Voter fraud

“ None of the Department's investigations identified any genuine fraud sufficient to impact the election outcome:
During my tenure as the Acting Attorney General, which began on December 24 of [2020] , the Department of Justice maintained the position, publicly announced by former Attorney General William Barr, that the Department had been presented with no evidence of widespread voter fraud in a scale sufficient to change the outcome of the 2020 election. ”

“ The same fact-checkers who told you that Dominion machines weren’t connected to the internet and couldn’t be hacked are the same people telling you that there has been no voter fraud and no violations of election law. ”

“ The leaders just spoke about setting aside the election. Let me be clear. I am not arguing for setting aside the result of this election. All of us are faced with two choices, both of which are lousy. One choice is vote against the objection, and tens of millions of Americans will see a vote against the objection as a statement that voter fraud doesn’t matter, isn’t real, and shouldn’t be taken seriously. And a great many of us don’t believe that. ”

“ That same forty-five per cent are of course easily made the subjects of fraud or violence, and we face this dilemma: they may either use their power wrongfully, or be wrongfully deprived of the exercise of their ballotorial rights. Either alternative is alike dangerous. If we suppose the illiterate voter to be either misled or intimidated, or prevented from exercising his judgment and his equality of right with others in the control of our government, then we have the voice of this forty-five per cent silenced—whether by intimidation or by fraud matters not. ”

“ But perhaps more concerning to the Court is that the “expert reports” reach implausible conclusions, often because they are derived from wholly unreliable sources.
Plaintiffs’ expert Mr. William Briggs (“Briggs”) , for example, concludes that “troublesome” errors by Arizona election officials “involving unreturned mail-in ballots [] are indicative of voter fraud” and that the election should consequently be overturned. ”

“ I would also like to point out the same people who, for 4 years, have failed to find a shred of evidence to convict President Trump of Russian collusion are the same people trying to discredit hardworking American poll watchers who are risking perjury by signing affidavits confirming massive voter fraud in multiple States. ”

“ It would be impossible for the nation to lurch back now to the loose and hugger-mugger system under which both State and national elections were held fifty or sixty years ago. The “repeater” has been largely eliminated; the way of the venal voter has been made hard; official ballots have replaced the tricky things that party-workers used to “hand out”; corrupt-practice acts and registration laws have weeded out a great deal of the bribery and fraud that were formerly common. ”

“ Put another way, a vote cast by fraud or mailed in by the wrong person through mistake, or otherwise counted illegally, has a mathematical impact on the final tally and thus on the proportional effect of every vote, but no single voter is specifically disadvantaged. Such an alleged dilution is suffered equally by all voters and is not particularized for standing purposes. ”

“ Defendants contend that Plaintiffs do not have standing to assert these claims and point out that these allegations are nothing more than generalized grievances that any one of the 3.4 million Arizonans who voted could make if they were so allowed. The Court agrees.
Here, Plaintiffs have not alleged a concrete harm that would allow the Court to find Article III Standing for their vote dilution claim. As courts have routinely explained, vote dilution is a very specific claim that involves votes being weighed differently and cannot be used generally to allege voter fraud. ”

“ And the thoughts of man are widened
With the process of the suns.
In the recent movement for election reforms, four lines of advance are marked: (1) —To secure the voter, by protecting him from evil influences, as is the object of the various “corrupt practices acts” and kindred laws; by guarding him against fraud, intimidation [78] and overawing, by means of an absolutely secret ballot, as under the Australian system; and by preventing, as with voting-machines, any manipulation of ballots or count. ”

“ The evil results of election frauds do not expend themselves upon the voters who are robbed of their rightful influence in public affairs. The individual or community or party that practises or connives at election frauds has suffered irreparable injury, and will sooner or later realize that to exchange the American system of majority rule for minority control is not only unlawful and unpatriotic, but very unsafe for those who promote it. The disfranchisement of a single legal elector by fraud or intimidation is a crime too grave to be regarded lightly. ”

“ Is it not evident that our present tendencies are in the wrong direction? The rapidly increasing use of money in elections, for the undisguised purchase of votes, and the growing disposition to tamper with the ballot and the tally-sheet, are some of the symptoms. . . . Do you think that you will convince the average election officer that it is a great crime to cheat in the return of votes, when he knows that a good share of those votes have been purchased with money? No; the machinery of the election will not be kept free from fraud while the atmosphere about the polls reeks with bribery. ”

“ Another thing—and I cannot say it too often—fraud at the ballot-box undermines all respect in the minds of the people for the Government. When they are satisfied that the election is a fraud they despise the officers elected. When they are satisfied it is a fraud, they despise the law made by the legislators. When they are satisfied it is a fraud, they hold in utter contempt the decisions of our highest and most august tribunals. ”

“ The Defendant and co-conspirators used knowingly false claims of election fraud to get state legislators and election officials to subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes for the Defendant’s opponent, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., to electoral votes for the Defendant. That is, on the pretext of baseless fraud claims, the Defendant pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote; disenfranchise millions of voters; dismiss legitimate electors; and ultimately, cause the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors in favor of the Defendant. ”

“ To the contrary, since Election Day, President Trump has done everything in his power, including taking steps beyond his lawful authority, to convince his supporters that they are victims of the greatest electoral fraud in history. He has blamed this “fraud” on state officials, state courts, federal courts, the media, Congress, and election administrators. He has convinced many of his supporters, falsely, that they actually voted him back into power and that their votes—indeed, their fundamental rights—have fallen victim to an array of nefarious forces working against them. ”

“ But the richest party has paid the election officials, who assist the illiterate voters, to mark all such ballots for its candidates. Evidence exists that this was done systematically at the recent Presidential [Pg 205] and state election in the city of Providence, R. I., a sufficient number of voters thus being deceived to turn the scale in the filling of one or more important offices.
Inasmuch as there is a limit to the number of illiterate voters, even that base fraud, added to direct bribery, may not effect the desired reversal of the people’s will. ”

“ The law was adopted, no doubt, with the object of preventing frauds at elections for members of Congress, but it does not seem to have occurred to its authors that the States are as much interested as the general government in guarding against frauds at those elections and in maintaining their purity, and, if possible, more so, as their principal officers are elected at the same time. If fraud be successfully perpetrated in any case, they will be the first and the greatest sufferers. ”

“ Election boards are bi-partisan and each party has its own machinery, not only of election officials but watchers and challengers, to see that the opposing party commits no fraud. The watchfulness of this party machinery, plus an increasingly vigilant public opinion, has corrected many of the election frauds which were once common and most elections are now probably free from all the baser forms of corruption. When a question on referendum is sincerely espoused by both the dominant parties it has the advantage of the watchfulness of both party machines and is doubly safeguarded from fraud. ”

“ If any intelligent and loyal company of American citizens were required to catalogue the essential human conditions of national life, I do not doubt that with absolute unanimity they would begin with "free and honest elections." And it is gratifying to know that generally there is a growing and nonpartisan demand for better election laws; but against this sign of hope and progress must be set the depressing and undeniable fact that election laws and methods are sometimes cunningly contrived to secure minority control, while violence completes the shortcomings of fraud. ”

“ Engage in a program of manufacturing false allegations of voting fraud in targeted jurisdictions where the Democratic Party enjoyed an advantage in electoral performance or otherwise was problematic for the President’s Republican Party, in order that public confidence in election results favorable to the Democratic Party be undermined ”

“ An election contest, however, usually addresses allegations of fraud in voting, or mistake or irregularity in election administration, that has resulted in the wrong candidate having been found to have received the most votes in the election, or which has made the ascertainment of the winner “reasonably uncertain.” Courts have been historically cautious in interfering with and overturning the results of a popular election on the basis of allegations of fraud or election irregularities. ”

“ A lawyer faces fines, jail, and loss of his or her license for making frivolous or false claims. The lawyers for the Trump campaign never alleged widespread fraud or illegal voting had impacted Pennsylvania’s elections because those claims are false.
When our colleagues indulge in this political theatre and endorse fringe conspiracy theories, they may think there are no consequences because they know that this time the majorities of the House and Senate will overrule them. But as the entire world saw today, their baseless claims of election fraud do have consequences. ”

“ Unless something is done to preserve the purity of the ballot-box our form of government must cease. The fountain of power is poisoned. The sovereignty of the people is stolen and destroyed. The Government becomes organized fraud, and all respect will soon be lost for the laws and decisions of the courts. The legislators are elected in many instances by fraud. The judges are in many instances chosen by fraud. Every department of the Government becomes tainted and corrupt. ”

“ To safeguard the final elections while leaving the proceedings for proposing candidates unregulated, is to postpone regulation until it is comparatively futile. And Congress might well conclude that, if the nominating procedure were to be left open to fraud, bribery, and corruption, or subject to the more insidious, but (in the opinion of Congress) nevertheless harmful, influences resulting from an unlimited expenditure of money in paid propaganda and other purchased campaign activities, representative government would be endangered. ”

“ The Republican party has always stood for election reforms. No measure tending to secure the ballot-box against fraud has ever been opposed by its representatives. I am not here to make imputations; I submit this general suggestion: Find me the party that sets the gate of election frauds open, or holds it open, and I will show you the party that expects to drive cattle that way. [Applause.] Let us as citizens, irrespective of party, unite to exalt the name of Indiana by making her election laws models of justice and severity, and her elections free from the taint of suspicion. ”

“ So, again, if they're complaining about the State not complying with its own election laws, that's not an issue for the Department. If they're making allegations of criminal misconduct, that might be an issue for the Department. And so I went through the complaint. I don't remember exactly what's in here, but I don't know if I referred it to the U.S. attorney in Atlanta or not. But I had been talking to the U.S. attorney in Atlanta throughout this time period about different allegations relating to purported election fraud in Georgia. ”

“ To cast an illegal vote should be considered by all as a crime. We must if possible get rid of the mob—the vagrants, the vagabonds who have no home and who take no interest in the cities where they vote. We must get rid of the rich mob too; and by the rich mob I mean the men who buy up these vagabonds. Various States have passed laws for the registration of voters; but they all leave wide open all the doors of fraud. Men are allowed to vote if they have been for one year in the State, and thirty or sixty days in the ward or precinct ”

“ Under the laws of every state, the Trump Campaign was entitled to bring legal challenges to the administration of the election in any state where it felt aggrieved, and it took ample advantage of these opportunities, bringing scores of lawsuits alleging “wide-spread fraud,” requesting recounts, or demanding that votes cast for the Democratic candidate be thrown out or simply not counted. ”