Chuck Darwin<p>Election denialism front and center at Republican national convention </p><p>“Don’t fuck us,” <a href="https://c.im/tags/Lara" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Lara</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Logan" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Logan</span></a>, the former CBS News anchor turned to me and said. <br>“If you use the word <a href="https://c.im/tags/conspiracy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>conspiracy</span></a> theorist in your story, I’m going to haunt you when I <a href="https://c.im/tags/die" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>die</span></a>.”</p><p>It was the third day of the Republican national <a href="https://c.im/tags/convention" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>convention</span></a> and Logan was standing in the atrium of a hotel that was once the old Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee. <br>She was there to moderate a presentation by <a href="https://c.im/tags/Jim" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Jim</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Hoft" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Hoft</span></a>, <br>the founder of the far-right website <a href="https://c.im/tags/Gateway" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Gateway</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Pundit" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Pundit</span></a>, and his twin brother, Joe, who is also a contributor to the site.</p><p>The site, which has become a launchpad for <a href="https://c.im/tags/misinformation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>misinformation</span></a>, <br>has been in hot water recently. <br>The site declared <a href="https://c.im/tags/bankruptcy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>bankruptcy</span></a> in April in order to delay civil suits from two <a href="https://c.im/tags/Georgia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Georgia</span></a> election workers and a former <a href="https://c.im/tags/Dominion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Dominion</span></a> Voting Systems employee who say the site defamed them. <br>The site denies publishing <a href="https://c.im/tags/libelous" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>libelous</span></a> claims against the women.</p><p>The event billed as a “blockbuster interview” on the site’s “legal challenges and new beginnings” underscored how doubts about the outcome of the 2020 election continue to grip Republicans<br> (a PRRI poll from January found that 63% of Republicans believe the 2020 election was <a href="https://c.im/tags/stolen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>stolen</span></a>).</p><p>Inside and outside of the convention hall, it was clear in speeches and interviews with attendees throughout the week that doubts about the 2020 election remain, <br>and the possibility of another “stolen” vote looms.</p><p>The most direct reference to a stolen election in 2020 came in a pre-recorded video from Donald Trump <br>that aired on the jumbotron each night. <br>It was only one of two videos that repeated <br>(the other was a goofy video of Trump doing a wiggle-type dance to the song <a href="https://c.im/tags/YMCA" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>YMCA</span></a>).</p><p>“The most important thing we have to do is protect the vote. <br>You have to keep your eyes open because these people want to cheat <br>and they do cheat, and, frankly, it’s the only thing they do well,” Trump said in the video.</p><p>Republican speakers steered clear of the 2020 election results directly, <br>and instead repeatedly emphasized the threat of <a href="https://c.im/tags/non" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>non</span></a>-<a href="https://c.im/tags/citizen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>citizen</span></a> voting, <br>which is exceedingly <a href="https://c.im/tags/rare" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>rare</span></a> and yet nonetheless has become a central part of the party’s <a href="https://c.im/tags/messaging" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>messaging</span></a> around elections. </p><p>Just as Trump pointed to mail-in ballots to seed <a href="https://c.im/tags/doubt" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>doubt</span></a> about the 2020 election, <br>experts believe that the emphasis on non-citizen voting is an effort to seed doubt about the election results in 2024.</p><p>At the Gateway Pundit event, there was little new information. <br>Jim Hoft walked the 20 or so attendees <br>– the event was also livestreamed on X <br>– through video footage that purported to show Georgia election workers running ballots through tabulator machines several times. </p><p>“We think this is important because in my world anyway where I grew up, you kind of count ballots two or three times,” Jim Hoft said. <br>He insisted that nothing the site had published had been disproven.</p><p>The claim that ballots were scanned multiple times in Georgia has been <br><a href="https://c.im/tags/debunked" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>debunked</span></a> repeatedly <br>and the women have both been cleared of any wrongdoing. </p><p>If there’s an issue scanning a single ballot within a batch <br>– a jam or a smudge on a ballot <br>– it’s common practice for election workers to delete the incomplete batch to <a href="https://c.im/tags/rescan" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>rescan</span></a> the entire group until they have the correct total. </p><p>The state also conducted a hand recount of every single vote cast in the presidential race in Georgia that <a href="https://c.im/tags/confirmed" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>confirmed</span></a> Joe Biden’s win there.</p><p>At the convention, there was little doubt that the next election could be <a href="https://c.im/tags/rigged" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>rigged</span></a>. <br>The struggle of the Biden campaign and Trump’s strong standing in the polls only increased the belief that any Democratic victory would be illegitimate. <br>Speaking at an Axios event on the sidelines of the convention, Donald Trump <a href="https://c.im/tags/Jr" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Jr</span></a> said that if Trump lost it would be because of “<a href="https://c.im/tags/cheating" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>cheating</span></a>”.<br>“We’re going to have to make sure we have people watching [the election] very closely,” he said at the event. <br>“I don’t think that Joe Biden over-performed only in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee <br>– I just don’t <a href="https://c.im/tags/believe" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>believe</span></a> that’s real,” he said.</p><p>As part of their messaging around non-citizen voting, Republicans recently passed legislation in the US House that would <br>require anyone who registers to vote to show proof of citizenship. <br>Speakers at the convention picked up the mantle by suggesting that Democrats had opened the borders to allow non-citizens to vote.</p><p><a href="https://c.im/tags/Kari" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Kari</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Lake" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Lake</span></a>, who is running for a US Senate seat in Arizona, <br>falsely accused her opponent, Representative Ruben Gallego, <br>of voting to “let the millions of people who poured into our country illegally cast a ballot in this upcoming election”.</p><p>Imagining a second Biden term, Senator Rick Scott of Florida said: “It was easy for Democrats to rig the elections – they simply allowed all the non-citizens to vote.”</p><p>“[Democrats] want illegals to vote now that they opened the border,” Steve Scalise, a top Republican in the US House, said in his speech.</p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/19/election-denialism-republican-convention?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theguardian.com/us-news/articl</span><span class="invisible">e/2024/jul/19/election-denialism-republican-convention?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other</span></a></p>