constitutional authority of the state legislature, and to enjoin these outrageous constitutional violations are remedied.

 

·  Jill Stokke is surely not the only voter that has been disenfranchised in a state that is too close to call.

 

·  The Trump Campaign stands with Stokke and all Nevadans whose voices have been silenced by the Democrats’ radical new voting system.

 

·  In addition to the disenfranchisement brought to light with this lawsuit, we have come across evidence of apparent illegal vote manufacturing in Nevada.

o   A Clark County poll worker has come forward after witnessing apparent illegal vote manufacturing at a Biden-Harris bus parked in a voting center parking lot several days during early voting.

o   While walking around the parking lot, the poll worker witnessed individuals with the Biden bus opening envelopes, marking ballots, and sealing ballot envelopes.

o   When these individuals noticed the poll worker, several of them formed a human wall and moved to block the poll workers’ view of the ballot opening, marking, and re-sealing process.

o   What were these political operatives hiding?

  

Wisconsin Recount 

· Despite ridiculous public polling used as a voter suppression tactic, Wisconsin has been a razor thin race as we always knew that it would be.

· There have been reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties which raise serious doubts about the validity of the results.

· The President is well within the threshold to request a recount, and we will do so.

 

Michigan Lawsuit

· We always knew the race in Michigan would be tight.

· President Trump’s campaign has not been provided with meaningful access to numerous counting locations to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process, as guaranteed by Michigan law.

· So we filed suit to halt counting until meaningful access has been granted.

· We also demand to review those ballots which were opened and counted while we did not have meaningful access.

· President Trump is committed to ensuring that all legal votes are counted in Michigan and everywhere else.

 

Pennsylvania Lawsuits

 

PA GOP v. Boockvar, SCOTUS:

· Pennsylvania’s radical left, unhinged Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar has tried her hardest to bake in a backdoor to victory for Joe Biden with late, illegal ballots in collusion with the partisan state supreme court.

· The United States Constitution is clear on this: the legislature sets the time, place, and manner of elections in America, not state courts or executive officials.

· As President Trump has rightly said, the Supreme Court must resolve this crucial contested legal question, so President Trump’s Campaign has moved to intervene in this Supreme Court litigation over the Pennsylvania court’s unlawful extension of the mail-in ballot receipt deadline.

· On Friday night, Justice Alito upheld the rule of law and ordered Pennsylvania Secretary of State to keep all late-arriving ballot separate and keep any late-ballot counts separate if they are counted at all.

· We look forward to the continuation of this case.

 

Trump v. Boockvar, Helping America Vote Act (HAVA) violations:

· The Trump Campaign is suing to stop Pennsylvania Democrats from breaking the very law that helps America vote—the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). 

· President Trump won a preliminary victory for election integrity and the rule of law in Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on Thursday.

· In a suit filed this week, the campaign made clear that Pennsylvania law, in compliance with the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), requires certain first-time voters provide a copy of identification by November 9 for their ballots to be valid.

· Radical left Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar attempted to use executive fiat and unilaterally change the deadline in the law to accept identification mailed for three extra days, until November 12.

· The Commonwealth Court ordered that mail in ballots without a copy of identification must be kept separate if received after November 9 but before November 12.

· The court also noted that this order to segregate late-ID ballots is in addition to the order to segregate ballots received after November 3 while the U.S. Supreme Court suit remains pending.

· It is clear that Democrats are trying to rewrite the rules to steal the election for Joe Biden.

· This special injunction maintains the status quo while the court considers the merits of President Trump’s fight against this unlawful change of the identification deadline.

 

Georgia Lawsuit:

· President Trump’s team is fighting to stop Democrat election officials from stealing this election with late, illegal ballots.

· Republican poll watchers found evidence that ballots were mishandled during Georgia’s count, so we filed suit.

· A Republican poll observer in Georgia witnessed 53 late absentee ballots illegally added to a stack of on-time absentee ballots in Chatham County.

· The court in a heavily Democrat area in Georgia denied our petition without explanation, despite the clear lack of evidence that election workers are complying with law and ensuring only on-time ballots are being counted.



Democratic National Committee
November 12, 2020  10:11 a.m.












Democratic National Committee
November 12, 2020  11:06 a.m.

Trump Campaign Legal ‘Strategy’ Suffers Embarrassing Rebukes

In state after state, the Trump campaign’s legal “strategy” continues to fall flat and is suffering embarrassing rebukes in court because of one simple reality: they have no case, no evidence and no rationale to try to overturn the will of 77 million voters and counting. That hasn’t stopped them from continuing to lodge ridiculous claims, but nothing they do will change the outcome of the election.

The Trump campaign continues to suffer embarrassing rebukes from judges over its baseless claims of voter fraud because it has no evidence.
Washington Post: “Trump lawyers suffer embarrassing rebukes from judges over voter fraud claims”

Washington Post: “The common thread running through all of these is that Trump’s lawyers are regularly offering a significantly more watered-down version of Trump’s claims about rampant voter fraud — because they, unlike Trump, have to substantiate their claims.”
The Trump campaign apparatus hasn’t stopped its baseless claims and has now outrageously tried to argue increases in turnout in areas with many Black voters are a sign of fraud.
CNN: “It has also joined Trump in using laughably weak supposed evidence to make the case. Specifically, it is baselessly arguing that increases in voter turnout are a sign that something nefarious happened. … This is, frankly, ridiculous. There is no evidence of widespread fraud anywhere in the country, including in the counties Harrington highlighted.”
In Michigan, affidavits from poll watchers the Trump campaign used to allege election misconduct showed no evidence of voter fraud.
Detroit Free Press: “Trump lawsuit affidavits allege Michigan election misconduct, don't show widespread fraud”

Washington Post: “In poll watcher affidavits, Trump campaign offers no evidence of fraud in Detroit ballot-counting”
In Wisconsin, Republicans have still not been able to provide any evidence of voter fraud to support their baseless claims.
Wisconsin Journal Sentinel: “As in other states, Wisconsin Republicans are alleging voter fraud but so far are not providing evidence of widespread problems that would take away President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.”
In Pennsylvania, the Republican Philadelphia City Commissioner, whose office runs the vote count, confirmed that not a single dead person voted, contrary to misinformation spreading online.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins: “Republican Philadelphia City Commissioner says they looked into a list claiming dead people voted. ‘Between everything else that we're doing, we looked it up — each one of them to see what their vote history was. Not a single one voted in Philadelphia after they died.’”
In Georgia, Republicans, including the Secretary of State, said that the statewide recount will confirm that Biden is the President-elect.
CNN’s Manu Raju: “Brad Raffensperger, GOP Secretary of State, says on CNN he expects hand recount will confirm GA count that now has Biden ahead by more than 14K. ‘We believe the statewide recount will confirm that.’ He adds there hasn’t been widespread fraud - ‘nothing in the nature of 10,000’”

New Yorker’s Charles Bethea: “NEW: Georgia State Senator Chuck Hufstetler becomes first Republican in GA legislature to publicly acknowledge President Elect Biden. ‘It's my opinion that Joe Biden has won the election and will be declared the winner,’ he tells me. ‘I don't see anything that will change that.’”
In Nevada, a court dismissed another legal fight and Trump attempted to disenfranchise military service members with baseless claims of voter fraud.
Military.com: “GOP List of Alleged Voter Fraud in Nevada Contains Hundreds of Military Addresses”
In Arizona, the largest law firm representing the Trump campaign in post-election litigation abandoned them and withdrew from a lawsuit.
Reuters: “The largest law firm representing the Trump campaign or its allies in post-election litigation challenging votes in key states has withdrawn from an election lawsuit in Maricopa County, Arizona.”

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Republican National Committee
November 12, 2020 5:23 p.m.

RNC and Trump Campaign Win Pennsylvania Voter ID Case

WASHINGTON – In a huge victory for election integrity, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania sided with the Republican National Committee and Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. in the challenge to Secretary Boockvar’s unlawful deadline extension for absentee voters to provide missing proof of identification. The court ruled that Secretary Boockvar “lacked the statutory authority” to unilaterally extend the deadline set by law and ordered that the segregated ballots should not be counted. 
 
“This was a cut and dry brazen power grab by a Democrat official trying to tip the scales in Joe Biden’s favor, and we’re glad the court ruled in our favor.  We will continue to shine light on these unlawful incidents and voter irregularities that have happened in Pennsylvania and across the country until the results up and down the ballot are final and Americans are confident in the outcome of this election.”– RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel
 

You can view the filing here.
 
Background: 
 
In the eleventh hour, Secretary Boockvar re-wrote Pennsylvania Election Code to move the deadline to provide missing proof of identification for absentee voters.  The RNC and Trump campaign filed a lawsuit challenging this flagrant disregard of state law, and last week, the court enforced the proper statutory deadline and ordered that those ballots be segregated and not counted. 
 
The RNC and its Republican allies will continue to fight back against Democrat efforts to move the goal posts and count unlawful ballots.  The RNC and Trump campaign have over 500 volunteer lawyers and multiple firms engaged in Pennsylvania, and are fully prepared to litigate as necessary to ensure the integrity of the process.
 
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National Council on Election Integrity
November 12, 2020

Statement: Planning And Preparation For Transition Must Begin Immediately, Says Bipartisan National Council On Election Integrity

The bipartisan National Council on Election Integrity — a group of more than 40 former elected officials, former Cabinet secretaries, retired military officials, and civic leaders — issued the following statement urging planning and preparation for a transition to begin immediately:

“Supporting our democratic republic means supporting the rule of law. While the Trump campaign is still pursuing litigation, the outcome of the presidential election is clear. The laws that govern peaceful transitions in our country require an ‘apparent’ winner in the presidential race. That criterion has been met.

“We call on General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator Emily W. Murphy to release the funds, facilities, and other services necessary to start a smooth and efficient transition, in accordance with the law. Responsible stewardship of our democratic republic requires that GSA and other pertinent agencies be allowed to cooperate with President-Elect Joe Biden on appropriate intelligence briefings and transition plans, including the President’s Daily Brief.

“As the Center for Presidential Transition has noted: The new administration will quickly be required to prepare a $4.7 trillion budget; develop a strong policy agenda; recruit 4,000 political appointees, including 1,250 who require Senate confirmation; and assume leadership of a workforce of 2 million civilian employees and 2 million active duty and reserve troops.

“Moreover, our national security demands that the president-elect and new administration be fully prepared to meet the challenges facing the country without delay. Sixteen years ago, the 9/11 Commission stressed how a truncated transition between the administrations of President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush created national security vulnerabilities. We should not repeat that mistake. Planning and preparation for the transition must begin immediately.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer
November 12, 2020

Joint Readout Of President-Elect Biden’s Call With Congressional Leaders

Washington, D.C. – President-elect Joe Biden spoke with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.  The president-elect thanked them for their congratulations and expressed his commitment to uniting the country after a hard-fought campaign.

The president-elect, the Speaker, and the Leader spoke about the intensifying COVID-19 pandemic and the growing economic pain facing so many Americans across this country.

They discussed the urgent need for the Congress to come together in the lame duck session on a bipartisan basis to pass a bill that provides resources to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, relief for working families and small businesses, support for state and local governments trying to keep frontline workers on the payroll, expanded unemployment insurance, and affordable health care for millions of families.

They also discussed the importance of finding bipartisan solutions to create millions of good-paying union jobs, including through investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, research and development, and clean energy.

They will stay in close touch in the days ahead.

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