The lie that all 2020 election fraud cases failed
I’m interrupting my series on the Trump lawfare to cover this topic. One of the most frequent refrains from President Donald Trump is that the 2020 US Presidential election was stolen by electoral fraud perpetrated by the Democrats. The Democrats, anti-Trump Republicans, RINOs and almost all of the media wholeheartedly reject the claim and call Trump (and his supporters and a section of conservative media) perpetrators of “The Great Lie” about the 2020 election. Elite opinion overwhelmingly is of the view that Joe Biden was legitimately elected in 2020. Trump’s adamant belief in the stolen election became the focal underpinning of the massive protests on January 6, 2021 where a small number of unruly elements in the crowd broke into the US Capitol during the House of Representatives’ process of certifying the votes from the Electoral College, the last step in the complex process of certifying the 2020 Presidential election. The Democrats held a special Congressional hearing about January 6th where they accused Trump of fomenting an insurrection after the then Democrat controlled House impeached him a second time for what they said was his attempt at usurpation of the election just before his term was up.
An extensive amount of research on the subject of the alleged electoral fraud has been published. The object of this Post is not to go over the specific allegations of fraud at this time. Regular readers of this Blog will know that I opined at length on this subject across 4 posts in January 2021 here, here, here and here. Since then, there has been significantly more work done in various states on the subject, most of which, in my opinion, has advanced the case for 2020 election fraud. There also have been some well-meaning attempts at exposing aspects of the fraud that have fallen short of what their proponents claim to be able to show.
Perhaps the most frequent comment made by politicians, commentators and media (and their so-called ‘fact checkers’) as the strongest proof that the 2020 election result was legitimate is because, if the electoral fraud accusation was true, then Trump and Republicans would have been able to prove their case in court and, to them, proof of the flimsiness of the fraud allegations comes from the fact (so the narrative goes) that none of the allegations have stood up in court and that, in case after case that heard the matter, the courts ruled against Trump. End of story!! The debate is over! Trump is a sore loser! And anyone who believes the 2020 election was stolen from Trump is a conspiracy theorist! These mantras have been heard thousands of times since January 2021. Indeed, our esteemed host and blog owner has echoed this sentiment on many occasions and doubtless is one of the various reasons why he holds such a low opinion of Trump.
As we are learning, the mainstream media have long since graduated from merely reporting political matters through a left-wing lens and giving liberal progressive slants to perpetrating outright lies. A number of these hoaxes (and the breathless MSM reporting of them) were summarised in this Post. There are however different categories of media lies, from the inconsequential and minor to the huge and game changing (e.g. the lie that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation or the lie that Donald Trump was elected thanks to Russian collusion). The media line that Trump’s election fraud claims were thrown out of every court where he (and his allies) tried to allege fraud is an outright falsehood and this Post will dissect why that is the truth.
There is a most comprehensive analysis of all 88 of the 2020 election fraud cases brought by Donald Trump (and his campaign) and by state Republican party litigants found here, published by a consortium of concerned conservatives and it goes over every single one of the 88 election integrity cases filed with links to all the actual court documents, filings and findings.
The headline finding is this:
Of the 88 cases filed, only 28 (or 31%) were decided on the merits of the cases. By merits I mean that the evidence being litigated was actually heard, presented and cross examined in court. For the majority of cases, they were dismissed WITHOUT A SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE EVER BEING PRESENTED IN COURT. Of the 28 cases where the evidence WAS able to be presented, 75% found in favour of Trump or the GOP litigant! Of the filed cases, 80% were filed in the battleground states that Biden only narrowly won: Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvanis, Arizona and Nevada.
Overwhelmingly, the cases that were dismissed without hearing a single piece of evidence were rejected for so-called lack of standing. This is a time-honoured way for a partisan Democrat controlled court to appear to be doing their job but in reality, they did not want to see Trump’s lawyers bringing forth any evidence of voter fraud. Other prominent reasons were “Dismissed: Moot” which is legalese for events have overtaken your case (i.e. Congress has already certified Biden) and so your allegations are moot or no longer worth hearing. Laches (a legal term for lack of timeliness) was the third most common reason for dismissal. It is ironic that many of the cases dismissed for laches were attempted to be filed earlier and court clerks told the attorneys that you’re trying to file too soon!
It is important to note that the biggest and most comprehensive fraud allegations were amongst the cases where courts refused to hear evidence. So, it is utterly dishonest for anyone to dismiss Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud by hiding behind the “he had his day in court and his spurious claims were thrown out” line because he never had his full day in court. The cases that were decided in his favour have seen certain modifications to vote counting and ballot management procedures in a few states that certainly will somewhat improve election integrity but the blockbuster claims, the vast array of affidavits filed by thousands of ballot counters, scrutineers and poll watchers, the massively researched and thoroughly documented cases were never presented in evidence in any court especially one where a proper remedy could be ruled.
There have been a number of small, localised election integrity cases that have been brought to local courts where, upon viewing the evidence of fraud, a judge has ruled an election invalid and has either vacated a result or most usually, ordered a fresh election. None of the major 2020 fraud cases that produced vast amounts of evidence ever got to see the light of day in a court. Say what you want about Trump, but the truth is, when it comes to his allegation of a stolen election, he has yet to have his full day in court no matter how many times his political opponents, the media and never Trumpers on the centre right say that the 2020 election was clean and properly conducted and that Joe Biden was legitimately elected. If current polling holds until November, Trump will finally get his proper day in court as there is no doubt that very public hearings on what happened in the 2020 election will be held and all the evidence of fraud will finally be fully presented.
If you are interested in the very many comprehensive reports that have been published on the 2020 election fraud, they can be found here. I challenge any person who is skeptical about the fraud allegations to read even just the three Peter Navaro reports and come onto this blog and argue Joe Biden was legitimately elected!