Daily Archives: October 8, 2021

US election reviews have not appeased those who think the game is rigged | Sam Levine/The Guardian

Back in May, I spent some time with a small group of people who had gathered outside of Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix to express their support for the investigation into the election results in Maricopa county, the largest county in Arizona. Sitting under a tent in the desert heat, several people said the two official audits Maricopa county had authorized already weren’t sufficient. I asked the group if they would accept that Biden was the winner if that was what the audit showed. “Personally, I would, yes,” said Kelly Johnson, a 61-year-old who traveled to Phoenix from southern California. I’ve been thinking a lot about that conversation as I watched the Arizona review conclude, finding no evidence of fraud and affirming Biden’s win. And I found myself returning to that conversation as I reported this week on similar efforts to investigate election results that are unfolding in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Texas. Those supporting the reviews have offered similar assurances that an inquiry can only lead to more trust in the election results. If people have questions, what harm can come from looking under the hood to make sure everything is OK? “If there are things called into question, and there is not full confidence in the electoral process, providing audits and research and evidence that in fact these processes and procedures and the election results you can have confidence in, only supports that position where you can have confidence and here is why,” Wisconsin state senator Kathy Bernier told me last week.

Full Article: US election reviews have not appeased those who think the game is rigged | US news | The Guardian

National: Behind the Curtain of Post-Election Canvassing, Audits, and Certification | Matthew Weil and Christopher Thomas/Bipartisan Policy Center

Debates about voting policy tend to center on the parts of the process voters interact with most, such as the number of days of early voting or availability of mail voting options. It is, however, the way states approach the period that begins as polls close that can shape whether voters have confidence in election results. The canvassing and certification period is a black box for most Americans who rarely think about what goes into counting, certifying, and auditing ballots once they are cast. During an era of close contests and hyperpolarization, there is minimal room for error and ample opportunity for misinformation and misunderstanding. In 2021, the perceived need for further analysis of election results gave rise to a series of semi-private, unofficial audits.¹ These audits cast doubt on the American voting process, despite being unable to find any evidence to support their claims of fraud. Perhaps the greatest threat to American elections is not any particular of election administration itself, but the decoupling of reality from perception. As the gap between the reality and perception of elections grows, we see private audits haphazardly attempt to achieve what election officials already do in the aftermath of each election: confirm the accuracy of the results. Yet unlike the official certification processes already in place, these circus-like audits are intended to usurp rather than instill voter confidence. Furthermore, many of the audits failed to uphold security best practices and threatened the integrity of voting systems – forcing some jurisdictions to invest millions in new technology, an unnecessary waste of already limited election office resources.

Full Article: Behind the Curtain of Post-Election Canvassing, Audits, and Certification | Bipartisan Policy Center

National: ‘Subverting Justice’: Senate panel details the 9 times Trump pressured Justice Department to overturn election results | Kevin Johnson/USA TODAY

On the very day that Attorney General William Barr left office in late December, then-President Donald Trump and top White House aides began a “relentless” pressure campaign aimed at interim Justice Department leaders, including acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to a new Senate committee report. The effort included “near-daily outreach” to the department, such as nine calls and meetings with Rosen and acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation found. The White House push continued right up to the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters sought to block Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s election. According to the committee, then-acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark repeatedly sought to “induce Rosen into helping Trump’s election subversion scheme” by telling Rosen that he would decline Trump’s offer that he take Rosen’s place if Rosen agreed to join. The report said Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, pressured Rosen on “multiple occasions” to launch election fraud investigations, “violating longstanding restrictions on White House intervention in DOJ law enforcement matters.” According to the report, Meadows attempted to push Rosen to meet with Trump’s outside lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who was waging a parallel legal campaign in the courts, where he pressed debunked allegations of voter fraud in multiple states.

Full Article: Senate details Donald Trump’s push at DOJ to overturn 2020 election

National: Report Cites New Details of Trump Pressure on Justice Dept. Over Election | Katie Benner/The New York Times

Full Article: New Details of Trump Pressure on Justice Dept. Over Election – The New York Times

National: ‘The intelligence was there’: Law enforcement warnings abounded in the runup to Jan. 6 | Betsy Woodruff Swan/Politico

On Dec. 24, a private intelligence company that works with law enforcement issued a grave warning: Users of a pro-Trump internet forum were talking about turning violent on Jan. 6. “[A] supposedly violent insurrection by [Trump’s] supporters has ‘always been the plan,’” read a briefing by that company, SITE Intelligence Group. SITE sent this bulletin and others to its numerous subscribers, including U.S. federal law enforcement. That briefing is among a host of previously unreported documents that circulated among law enforcement officials in the weeks before Jan. 6 — laying out, some with jarring specificity, the threats that culminated in the attack on the Capitol. They showed just how much of a danger far-right extremists posed to federal buildings and lawmakers. And they bolster the argument that Jan. 6 was not an intelligence failure. “A potpourri of communities overtly strategized to storm the Capitol building and arrest — if not outright kill — public officials and carry out a coup,” said Rita Katz, the founder and executive director of SITE, which supplied many of the most detailed and specific warnings ahead of Jan. 6. She said Jan. 6 represented the most “profound failure to act” she has ever seen in decades of sharing intelligence with the U.S. government. “Law enforcement officials were alerting their superiors and other agencies to the threats SITE had identified—many of which ended up manifesting that day, just as they were written,” she said. “These warnings were distributed by the FBI and other agencies well before January 6.”

Full Article: ‘The intelligence was there’: Law enforcement warnings abounded in the runup to Jan. 6 – POLITICO

National: Christian Conservative Lawyer Had Secretive Role in Bid to Block Election Result | Eric Lipton and Mark Walker/The New York Times

Full Article: How Michael P. Farris Tried to Block 2020 Election Outcome – The New York Times

National: Trump allies did little to investigate election fraud claims, court documents show | Tierney Sneed and Katelyn Polantz/CNN

Full Article: Donald Trump allies did little to investigate election fraud claims, court documents show – CNNPolitics