It started as one big, false claim — that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. But nearly a year later, the Big Lie is metastasizing, with Republicans throughout the country raising the specter of rigged elections in their own campaigns ahead of the midterms. The preemptive spin is everywhere. Last week it was Larry Elder in California, who — before getting trounced in the GOP’s failed effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom — posted a “Stop Fraud” page on his campaign website. Before that, at a rally in Virginia, state Sen. Amanda Chase introduced herself as a surrogate for gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin and told the crowd, “Because the Democrats like to cheat, you have to cast your vote before they do.” In Nevada, Adam Laxalt, the former state attorney general running to unseat Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, is already talking about filing lawsuits to “tighten up the election” — more than a year before votes are cast. And in Pennsylvania, former Rep. Lou Barletta, who is running for governor after losing a Senate race two years earlier, said he “had to consider” whether a Republican could ever win a race again in his state given the current administration of elections there. Trump may have started the election-truther movement. But what was once the province of an aggrieved former president has spread far beyond him, infecting elections at every level with vague, unspecified claims that future races are already rigged. It’s a fiction that’s poised to factor heavily in the midterm elections and in 2024 — providing Republican candidates with a rallying cry for the rank-and-file, and priming the electorate for future challenges to races the GOP may lose.
Idaho Election Officials Reject Fraud Claims After Hand Recounts | James Dawson/Boise State Public Radio
Idaho’s top election officials are refuting claims that the results of the 2020 presidential race were rigged in the state, conducting recounts in two counties within the past week. The Idaho Secretary of State’s office said it recently investigated claims that votes cast for former President Donald Trump were electronically switched for President Joe Biden. Trump won Idaho with nearly 64% of the vote. The assertions from MyPillow CEO and Trump ally Mike Lindell, dubbed “The Big Lie,” have been found to be baseless in other states. They raised red flags for Idaho state officials. “There’s illogical arguments that are made and they’re made on such a blanket level, it’s almost impossible to comprehend how something like that could be pulled off,” said Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck. For example, at least seven of Idaho’s counties, which run their own elections, have no electronic components to their vote counting process. And no voting machine certified for use in Idaho can be connected to the internet or accessed remotely over something like Bluetooth. “That was a huge red flag, and one we knew we could either prove or disprove fairly directly,” Houck said. All votes in the state are also recorded on paper to preserve an audit trail. The secretary of state’s office conducted hand recounts in Butte and Camas counties last week. They found a 10-vote discrepancy in the two counties – well short of Lindell’s claims of 116 and 54 votes respectfully that supposedly swapped to Biden. Another partial recount is set for Bonner County Saturday.
Full Article: Idaho Election Officials Reject Fraud Claims After Hand Recounts | Boise State Public Radio