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According to the Washington Post here, instead of alleging “widespread fraud or election-changing conspiracy” the lawsuits pushed by Trump’s team and allies focused on smaller complaints, which were largely dismissed by judges due to a lack of evidence. “The Republicans did not provide evidence to back up their assertions — just speculation, rumors or hearsay.”
On Nov 27, 2020 a federal appeals court rejected a Trump campaign proposal to block Biden from being declared the winner of Pennsylvania. (here). At the time, Stephanos Bibas, on behalf of the three-judge panel wrote: “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so." It added: “Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here."
www.reuters.com
Similarly, on Dec. 12, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a long-shot lawsuit by the state of Texas and backed by Trump, which sought to throw out voting results in four states (here). In a brief order, the justices said Texas did not have legal standing to bring the case.
www.reuters.com
WHAT IS #ITALYGATE?
This theory took off when an organization called Nations in Action published a press release on Jan. 6 with the headline “Senior IT Expert at Global Defense Contractor Testifies in Italian Federal Court; He and Others Switched Votes throughout America in the U.S. Presidential Race” (here).
[...]
On Dec. 22, 2020, Reuters published an exclusive report here detailing an investigation into a data theft at Leonardo that took place between 2015 and 2017.
Italian police said on Dec. 5, 2020 that they had arrested Arturo D’Elia and Antonio Rossi, who had both worked at Leonardo, over their alleged role in hacking 94 computers, 33 of which were located at the group’s plant in Pomigliano, a municipality in Naples. The hacking took place years prior to the 2020 U.S. election (between 2015 and 2017).
www.reuters.com
In the video, the presenter says, “Dominion voting machines, that were used in 30 states, use Smartmatic software. Dominion is a front company for Smartmatic software. Smartmatic Dominion sent all voting results to Frankfurt and Barcelona, and we’ll get into the raid that happened in Frankfurt later, which did actually happen. Smartmatic is founded by two Venezuelans close to Hugo Chavez […] Dominion is a far left company with a leader who supports Antifa.” He then shows two spreadsheets and reads out segments from a Gateway Pundit article, which he claims proves election fraud occurred in Virginia.
[...]
The video claims that Dominion uses Smartmatic Software and that Dominion is a front company for Smartmatic.
Samira Saba, communications director for Smartmatic, told Reuters via email for a previous fact check (here) : “Smartmatic has never owned any shares or had any financial stake in Dominion Voting Systems. Smartmatic has never provided Dominion Voting Systems with any software, hardware or other technology."
On the Dominion voting website, it states that Dominion has never been and is not currently owned by Smartmatic: “Dominion is an entirely separate company and a fierce competitor to Smartmatic. Dominion and Smartmatic do not collaborate in any way and have no affiliate relationships or financial ties. Dominion does not use Smartmatic software.” (www.dominionvoting.com/)
www.reuters.com
Following President Joe Biden’s swearing in on Jan. 20, a Facebook post shared over 6,140 times has said: “Not one court has looked at the evidence and said that Biden legally won. Not one”. This is false: state and federal judges dismissed more than 50 lawsuits presented by then President Donald Trump and his allies challenging the election or its outcome.
[...]
As reported by Reuters here, state and federal judges - some appointed by Trump - dismissed more than 50 lawsuits brought by Trump or his allies alleging election fraud and other irregularities.
Independent experts, governors and state election officials from both parties say there was no evidence of widespread fraud.
www.reuters.com
On Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court refused to stop Pennsylvania from finalizing President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the state, despite allegations from allies of Trump that the expansion of mail-in voting was illegal.
The action by the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority and includes three justices named by Trump, came as states across the country are locking in the results that will lead to next week's Electoral College vote.
www.usatoday.com
The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously affirmed Biden's victory in the state, upholding a lower court's finding that there was no misconduct, fraud or illegal voting in the general election.
[...]
Chief Justice Robert Brutinel agreed, saying Ward's challenge had failed to "present any evidence of 'misconduct,' 'illegal votes' or that the Biden Electors 'did not in fact receive the highest number of votes for office,'" he wrote — "let alone establish any degree of fraud or a sufficient error rate that would undermine the certainty of the election results."
www.usatoday.com
The Nevada Supreme Court on Tuesday night rejected Trump's appeal to overturn the state's election results.
The rejection came about a week after a district court in Nevada ruled that the Trump campaign had not proven claims of malfunctions in voting devices and that the election had been manipulated.
www.usatoday.com
On Wednesday, the Michigan Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, denied requests from two voters who backed Trump and sought an election audit and other actions to address alleged fraud related to absentee ballots.
www.usatoday.com
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court then ruled a few days later that counties do not have to toss absentee ballots on which voters failed to completely hand-write their name, address, and the date on “where no fraud or irregularity has been alleged.”
"[F]ailures to include a handwritten name, address or date in the voter declaration on the back of the outer envelope, while constituting technical violations of the Election Code, do not warrant the wholesale disenfranchisement of thousands of Pennsylvanian voters," wrote Justice Christine Donohue, who was joined in the opinion by two others.
The Supreme Court also struck down the Commonwealth Court's ruling that more than 2,000 ballots, that were signed but had undated declarations, not be counted, subsequently erasing one of the Trump campaign's only legal victories.
www.usatoday.com
President Trump’s baseless and desperate claims of a stolen election over the last seven weeks — the most aggressive promotion of “voter fraud” in American history — failed to get any traction in courts across seven states, or come anywhere close to reversing the loss he suffered to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
But the effort has led to at least one unexpected and profoundly different result: A thorough debunking of the sorts of voter fraud claims that Republicans have used to roll back voting rights for the better part of the young century.
In making their case in real courts and the court of public opinion, Mr. Trump and his allies have trotted out a series of tropes and canards similar to those Republicans have pushed to justify laws that in many cases made voting disproportionately harder for Blacks and Hispanics, who largely support Democrats.
Their allegations that thousands of people “double voted” by assuming other identities at polling booths echoed those that have previously been cited as a reason to impose strict new voter identification laws.
[...]
And their tales about large numbers of cheaters casting ballots in the name of “dead voters” were akin to those several states have used to conduct aggressive “purges” of voting lists that wrongfully slated tens of thousands of registrations for termination.
After bringing some 60 lawsuits, and even offering financial incentive for information about fraud, Mr. Trump and his allies have failed to prove definitively any case of illegal voting on behalf of their opponent in court — not a single case of an undocumented immigrant casting a ballot, a citizen double voting, nor any credible evidence that legions of the voting dead gave Mr. Biden a victory that wasn’t his.
NYTimes — via Google
Here's a list of the lawsuits and where they stand
Direct appeals to the Supreme Court — 3 losses
[...] Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin in the US Supreme Court seeking to overturn their election results. The Supreme Court rejected the case.
Pennsylvania — 13 losses
[...] In a wide-ranging federal lawsuit, the Trump campaign sued over alleged irregularities in the way ballots were counted throughout the state. They've argued that 14,000 votes should be thrown out. The campaign submitted a revised version of the lawsuit days later that retracted many of its original allegations. A judge threw out the case, saying Trump's lawyers presented the court "with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpaid in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence." An appeal of the case also failed.
Nevada — 4 losses
[...] The Trump campaign and the RNC filed a lawsuit in state court asking to stop ballot counting in Clark County — a heavily Democratic area — until GOP officials could observe the process. A district judge rejected the request on the grounds that the plaintiffs did not have evidence to back up their allegations.
Georgia — 5 losses
[...] Sidney Powell, who was kicked off of Trump's legal team after spreading numerous conspiracy theories about election fraud, filed a federal lawsuit in Georgia alleging widespread election fraud. A federal judge quickly dismissed the case, calling it "extraordinary" that the lawsuit sought to disqualify the votes of millions of voters.
Michigan — 5 losses
[...] A poll challenger named Sarah Stoddard and a group called the Election Integrity Fund filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the certification of election results in Detroit, claiming that absentee ballots were improperly reviewed. Judge Timothy Kenny denied the motion on the grounds that there was no proof that election oversight protocol hadn't been followed.
[...] Trump ally Sidney Powell also has a federal lawsuit pending in Michigan. It asks the judge to "de-certify" the state's electoral votes, which have already gone to Biden. The lawsuit has numerous typos and cites voting statistics from a county that does not exist. A judge ruled against her and issued a scathing 35-page opinion tearing it down on multiple fronts.
Arizona — 4 losses
[...] The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in state court alleging that Maricopa County was improperly rejecting ballots cast by some voters. The lawsuit was dismissed after an audit found no problems with the votes.
[...] Arizona's Supreme Court unanimously rejected a case from the state GOP chair Kelli Ward, saying the facts she presented were incorrect and that she "fails to present any evidence of misconduct."
Wisconsin — 7 losses
[...] Trump personally filed a similar lawsuit in a federal court in Wisconsin. A Trump-appointed federal judge said he had standing to bring the case — a rare departure from other judges — and then ruled against him. An appeal failed as well, with the author of the appellate opinion also a Trump appointee.
[...] A lawsuit from Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, another Trump ally, makes numerous conspiratorial claims about the election. A federal judge criticized it for containing errors and typos, and one person listed as plaintiff said they never signed up to be a part of the lawsuit, later dismissing the case.
New Mexico — one loss
[...] The Trump campaign sued the state over what it claims was the illegal use of ballot drop boxes after the state had already certified its results and sent them to the Electoral College. It dropped the claim in January.
www.businessinsider.com
Whew!
Here’s to hoping the National Media starts repeating these court rulings — all of which smash the BIG LIE to smithereens. Many of these were Trump-appointed Judges, and many of them had scathing remarks about the farcical nonsense being brought into their courtroom, by Trump operatives.
Yet the Big Lie persists. Largely due to the Media, not giving these definitive rulings their due.
Repetition of actual facts is the fastest pathway to counteract a lie. Consider it an antidote to the poison that the former guy has injected into the bloodstream of our democracy.
And continues to spew.
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