When they start with the Big Lie, why would you believe anything else they tell you?
Why would you believe you’d gets results any different from those reported in a recent Washington Post investigation titled, “GOP voter-fraud crackdown overwhelmingly targets minorities, Democrats”?
As we all know, back in 2020 former twice-impeached, four-times indicted president Donald Trump claimed he lost the election because of widespread voter fraud, all as he and his minions failed to provide any evidence of its actual existence.
That didn’t stop Trump’s GOP lemmings in six Red states from establishing or expanding special investigation units to allegedly stamp out a problem that didn’t really exist, because when you spend so much time bowing and scraping to the criminal boss of your corrupt party sometimes you get a little dizzy and can’t see straight.
Three years later, these crack investigators have come up with only 47 convictions. That’s 47 convictions out of a total of 39,522,023 votes cast in those six states. (Totals are from the American Presidency Project) Let me repeat that: 47 convictions out of a total of 39,522,023 votes cast in those six states.
In all, of the 115 cases that’ve been resolved as of mid-December, 42 ended in dismissal, acquittal, or dropped charges, the Post said. That’s about the same as the number of guilty verdicts.
Now here’s something that won’t surprise you. Investigators overwhelmingly targeted minorities and Democrats for prosecution. The Post found that 76 percent of defendants whose race or ethnicity could be identified were Black or Hispanic, while 24 percent were White.
Registered Democrats made up 58 percent of those charged whose party could be identified, while 23 percent consisted of registered Republicans. The Post was able to determine a defendant’s race, ethnicity, or political party in about 70 percent of the cases.
“At best, these ‘election integrity’ units are for show, designed to placate far-right election denialists in the conservative base,” Heather Sawyer, executive director of the watchdog group American Oversight, said. “At worst, they are used to justify new voting restrictions and to intimidate people – especially racial minorities – from exercising their right to vote.”
Republicans continue to think they can fool us into believing these investigation units were a good idea, because I guess a 47-person crime wave is enough to justify millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money being flushed down the toilet and into the sewer the GOP has been feverishly digging for years.
“At best, these ‘election integrity’ units are for show, designed to placate far-right election denialists in the conservative base,” Heather Sawyer, executive director of the watchdog group American Oversight, said. “At worst, they are used to justify new voting restrictions and to intimidate people – especially racial minorities – from exercising their right to vote.”
Slimeball Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton – taking a break from his efforts to establish governmental control of the reproductive systems of every female in the Lone Star State – complained that the Post was “promoting a false narrative” because it was unable to determine the race or political affiliation for about half the prosecutions in his state.
Of course, his office has refused to provide these details to the Post. I think we call that a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That’s okay Kenny because we’ve got some other numbers from the Post that will be useful here. Since 2020, Paxton’s office has spent nearly $6.7 million on its voter fraud unit, during which time it prosecuted or handed to local prosecutors 73 cases, in which 10 resulted in convictions, 35 cases were dismissed or ended in acquittals, and 22 were put in diversion programs. The others are pending or their outcomes couldn’t be determined.
This is a good time to note that 11,315,056 votes were cast in Texas in the 2020 presidential election. That’s a lot of money to spend for unmitigated failure.
All the convictions occurred in Florida, Texas, and Ohio. Units in Virginia, Georgia, and Arkansas have failed to obtain a single guilty verdict. Give them time. It’s only been three years. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
In Ohio, where prosecutors have obtained a whopping four convictions in seven voter-fraud prosecutions that originated with its unit that the Post was able to identify – out of 641 referrals -- a spokesman for the state’s secretary of state said, “Voter fraud in Ohio is exceedingly rare because we pursue it aggressively.”
No, it’s exceedingly rare because it virtually doesn’t exist in a state where 5,922,202 votes were cast in the 2020 presidential election.
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin tried to spin his unit’s failure in this way: “My office’s Election Integrity Unit has several open, active investigations. My establishment of our Election Integrity Unity – and subsequent legislative codification – was intended to raise awareness of our office’s capabilities and role in ensuring election integrity, and the increased interest in our work is an indication it is working.
That’s like me saying because I look out at my backyard every night and haven’t seen any Martians means that this obsessive-compulsive habit is the reason why we haven’t been attacked by little green men yet.
Other numbers have also shown that the Right’s voter fraud boogeyman is nothing but a scam to support Trump’s wild claims and to seek ways to suppress the vote. The Associated Press found fewer than 475 cases of potential voter fraud in six battleground states in 2020. A Loyola University law professor found 31 credible reports of voter impersonation nationwide between 2000 and 2014, during which time more than a billion votes were cast.
You can read the Post’s story here.
Wait, there’s more.
An opinion piece published this week on the USA Today website is titled, “Trump paid me to find voter fraud. Then he lied after I found 2020 election wasn’t stolen.”
The piece is written by Ken Block whose company, Simpatico Software Systems, was hired by the Trump campaign after the election to prove his allegations of voter fraud.
“It’s part of a steady diet of innuendo, misrepresentations, and outright lies when it comes to the issue of voter fraud,’ Block wrote. “Stories that set the record straight about election innuendo are not typically broadcast in right-leaning media, which means that millions of people receive no information to help them make a more informed decision about what happened in 2020.”
It turns out, “no evidence of voter fraud sufficient to change the outcome of any election” was found, Block wrote. In addition, “claims of voter fraud made by others were verified as false, including proof of why those claims were disproven.” Still, the lies continue.
“It’s part of a steady diet of innuendo, misrepresentations, and outright lies when it comes to the issue of voter fraud,’ Block wrote. “Stories that set the record straight about election innuendo are not typically broadcast in right-leaning media, which means that millions of people receive no information to help them make a more informed decision about what happened in 2020.”
You can read Block’s piece here.
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Republicans had to invent their voter fraud squads and keep the Big Lie going in the process because, considering how deep under Trump’s thumb they sit, they had no choice. But there’s another, more sinister, reason.
Facing the changing demographics of this country, and the fact that the party’s push further to the Right has left it even more in opposition to majority opinion in this nation, Republicans are working their asses off to try to ensure minority rule through things like gerrymandering, voter suppression, and stacking the court with handpicked judges who’ll rule in their favor.
Lawmakers in other states also are looking at creating their own election integrity units, the Post reported. The obvious question is why would they when they see the pathetic results so far.
The answer is equally obvious: This never has and never will have anything to do with election integrity. This is the GOP’s blatant attempt to try to steal the next election and, if a last-ditch effort is needed, to gin up its base to possibly stage another violent insurrection based on the Big Lie.
Will history repeat itself? That’ll be up to us.
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Thank you for reading my post. You can see more of my writing on my blog: Musings of a Nobody. Also, please check out my video blog: The 3:13 on Politics.