Claims of ’20 election fraud persist
Conspiracy theories find fertile ground during conferences
OMAHA, Neb. — One Saturday in an Omaha hotel, about 50 people gathered to learn about elections.
The subject wasn’t voter registration or poll worker volunteer training. They paid $25 each to hear panelists lay out conspiracy theories about voting machines and rigged election results. In language that sometimes leaned into violent imagery, some panelists called on those attending to join what they framed as a battle between good and evil.
Among the attendees was Melissa Sauder, who drove nearly 350 miles from the small town of Grant with her 13-year-old daughter. After years of combing internet sites, listening to podcasts and reading conservative media reports, Sauder wanted to learn more about what she believes are serious problems with the integrity of U.S. elections.
She can’t shake the belief that voting machines are being manipulated even in her home county, where then-President Donald Trump won 85% of the vote in 2020.
“I just don’t know the truth because it’s not open and apparent, and it’s not transparent to us,” said Sauder, 38. “We are trusting people who are trusting the wrong people.”
It’s a sentiment shared by millions in the United States after relentless attacks on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election by Trump and his allies. Nearly two years after that election,
no evidence has emerged to suggest that widespread fraud or manipulation occurred while reviews in state after state have upheld the results showing President Joe Biden won.
Even so, the attacks and falsehoods have made an impact: An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from 2021 found that about two-thirds of Republicans say they do not think Biden was legitimately elected.
Events such as the one held Aug. 27 in Nebraska’s largest city are one reason why.
Billed as the Nebraska Election Integrity Forum,
the conference featured some of the nation’s most prominent figures pushing conspiracy theories that the last election was stolen from Trump through widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines. It was just one of dozens of similar events that have been held around the country for the better part of a year.
Over eight hours with only a brief lunch break, attendees were deluged with election conspiracies, charts and slide shows. Speakers talked about tampering of voting machines or the systems that store voter rolls, ballot-box stuffing and massive numbers of
votes cast by dead people and non-U.S. citizens — all debunked theories.
There is no evidence of widespread fraud or tampering with election equipment that could have affected the outcome of the 2020 election, in which Biden won both the popular vote — by more than 7 million nationwide — and the Electoral College count.
Numerous official reviews and audits in the six battleground states where Trump challenged his loss have upheld the validity of the results. Judges — including some appointed by Trump — dismissed lawsuits making various claims of fraud and
wrongdoing.
All that was ignored as speaker after speaker told attendees that machines are rigged and elections are stolen. One of the event’s headliners was Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock.com, who said he has spent some $20 million of his own money since 2020 trying to prove that voting machines were manipulated in that election and remain susceptible to tampering.
That any technology is vulnerable, including voting machines, is not in dispute. State and local election officials throughout the U.S. have been focused on improving their security defenses with help from the federal government.
But Byrne and some of the other speakers said they believe government has been corrupted and can’t be trusted. In his remarks, he complained about those who say fraud did not occur in 2020 and journalists who report that, labeling them “election fraud deniers.”
Another main speaker at the Omaha event was Douglas Frank, an Ohio educator who has been traveling the country engaging with community groups and meeting with local election officials offering to examine and analyze their voting systems.
He had harsh words for some of those who oversee elections at the state level.
“I like to tell people that we have evil secretaries of states,” Frank said. “We have a few of those in our country, and it’s sort of like World War II — when the war’s over, we need to have Nuremberg trials, and we need to have firing squads, OK? I’m looking forward to the trials, OK?”
The crowd applauded. State and local election officials have faced harassment and death threats since the 2020 election. That has led some to quit or retire, in some places raising worries that their replacements may seek to meddle in elections or tamper with voting systems.
Trey Grayson, a former GOP secretary of state in Kentucky who is critical of those spreading conspiracy theories, said previous election-year attacks were focused on candidates or parties, but now are aimed at election administration.
“There are a lot of really bad actors here that are trying to undermine confidence in a system,” he said.