8/13/20: Trump admits2 undermining USPS to make it harder to vote by mail. Donald Trump admitted on Thursday he opposed additional funding for the United States Postal Service (USPS) in order to make it more difficult to deliver mail-in ballots.
9/24/20: Trump says voting by mail isn't reliable. What does the evidence show? 9/30/20: Trump Seeks to Undermine Legitimacy of Vote. 9/30/20: Election chief confirms 9 discarded ballots were not fraud. HARRISBURG, Pa.
(AP) — It appears that an election worker’s decision to throw out nine military ballots in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, amounted to a mistake and not “intentional fraud,” the state’s top elections official said Wednesday. Workers in the elections office in Luzerne County are getting training on handling mailed-in military and overseas ballots, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said during an online news conference. “The investigation is still going on, but from the initial reports we’ve been given, this was a bad error,” said Boockvar, a member of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration. “This was not intentional fraud. President Donald Trump has repeatedly brought up the nine ballots as what he calls evidence of election fraud in the past week, including two mentions during Tuesday night’s presidential debate.
“So it sounds like it was confusion,” Marks said. 11/2/20:Trump Election Mis-info Debunked. 11/4/20: Tapper rebukes Trump's election speech: Shockingly disappointing. 11/5/20: Trump campaign loses lawsuit seeking to halt MI vote count. 11/5/20: Trump calls for vote counting to stop as path to victory narrows, Biden urges all to 'stay calm'
Two days after Election Day, President Donald Trump on Thursday called for vote counting to be stopped in key states that could soon determine the election's outcome -- contradicting his campaign's argument that vote counting in battleground Arizona -- where he was leading -- should continue because winning that state would give him a viable path to keep the White House.
"STOP THE COUNT! " Trump tweeted bluntly, in all capital letters. Shortly after, in a message since flagged by Twitter as potentially misleading, he added, "ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED! " Highlighting the polarized views of the candidates, former Vice President Joe Biden made a brief on-camera statement Thursday afternoon urging patience with the process, while saying he has "no doubt" that he will prevail when all the votes are counted. "So I ask everyone to stay calm, all the people to stay calm. "I think having a 4-4 situation is not a good situation, if you get that. 11/5/20: How 'SharpieGate' went from online chatter to Trumpworld strategy in AZ. There was no evidence for it.
Arizona officials confirmed repeatedly that its machines were capable of reading Sharpie-marked ballots. But only 15 hours later, it became the basis for Trump’s most high-profile allies to call Arizona’s results into doubt and save the election. On Wednesday morning, American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp tweeted about #SharpieGate — as it had inevitably become known — and upbraided Twitter after the company labeled his tweet as containing false information.
From there, other prominent conservatives in Trumpworld picked up the thread, including Trump’s own children. It popped up on TikTok and flourished on 4Chan. 11/6/20: Viral Image Shows Outdated Claims About Detroit Voter Rolls. Quick Take Facebook users are sharing a meme that alleges a host of inaccuracies in Detroit’s voter rolls in the context of the 2020 election.
But the claims stem from a 2019 lawsuit that was withdrawn after the group that filed it said the city had taken action on the issues. Full Story A purported screenshot of a TV news report out of Detroit, Michigan, is circulating on Facebook — misleadingly propelling outdated claims about the city’s voter rolls in the context of the 2020 election. The screenshot is alleged to be a report from a Fox 2 report in Detroit that outlines a lawsuit claiming a number of issues — including thousands of duplicates and dead people — with the city’s rolls. “And so it begins!!!” “Straight out of Fox 2 in Michigan,” reads another, posted Nov. 4.
11/7/20: Incendiary texts traced to outfit run by top Trump aide. BOSTON (AP) — A texting company run by one of President Donald Trump’s top campaign officials sent out thousands of targeted, anonymous text messages urging supporters to rally where votes were being counted in Philadelphia on Thursday, falsely claiming Democrats were trying to steal the presidential election.
The messages directed Trump fans to converge at a downtown intersection where hundreds of protesters from the opposing candidates’ camps faced off Thursday afternoon. Pennsylvania is a crucial battleground state where former Vice President Joe Biden’s jumped ahead Friday and in a televised address later predicted a victory that would give him the presidency. “This kind of message is playing with fire, and we are very lucky that it does not seem to have driven more conflict,” said John Scott-Railton, senior researcher at the University of Toronto’s online watchdog Citizen Lab.
Scott-Railton helped track down the source. Burke reported from San Francisco. 11/7/20: Trump's vote falsehoods, into day of defeat. WASHINGTON (AP) — The most direct attempt to undermine the integrity of the U.S. election with bad information came not from overseas sources or online liars but from a president standing behind the presidential seal at the White House and facing his defeat.
In the hours before his election loss Saturday, President Donald Trump spoke of “horror stories” in voting and counting across the land, but his stories were wrong. Election officials, Democrats and some Republicans blanched at his baseless recitation of sinister doings and his effort to delegitimize democracy’s highest calling. But he did not stop even after Pennsylvania delivered the presidency to Democrat Joe Biden. Since the tide turned after election night and Biden gained strength on his way to victory, Trump lashed out at results he didn’t like, often lapsing into all-capital letters with his hectoring. Biden stayed low for several days after the vote, making measured statements when he did appear. The U.S. 11/8/20: flailing Trump campaign doctor newspaper image from 2000 to dispute Biden’s victory. Alex Brandon/AP For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.
The Trump campaign’s latest attempt to deny President-elect Joe Biden’s victory is to claim that the media can’t call the race, and therefore it’s not over. To make this point, on Sunday the campaign’s spokesperson released an image of the front page of the Washington Times from November 8, 2000 showing the paper declaring Al Gore the winner of that contested election. “A reminder that the media doesn’t select the President,” spokesperson Tim Murtaugh tweeted. But there’s just one catch: the image is a fake. 11/9/20: Trump's lawsuit in AZ is a joke, right?
Opinion: President Trump's lawsuit in Arizona is a joke, right?
Attorney General William Barr on Monday authorized the Department of Justice to investigate any “substantial allegations” of voter fraud in last week's election. Meanwhile, here in Arizona, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and the Arizona Republican Party had their first court hearing on Monday on their lawsuit — the one that contends Maricopa County poll workers “consistently, regularly and systematically” took action that deprived Trump of “potentially thousands” of votes.
Or, as it turns out, 180 votes. 11/10/20/: Trump Election Lawsuits Mostly Failed. Here's What They Tried. 11/10/20: Meet Michigan’s ‘dead’ voters. They’re quite alive, despite false fraud claims. 11/10/20: PA Sec of State to ask judge to toss Trump lawsuit. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar speaks at a press conference regarding election vote counting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, November 5, 2020.
Mark Kauzlarich | Reuters Pennsylvania’s secretary of state will ask a federal judge to dismiss a new lawsuit by the Trump campaign, which seeks to bar the state from certifying the results of its election between President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden. “The Secretary disputes that Plaintiffs have stated a claim,” lawyers for Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar wrote in a court filing Tuesday, which also asked the judge to move the case to Harrisburg, the state’s capital.
Boockvar, a Democrat, “intends to promptly move to dismiss and request expedited consideration of that motion,” the lawyers wrote. The signal from the Keystone State official came less than a day after the Trump campaign filed its complaint in U.S. Trump, however, has not conceded the race. Mark Kauzlarich | Reuters Trump, however, has not conceded the race. 11/11/20: Trump files federal lawsuit to delay Michigan's certification of election results.
President Donald Trump’s campaign and seven Michigan Republicans have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block certification of Michigan’s election results, which show Democrat Joe Biden winning the state. Trump lost Michigan by 147,000 votes, according to unofficial results being certified by county boards of canvassers this week. However, campaign spokesperson Tim Murtagh told reporters Tuesday “this election is not over” and announced a new legal challenge in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Michigan. 11/12/20: 5 suits now target Michigan’s election. One seeks to dismiss 1.2M votes. 11/13/20: Trump drops frivolous lawsuit demanding review of ballots in Maricopa County, AZ. The Trump campaign filed the lawsuit on Saturday alleging some voters were confused on Election Day and feared that their ballots were not counted if the vote tabulation machines classified their ballots as overvotes.
They were seeking a hand review of any ballots flagged by the machine as overvotes alleging it could result in thousands of votes for President Donald Trump. CNN has projected that President-elect Joe Biden will win the state. "As we've said, the Trump campaign's lawsuit was frivolous and their motion to withdraw any claims of relief related to the presidential campaign confirms that this was nothing more than a waste of time," the Biden campaign said in a statement.
"President-Elect Joe Biden won Arizona, and now it's time to unite the country and move forward. " A state judge in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, held a six-hour evidentiary hearing Thursday. The latest ballot counts "moots" the Trump campaign's claim, they wrote. 11/13/20: Michigan court rejects request to block Detroit's certification of election results & appoint "independent auditor"
11/14/20: Trump demands GA officials stop recount amid claims of cheating. 11/14/20: Trump puts Giuliani in charge of his lawsuits challenging the election results. President Donald Trump has put Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, in charge of his legal battles related to the election, according to The New York Times.Giuliani made headlines over the weekend for his appearance at a Trump campaign news conference held at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a small landscaping company, rather than the Four Seasons, the luxury 5-star hotel. "Rudy will soon be appealing all of these adverse rulings to the Supreme Courtyard by Marriott," one person tweeted.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
President Donald Trump has put Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, in charge of his legal battles related to the election, according to The New York Times. During the event, confused reporters gathered in the parking lot of the business, which is located between an adult book store called Fantasy Land and a crematorium, while Giuliani repeated unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. —Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) November 14, 2020.