National

Michigan: Trump invites Republican leaders to meet him at White House as he escalates attempts to overturn election results | Tom Hamburger, Kayla Ruble, David A. Fahrenthold and Josh Dawsey/The Washington Post

President Trump has invited the leaders of Michigan’s Republican-controlled state legislature to meet him in Washington on Friday, according to a person familiar with those plans, as the president and his allies continue an extraordinary campaign to overturn the results of an election he lost. Trump’s campaign has suffered defeats in courtrooms across the country in its efforts to allege irregularities with the ballot-counting process, and has failed to muster any evidence of the widespread fraud that the president continues to claim tainted the 2020 election. Trump lost Michigan by a wide margin: at present, he trails President-Elect Joseph R. Biden in the state by 157,000 votes. Earlier this week, the state’s Republican Senate Majority Leader said an effort to have legislators throw out election results was “not going to happen.” But the president now appears to be using the full weight of his office to challenge the election results, as he and his allies reach out personally to state and local officials in an intensifying effort to halt the certification of the vote in key battleground states. In an incendiary news conference in Washington, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor who is now serving as Trump’s lead attorney, made baseless claims that Biden had orchestrated a national conspiracy to rig the vote. Trump’s team appear to be increasingly focused on Michigan as a place where Republican officials — on the state’s Board of Canvassers and in the legislature — might be persuaded to overturn the results.

Full Article: Trump called Monica Palmer, Wayne County official who asked to ‘rescind’ vote certifying election resultsIn Wayne County, Mich., GOP members of canvassing board ask to ‘rescind’ their votes certifying the election – The Washington Post

National: Confrontations in swing states escalate as Trump continues to attack the election process. | Nick Corasaniti, Jim Rutenberg and Kathleen Gray/The New York Times

President Trump’s false accusations that voter fraud denied him re-election are causing escalating confrontations in swing states across the country, leading to threats of violence against officials in both parties and subverting even the most routine steps in the electoral process. In courtrooms, statehouses and election-board meetings across the country, the president is increasingly using the weight of his office to deliver his message to lower-level election workers, hoping they buckle. It has not worked. The extraordinary assault on the voting system by the president and his allies has taken on added intensity as the deadlines for certifying results in several states approach. Once certified, the final tallies will further complicate Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn his loss. Here is a look at some of the states where tensions are rising and local officials are receiving threats of violence.

Full Article: Confrontations in swing states escalate as Trump continues to attack the election process. – The New York Times

National: As defeats pile up, Trump tries to delay vote count in last-ditch attempt to cast doubt on Biden victory | Amy Gardner, Robert Costa, Rosalind S. Helderman and Michelle Ye Hee Lee/The Washington Post

President Trump has abandoned his plan to win reelection by disqualifying enough ballots to reverse President-elect Joe Biden’s wins in key battleground states, pivoting instead to a goal that appears equally unattainable: delaying a final count long enough to cast doubt on Biden’s decisive victory. On Wednesday, Trump’s campaign wired $3 million to election officials in Wisconsin to start a recount in the state’s two largest counties. His personal lawyer, ­Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has taken over the president’s legal team, asked a federal judge to consider ordering the Republican-controlled legislature in Pennsylvania to select the state’s electors. And Trump egged on a group of GOP lawmakers in Michigan who are pushing for an audit of the vote there before it is certified. Giuliani has also told Trump and associates that his ambition is to pressure GOP lawmakers and officials across the political map to stall the vote certification in an effort to have Republican lawmakers pick electors and disrupt the electoral college when it convenes next month — and Trump is encouraging of that plan, according to two senior Republicans who have conferred with Giuliani and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter candidly. But that outcome appears impossible. It is against the law in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin law gives no role to the legislature in choosing presidential electors, and there is little public will in other states to pursue such a path.

Full Article: As defeats pile up, Trump tries to delay vote count in last-ditch attempt to cast doubt on Biden victory – The Washington Post

National: Trump’s effort to overturn the election results may be inept. But it’s still a scandal. | Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Carrie Dann and Melissa Holzberg/NBC

Forget Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Or Trump’s impeachment for asking Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. Arguably the biggest political scandal we’ve ever seen in this country is playing right before our eyes: President Trump and his allies are trying to reverse the election results of a contest he lost. It doesn’t look like the scheme is going to work. The Wayne County (Detroit) Board of Canvassers last night certified its election results after its two Republican members initially withheld support. (Biden won Wayne County, 68 percent to 31 percent, and the state of Michigan by 148,000 votes.) But being unsuccessful doesn’t erase the magnitude of the scandal — or the fact that the president of the United States has cheered it on every step of the way.

Full Article: Trump’s effort to overturn the election results may be inept. But it’s still a scandal.

‘Pathetic’ Trump denounced over Krebs firing as campaign presses for recounts | Maanvi Singh, Sam Levine, Martin Pengelly and Joan E Greve/The Guardian

Donald Trump was condemned by opponents on Wednesday for firing the senior official who disputed his baseless claims of election fraud, as the president pressed on with his increasingly desperate battle to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. The president’s election campaign team continued to press for recounts and investigations in battleground states where Biden has already been declared the winner, including a new request in Wisconsin for a partial recount. And there was uproar over his decision late on Tuesday, announced by tweet, to fire a federal official in charge of election security who dismissed his claims of widespread voter fraud. The firing of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa) director, Christopher Krebs, was “pathetic and predictable from a president who views truth as his enemy”, senior House Democrat Adam Schiff said. Officials have declared 3 November’s contest between Trump and Biden the most secure US election ever.

Full Article: ‘Pathetic’ Trump denounced over Krebs firing as campaign presses for recounts | Donald Trump | The Guardian

National: GOP senators blast Trump’s firing of election security official: ‘A terrible mistake’ | Allison Pecorin and Lauren Lantry/ABC

In a rare instance of breaking ranks, GOP senators on Wednesday roundly criticized President Donald Trump’s firing of Chris Krebs, a top election security official who publicly contradicted his claims of voting fraud. “I thought this was a terrible mistake,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine said. Krebs, a political appointee as head of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, was highly respected on both sides the political aisle. His dismissal came after he tweeted that the 2020 election was “the most secure election in American history.” “I don’t agree with it,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., told reporters. “I think he’s kept us very well informed. He’s been very professional.” “I was very disappointed when I found out that he had been terminated,” said Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who frequently defends Trump, said while the president has the right to choose his own people, firing Krebs “adds to the confusion and chaos.”

Full Article: GOP senators blast Trump’s firing of election security official: ‘A terrible mistake’ – ABC News

Secretaries of state react to CISA Director Krebs’ firing | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

Full Article: Secretaries of state react to CISA Director Krebs’ firing

National: Firing CISA chief leaves Trump unchecked to make false claims about election fraud | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

Full Article: The Cybersecurity 202: Firing CISA chief leaves Trump unchecked to make false claims about election fraud – The Washington Post

National: How The U.S. Fended Off Serious Foreign Election Day Cyberattacks | Tim Mak and Dina Temple-Raston/NPR

On Election Day, Geoff Brown watched lines of text flow by on monitors at New York City Cyber Command in downtown Manhattan. Brown, the head of the city’s cybersecurity operation, was plugged into a bank of virtual conference rooms, checking in with partners at the local, state and federal levels working together to monitor election systems for any security breaches or disinformation campaigns that might target the voting process. After all the waiting, after months of hardening defenses, the serious threats never came. “It was a long night. It was sort of a lonely night, perhaps, because we’re all in our own rooms in this day and age,” Brown reflected. He singled out for particular praise his counterparts at the Department of Homeland Security, especially Christopher Krebs, “who I think has done an absolute, tremendous job in their mission.” President Trump’s Tuesday evening firing of Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS, which oversaw federal efforts on election security and countering voting system disinformation, highlights a broader point: After all the concerns raised about foreign adversaries hacking into systems and launching disinformation campaigns such as those that marred the 2016 presidential election, the 2020 race went smoothly on both fronts.

Full Article: Foreign Hacking In 2020 Election Averted; Domestic Disinformation Still A Threat : NPR

The dead voter conspiracy theory peddled by Trump voters, debunked | Tom Perkins/The Guardian

Late last week, Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier declared on social media that he had unearthed definitive proof of widespread voter fraud in Detroit. He pointed to an absentee ballot cast by “118-year-old William Bradley”, a man who had supposedly died in 1984. “They’re trying to steal the election,” Fournier warned in a since-deleted Facebook post, though the election had already been called for Joe Biden by every major news network days before. But the deceased Bradley hadn’t voted. Within days, Bradley’s son, also named William Bradley, but with a different middle name, told PolitiFact that he had cast the ballot. That was confirmed by Michigan election officials, who said a clerk had entered the wrong Bradley as having voted. Though the living Bradley had also received an absentee ballot for his father, he said he threw it away, “because I didn’t want to get it confused with mine”. The false claim that the deceased Bradley had voted in the 3 November election is one of a barrage of voter fraud conspiracy theories fired off by Trump supporters across the country during recent weeks, and all have been debunked while failing to prove that widespread irregularities exist. Instead, the theories often reveal Trump supporters’ fundamental misunderstandings of the election system while creating a game of conspiracy theory whack-a-mole for election officials.

Full Article: The dead voter conspiracy theory peddled by Trump voters, debunked | US news | The Guardian

National: Giuliani peddles election conspiracy theories and falsehoods. | Linda Qiu/The New York Times

Full Article: Giuliani peddles election conspiracy theories and falsehoods. – The New York Times

Editorial: Trump is testing democracy. Nine out of 10 senior elected Republicans are failing. | Max Boot/The Washington Post

Full Article: Opinion | Trump is testing democracy. Nine out of 10 senior elected Republicans are failing. – The Washington Post

Georgia: Lindsey Graham faces ethics complaint over call to Georgia official | Christal Hayes/USA Today

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch ally of the president, is the target of an ethics complaint after his controversial phone call with a key election official in Georgia over how the state counts ballots. Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger accused Graham earlier this week of pressuring him to find ways to exclude or invalidate legally cast absentee ballots and reverse Trump’s loss in the state, an accusation the South Carolina Republican called “ridiculous.”  Graham said he had also spoken with Arizona’s Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and was briefed about the process in Nevada, both swing states that helped Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump for the White House. The senator’s contact with other states over election counting efforts came as  Trump and his campaign have lodged multiple lawsuits over baseless voter fraud allegations in a longshot attempt to overturn the election results. A complaint filed Wednesday to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics asks the panel to investigate Graham’s phone call with Raffensperger, whether Graham suggested not counting all legal votes and whether he had threatened election officials, who are in the midst of a recount, with a Senate investigation. The complaint was filed by Walter Shaub, a former top ethics watchdog for the federal government under President Barack Obama; Richard Painter, the top ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush; and Claire Finkelstein, who heads the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law. “If these allegations are true, Senator Graham’s conduct constitutes an abuse of office and conduct unbecoming of a senator,” the complaint states.

Full Article: Lindsey Graham faces ethics complaint over call to Georgia official

National: After Trump tweets Defcon hacking video, voting security experts call BS | Dan Goodin/Ars Technica

As President Trump continues to make unfounded claims of widespread election fraud, 59 of the world’s foremost experts on electronic voting are hitting back, saying that recent allegations of actual voting machine hacking “have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.” Monday’s letter came after almost two weeks of baseless and unfounded claims from Trump and some of his supporters that this month’s presidential election had been “rigged” in favor of President-elect Joe Biden. On Thursday, Trump started a new round of disinformation when he took to Twitter to say that polling machines made by Dominion Voting deleted 2.7 million Trump votes around the country. Over the weekend, Trump tweeted a video from last year’s Defcon hacker convention. It showed attendees participating in an event called the voting machine hacking village. Organizers of the event held it to raise awareness about the importance of security in electronic voting. Some of the event organizers were beside themselves that Trump was using the video as innuendo that voting machine hacking played a role in the results of this month’s election, or in any election ever, for that matter. “Anyone asserting that a US election was ‘rigged’ is making an extraordinary claim, one that must be supported by persuasive and verifiable evidence,” the computer scientists wrote. “Merely citing the existence of technical flaws does not establish that an attack occurred, much less that it altered an election outcome. It is simply speculation.”

Full Article: After Trump tweets Defcon hacking video, voting security experts call BS | Ars Technica

National: Trump Lashes Voting Tech Firm With Barrage of Debunked Claims | Daniel Zuidijk and Kartikay Mehrotra/Bloomberg

Even as many of President Donald Trump’s claims about fraud committed during the 2020 election have fallen by the wayside, the president continues to hold on to one in particular: That a little known election-equipment maker called Dominion Voting Systems Inc. conspired to help Joe Biden steal the vote. Dominion, with headquarters in Toronto and Denver, is the second largest voting machine supplier in the U.S. It was founded in Toronto in 2002 by entrepreneur John Poulos at a time when digital voting machines were replacing paper ballots in the aftermath of the disputed 2000 presidential election in which George W. Bush narrowly defeated Al Gore. But now, the company finds itself buffeted by a disinformation storm that it’s racing urgently to counter, even as a panel of government experts has debunked the central tenet of the conspiracy — that Dominion machines switched votes from Trump to Biden. It has even resorted to using strings of capital letters in press releases, mimicking Trump’s favorite Twitter technique. In a lengthy statement under the all-caps heading “SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT,” Dominion rebutted false claims against the company, denying that it had ties to Venezuela and that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s family and the Clinton Global Initiative had ownership stakes. Dominion also denied that it uses software made by Smartmatic, which — according to Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani — has ties to billionaire George Soros, a frequent target of the far right. Both Dominion and Smartmatic denied the claim. To keep up with the growing rumors, Dominion’s had to update its statement three times since Nov. 12.

Full Article: Trump Election Attacks Puts Dominion Voting Systems in Crosshairs – Bloomberg

National: Why US ballot count live streams became misinformation magnets | Clara McMichael/The Guardian

At a vote-counting center in Montgomery county, Maryland, a man sat in a room with other election workers, wearing a grey hat and dark purple rubber gloves. He unfolded a ballot, looked around and leaned forward to mark it. The man appeared on a Yahoo Finance livestream of the center. The video went viral, one version ending up on YouTube, where the narrator said they found it on 4chan. “Do you notice that, folks?” said the narrator. “How he looks around to see if anyone is watching him – as if he’s about to commit a crime?” The video spread across social media, viewers claiming the election worker was committing fraud. Then election officials launched an investigation and found the voter hadn’t used a dark enough pen to mark their ballot; the worker was darkening their selections – a routine practice. Live streams of the ballot count aren’t a new phenomenon. But this year the practice exploded as Donald Trump cast doubts on the integrity of the vote and the pandemic made in-person options of observing the vote difficult. In the aftermath of a fraught election, many are still grappling to figure out if this method of achieving transparency is too vulnerable to being manipulated or taken out of context to further a political agenda.

Full Article: Why US ballot count live streams became misinformation magnets | US elections 2020 | The Guardian

National: Threats to Election Officials Amassed as Trump Refused to Concede | Dan Glaun/PBS

The man’s voice shook with rage as he accused the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office of throwing the election to President-elect Joe Biden. He offered no evidence but included a string of insults, expletives and slurs. “You guys cheated and lied. You guys f****** lied and cheated,” he said in the 27-second long voicemail reviewed by FRONTLINE. “You guys are f****** dead.” The message, received within days of the election, was one of an “abnormal” number of threats to election officials and ballot counters across the country compared to typical presidential races, said Benjamin Hovland, the chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, a bipartisan federal agency that assists state governments with election administration. These threats continued to accumulate as President Donald Trump refused to concede defeat, two weeks after polls closed — despite Joe Biden being projected as the president-elect, based on unofficial tallies from states. The exact number of incidents of poll-worker intimidation is unknown. But a FRONTLINE review, based on questions to a dozen election and law enforcement agencies in five swing states, as well as local media reports, found examples of threats or acute security risks to election workers in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia. “What we’re seeing this year — more than we have historically — is we have, thus far, baseless accusations of fraud and an unwillingness to acknowledge the results as being what they are,” Hovland told FRONTLINE. “You’re seeing that spin out on social media, in particular. You’re seeing it be amplified and various pieces of mis- or disinformation being thrown in — various conspiracy theories about the election administration process.”

Full Article: Threats to Election Officials Amassed as Trump Refused to Concede

National: Lindsey Graham’s Long-Shot Mission to Unravel the Election Results | Stephanie Saul/The New York Times

Full Article: Lindsey Graham’s Long-Shot Mission to Unravel the Election Results – The New York Times

Election Security Experts Contradict Trump’s Voting Claims | Nicole Perlroth/The New York Times

National: Trump’s finally talking about election security – but only to spread conspiracy theories | oseph Marks/The Washington Post

Full Article: The Cybersecurity 202: Trump’s finally talking about election security – but only to spread conspiracy theories – The Washington Post

National: 59 security experts reject Trump’s election fraud claims as ‘incoherent’ | Sean Lyngaas/CyberScoop

A group of 59 computer scientists, researchers and cybersecurity experts on Monday released a letter rejecting President Donald Trump’s claims of widespread electoral fraud as “technically incoherent” and “unsubstantiated” in the latest rebuke of Trump’s campaign to undermine public confidence in the election results. “We are aware of alarming assertions being made that the 2020 election was ‘rigged’ by exploiting technical vulnerabilities,” wrote the group of experts, which included Matt Blaze, a cryptologist and professor at Georgetown University, and Alex Stamos, the former security chief at Facebook. “However, in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.” Since multiple media outlets, including Fox News and the Associated Press, on Nov. 7 projected Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election, Trump and his allies have continuously made false claims of election fraud. The director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has debunked the president’s conspiracy theories while mostly avoiding mentioning Trump by name. “Anyone asserting that a US election was ‘rigged’ is making an extraordinary claim, one that must be supported by persuasive and verifiable evidence,” the security experts wrote in their letter. Trump and his allies have provided no such evidence, and lawyers representing the Trump campaign in court have consistently failed to convince judges of their arguments. “Merely citing the existence of technical flaws does not establish that an attack occurred, much less that it altered an election outcome,” the letter says. “It is simply speculation.”

Full Article: 59 security experts reject Trump’s election fraud claims as ‘incoherent’

National: Why Trump’s claims of massive voting machine fraud have no merit | Alfred Ng/CNET

For years, the security researchers behind Defcon’s Voting Machine Hacking Village have been trying to get lawmakers’ attention on vulnerabilities with outdated election infrastructure. Hackers regularly showed how easy it was to change ballots with full access to voting machines, with warnings that these security vulnerabilities could shake the confidence of elections if there are no paper backups. Three years after it kicked off at the hacking conference in Las Vegas, the group finally got the attention of the highest office in the US. It only took losing the 2020 election by an estimated 5 million votes for President Donald Trump to get there. On Monday, he followed up and wrote, “Dominion is running our Election. Rigged!”  Trump’s claims come from a series of false conspiracy theories about the voting machines switching votes for President-elect Joe Biden, part of a broader push by the president to undermine confidence in the election system and its results. They come after the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the National Association of Secretaries of State, the National Association of State Election Directors and members of the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council filed a joint statement, calling 2020’s election the “most secure in American history.”  “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,” the joint statement said. “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Full Article: Why Trump’s claims of massive voting machine fraud have no merit – CNET

National: Fact check: The U.S. military has not seized election servers in Germany | Reuters

Social media users have been sharing posts which allege that the U.S. military raided the offices of electronic voting company Scytl in Germany to seize their servers for evidence of manipulation in the 2020 U.S. elections. However, Scytl said in a statement that the U.S. army has not seized anything from them and they do not have offices in Germany. An article (here), called “INTEL: US Military Raided Scytl Servers in Germany For Evidence After Vote Switching Scandal”, was published by GreatGameIndia, and shared on social media here , here and here . The article claims, “According to intelligence sources US Military raided voting machine company Scytl servers in Germany for evidence of manipulation in 2020 US Elections […] The votes cast by Americans in 2020 US election were counted by a bankrupt Spanish company Scytl in Spain.” As supposed proof, the article references comments made without supporting evidence by Representative of Texas first congressional district Louie Gohmert’s on Newsmax (here), and also allegedly on a video call shared widely on social media (here , youtu.be/GbgZzA_mSpE , here). Gohmert said, “I was told there was a tweet in German from Germany that the U.S. anocrat” from the information that Scytl gathered. Gohmert prefaced the claims about the raid with, “I don’t know the truth. I know there was a German tweet in German”.

Full Article: Fact check: The U.S. military has not seized election servers in Germany | Reuters

National: Trump aims to undermine Biden’s legitimacy even as legal challenges fizzle | Pamela Brown, Kevin Liptak and Katelyn Polantz/ CNN

Full Article: Donald Trump aims to undermine Biden’s legitimacy even as legal challenges fizzle – CNNPolitics

National: Trump digs in on baseless election claims even as legal options dwindle | Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey, Amy Gardner and Jon Swaine/The Washington Post

President Trump began his third straight week of angry defiance of the election results, brooding behind the scenes about the state of his campaign’s legal challenges and of Georgia’s hand recount while refusing the pleas of some advisers to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. Despite mounting legal losses in courts and a retreat by his attorneys in a federal case filed against Pennsylvania election officials, Trump dug in on his false claim that he “won” the election. The president also assailed Georgia for what he described on Twitter as a “Fake” and “MEANINGLESS” recount in that state, which President-elect Joe Biden leads by 14,205 votes and has been projected to win. Trump officials seized late Monday on the discovery of about 2,600 eligible votes in heavily Republican Floyd County that were not included in initial tallies, although they would not be enough to change the outcome statewide. Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, said in an interview Monday that he has come under increasing pressure from fellow Republicans to exclude ballots in an effort to reverse Trump’s narrow loss and that the president’s misinformation campaign has gotten so out of hand that he has received death threats. Trump’s campaign has begun winding down its operations, with employment contracts for a number of aides expiring on Sunday. The president, frustrated that his campaign lawyers were not appearing more frequently on television to amplify his baseless claim that he was the real election winner, has elevated attorneys Rudolph W. Giuliani and Jenna Ellis to run his legal and public-relations efforts to overturn the results.

Full Article: Trump digs in on baseless election claims even as legal options dwindle – The Washington Post

National: True the Vote, conservative group alleging voter fraud, ends its lawsuits | Nomann Merchant/Associated Press

A conservative group on Monday moved to dismiss voter fraud lawsuits it had filed in four states days after the group’s leader made baseless allegations questioning the integrity of the election. Lawyers for True the Vote filed notices to dismiss cases in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania less than a week after suing in all four states. Jim Bopp Jr., an attorney for the group, declined to say why they were ending their lawsuits, but confirmed there were no other cases pending from the group. The action highlighted the dwindling legal options that President Donald Trump has as he continues to insist — against overwhelming evidence to the contrary — that fraud cost him an election he claims to have won. Based in Houston, True the Vote is one of several conservative groups that have tried to sow doubts about President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Following Trump’s lead, True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht accused states that Biden won of counting illegal votes without presenting evidence. “All we want are the facts — regardless of the final outcome — so that we can determine where vulnerabilities in the election system exist and take steps to fix them,” Engelbrecht said in a statement Friday announcing the group’s Wisconsin lawsuit. Instead, Engelbrecht’s group ended that case and others before the lawsuits could proceed further. Engelbrecht did not return messages seeking comment.

Full Article: Conservative group alleging voter fraud ends its lawsuits

National: Trump Loses String of Election Lawsuits, Leaving Few Vehicles to Fight His Defeat | Alan Feuer/The New York Times

Full Article: Trump Loses String of Election Results Lawsuits – The New York Times

National: Trump lost at the ballot box. His legal challenges aren’t going any better. | David A. Fahrenthold, Emma Brown and Hannah Knowles/The Washington Post

Full Article: Trump lost at the ballot box. His legal challenges aren’t going any better. – The Washington Post

National: Behind Trump’s Yearslong Effort to Turn Losing Into Winning | Jim Rutenberg and Nick Cora/The New York Times

Obscured by the postelection noise over the president’s efforts to falsely portray the election system as “rigged” against him has been how much Mr. Trump and his allies did ahead of time to promote a baseless conspiracy devised to appeal to his most passionate supporters, providing him with the opportunity to make his historically anomalous bid to cling to power in the face of defeat. That bid is now in its last throes. Judges are dismissing the president’s lawsuits, as various bits of supposed evidence — an alleged box of illegal ballots that was in fact a case containing camera equipment and “dead voters” who are alive — unravel. And yet Mr. Trump has still not given up on seeding doubt about the election’s integrity as he seeks to stain Mr. Biden’s clear victory — by more than 5.5 million votes and also in the Electoral College — with false insinuations of illegitimacy. On Sunday alone, he posted more than two dozen election-related tweets, seeming to briefly acknowledge Mr. Biden’s victory before declaring, “I concede NOTHING!” The roots of Mr. Trump’s approach date to before his election in 2016, and he advanced his plans throughout his term. But his strategy for casting doubt on the outcome of the 2020 campaign took shape in earnest when the coronavirus pandemic upended normal life and led states to promote voting by mail. From the start, the president saw mail-in ballots as a political threat that would appeal more to Democrats than to his followers. And so he and his allies sought to block moves to make absentee voting easier and to slow the counting of mail ballots. This allowed Mr. Trump to do two things: claim an early victory on election night and paint ballots that were counted later for his opponent as fraudulent.

Full Article: Behind Trump’s Yearslong Effort to Turn Losing Into Winning – The New York Times