election 2020

election 2020

Defending Democracy News Top Story

Prolonged challenges by losing candidates could overshadow November election results

Joey Gilbert, a Reno-based attorney, lost the GOP primary for Nevada governor by roughly 26,000 votes in June, a margin of around 11 points. But he wasn’t ready to admit defeat.  Empowered by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud after the 2020 election, Gilbert refused to concede. He offered a $25,000 reward to anyone who could provide evidence of fraud, lodged a legal challenge and filed for a recount. 

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ballot counting
Congress Defending Democracy News Top Story

A conspiracy-fueled push to count ballots by hand gains traction

Nye County, a rural enclave in Nevada, has positioned itself as the epicenter of a Donald Trump-fueled conspiracy about the security of electronic vote tabulators.  The Nye County Commission voted in March to make the county one of the first to act on the false narratives that machines that count votes are rigged. County Clerk Mark Kampf, who has falsely claimed that Trump won the 2020 election, has said that volunteer voters there will hand count the roughly 30,000 ballots expected in the November election.

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Congress Defending Democracy News Top Story

How election-denying GOP governors could tilt the 2024 presidential election

Republican candidates who claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump have been nominated for governor in four critical swing states, raising concerns that if elected they could try to sway election results in 2024 and beyond.  In Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, Republican primary voters elected a candidate who has denied the results of the 2020 election and believes that voter fraud influenced the results.

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Congress Defending Democracy News Policy Watch Investigates Top Story

Election officials can’t access federal funding for security as violent threats mount

Colorado’s election officials, like so many across the country, faced a surge of violent threats after the 2020 election.  Federal authorities are prosecuting a man who pled guilty to threatening a Colorado election official on Instagram, where he wrote: “Do you feel safe? You shouldn’t.” And Colorado police arrested a man accused of calling Secretary of State Jena Griswold and saying that “the angel of death is coming for her.”

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Congress Defending Democracy News Top Story

Members of U.S. Senate committee consider bipartisan changes to Electoral Count Act

Proposal seeks to prevent repeat of confusion from January 2021 surrounding Vice President's role and duties WASHINGTON — Lawmakers and legal experts at a U.S. Senate hearing on Wednesday outlined the need to pass legislation clarifying an archaic election law so that the peaceful transfer of presidential power is ensured. The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, a bipartisan bill being pushed by 16 senators...

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Defending Democracy Law and the Courts News Top Story

Criminalizing the vote: GOP-led states enacted 102 new election penalties after 2020

During the 2020 election, Rhonda Briggins and her sorority sisters spent days providing voters in metro Atlanta with water and snacks as they waited in long lines at polling places. The lines for early voting and on Election Day at times stretched on for hours. As the national co-chair for social action with the Delta Sigma Theta sorority for Black women, Briggins felt compelled to help, and she and her sisters unofficially adopted one DeKalb County location where many elderly Georgians cast their ballots.

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Congress Defending Democracy News Top Story

Trump led pressure campaign on state election officials, Jan. 6 panel says

Former President Donald Trump was directly involved in efforts to pressure state officials in Georgia, Arizona and elsewhere to overturn the 2020 election results in their states, according to evidence the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack presented Tuesday at the panel’s fourth hearing this month.

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Defending Democracy Law and the Courts Top Story

States weigh how to shield election officials from threats, harassment

Following the turmoil of the 2020 election, a photo of Washington state Election Director Lori Augino marked with crosshairs, her address, and the words "your days are numbered" was posted on a website alongside photos of numerous other state election officials described as “enemies of the people.” Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman said in a press release in December 2020 that she reported the so-called doxxing to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. But it's unclear...

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Congress News Top Story

How an election denier’s fan club got its start in the states

Despite record of false claims, retired army officer who urged overturning the 2020 election met with Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows multiple times WASHINGTON — The suddenly famous election denier behind the circulation of a PowerPoint filled with plans to overturn the 2020 election has a long history of election subversion attempts in multiple states.

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Defending Democracy Law and the Courts News Top Story

New revelations shed more light on efforts to question, undermine 2020 election results

U.S. attorney in Georgia quit under pressure from Trump to reject election results, new report confirms Former President Donald Trump forced a top federal prosecutor in Atlanta to step down because he wouldn’t help Trump overturn his loss of Georgia in the 2020 presidential election, a U.S. Senate report released Thursday said.

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Top Story Weekly Briefing

The sound of crickets chirping: The discouraging response of NC conservatives to new Trump coup attempt revelations

The United States of America will celebrate its 250th anniversary as a free and democratic republic in less than five years on July 4, 2026. At least that’s the plan. Amazingly, however, this event appears no longer to be a sure thing.

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Original Commentary Progressive Voices Top Story

The virus that threatens our democracy

The coronavirus – now rekindled in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” – is forcing us yet again to adjust our daily routines and recalibrate our expectations of normalcy. Even people who got their shots early and thought they were in the clear are finding they need to keep their masks handy.

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News Top Story

Trump allies’ lingering election ‘audits’ spark public skepticism, concerns in Congress

WASHINGTON — The months-long, Republican-led investigation in Arizona into the results of last year’s presidential election has cost millions of dollars and produced no evidence yet of major issues in tallying Maricopa County ballots. Yet supporters of former President Donald Trump are still attempting to follow Arizona’s lead by pushing for so-called audits in several other states, including Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin.

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Progressive Voices Top Story

Experts warn against ‘sham election audits’ movement

Experts from four different national nonprofits (the Brennan Center for for Justice, Protect Democracy, Fair Fight Action and States United Action) came together last week at an online panel discussion to examine the latest worrisome trend in undermining democracy: illegitimate election recounts.

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Defending Democracy News Top Story

In Philadelphia speech, President calls for concerted effort to fight assaults on voting rights

Biden refutes continuing GOP conspiracy claims: "The big lie is just that, a big lie" PHILADELPHIA — Returning to the state that handed him the White House, President Joe Biden made a passionate plea Tuesday for Americans to rise up and protect their voting rights from a series of restrictive measures pushed by Republicans in Washington and in state capitols nationwide.

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Top Story Weekly Briefing

At the state GOP convention in Greenville, Donald Trump’s fade to black continues

He’s baaaack. Well, sort of. Former President Donald Trump emerged from his self-imposed Florida/New York internal exile this past Saturday evening by delivering a typically rambling and narcissistic speech at the 2021 North Carolina Republican Party convention in Greenville. It was his first such appearance since leaving the White House in January.

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