FRANKLIN, Tenn. (AP) — One by one, presenters in the crowded hotel ballroom shared their computer screens and promised to show how easy it is to hack U.S. voting systems
Arousing the mafia’s suspicions, they highlighted the theoretical vulnerabilities and problems of past elections. But instead of adapting efforts to improve election security, they argued that all voting machines should be removed, a message that has been woven into conspiracies about rigged elections to favor certain candidates.
“We are at war. The only thing that’s not flying right now is bullets,” said Mark Finchem, a GOP candidate for Arizona secretary of state last year who continues to contest his loss and was the final speaker at the daylong conference.
Finchem was among a group of Republican candidates running for governor, secretary of state or state attorney general who contested the 2020 election and lost on the ballot last November in key states including Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. .
via the Associated Press
Still, deep mistrust of the U.S. election remains among Republicans, skepticism fueled by false claims from former President Donald Trump and allies who have traveled the country meeting with community groups and holding forums like the recent one near Nashville , which was attended by approximately 250 people. people participated.
As the nation heads toward the next presidential election, the electoral conspiracy movement that has emerged since the last one shows no signs of slowing down.
Millions of people believed that any election in which their favorite candidate lost was somehow rigged against them, a belief that fueled conservative efforts to abandon voting machines and stop or delay the certification of election results.
“Voters who know the truth about our elections trust them,” said Liz Iacobucci, head of the election security program at the voter advocacy group Common Cause. “But people who have been led to mistrust — those people can be led to other things, like January 6.”
Trump, who is running for a third term at the White House, has signaled that the 2020 election will remain an integral part of his 2024 presidential bid. In a recent call with reporters about a new book, Trump pointed to polls that show a proportion considerable. number of people believe the 2020 election was rigged, even though there is no such evidence.
“I’m an election denier,” Trump said. “There are a lot of election deniers in this country and they’re not happy with what happened.”
There was no evidence of widespread fraud or tampering with voting machines in the United States, and multiple reviews in battleground states where Trump contested his loss confirmed the election results were accurate. State and local election officials spent more than two years explaining the many layers of protection around voting systems, and last year’s midterm elections were largely uneventful.
Trump allies such as MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn remain prominent voices calling for the voting machines to be banned. They want hand-marked paper ballots to be counted individually, without the help of machines, by election workers at nearly 180,000 polling stations across the country.
“We all have the same agenda, to make our elections fair and transparent and where they can’t be broken,” said Lindell, who recently announced plans to form what he calls an “election crime bureau” to brings its countless legal and IT. protections. and legislative efforts within a single organization.
In an interview, Lindell said he has spent $40 million since the 2020 election investigating allegations of fraud and supporting efforts to ban voting machines. He said he is taking out loans to continue to finance the work.
During an “America First Forum” last month in South Carolina, Flynn told those gathered at a Charleston hotel that he was fighting not only Democrats but also fellow Republicans who dismissed his concerns about in the 2020 election.
“Our Republican Party wants to move forward,” Flynn said via video conference call. “And frankly, the American people are not going to move on.”
An investigation by the AP and PBS series “Frontline” last year examined how Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, traveled the country spreading conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and vaccines while building a movement based on Christian nationalist ideas. He relies in part on groups like The America Project and America’s Future.
Project America was launched in 2021 by Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com. Byrne said the election remains a top priority for the group, although it will also focus on border issues. Asked how much he plans to spend ahead of the 2024 election, Byrne told the AP: “There is no budget.”
“I have no children, no wife,” he said. “It makes no sense to keep it at all.”
The recently filed tax forms do not specify where the group’s $7.7 million in income that year came from, but Byrne and Michael Flynn’s brother, Joseph Flynn, told the AP that most of it came from the same Byrne. The group reportedly donated $2.75 million to CyberNinja for a partisan and much-criticized review of the 2020 elections in Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix.
Michael Flynn is now focused on the non-profit group he runs, America’s Future, and other projects, according to his brother. That group reportedly raised $2.3 million in 2021 and paid out $1.2 million in grants, including just under $1 million to Cyber Ninjas.
Others who have been instrumental in the effort to cast doubt on the accuracy of the election have also been active this year. Among them is Douglas Frank, a math and science teacher from Ohio, who said on his social media account that he met with various groups in six states in January, seven states in February and plans to be in eight states in March.
At the Tennessee forum, Kathy Harms, one of the event’s organizers, took the stage to talk about why she’s fighting to get rid of the voting machines.
“I’m not doing it for me. I’d rather just be a stay-at-home grandma,” said Harms, who lives in the county where the conference was held. “I have grandchildren that I do it for because I want them to have what I have. I don’t want a banana republic”.
Presentations from people who work in information technology say election officials have little knowledge or experience in security issues.
One of them, Mark Cook, walked attendees through the voting process, outlining potential threats and playing a video of what he said was an “Iranian informant” accessing US voter registration data to request and send in fraudulent way military bulletins.
Cook said the video has some “real components” and “may be legitimate.” He did not mention that an influx of duplicate military votes would be immediately apparent because poll workers record each person who votes, meaning a second vote that appears to be cast by the same person will be captured.
“There are thousands of ways to exploit these systems,” Cook said, dismissing the security measures adopted by election officials as “a card game” and “smoke and mirrors to distract us.”
Election officials acknowledge there are vulnerabilities, but say there are several defenses in place to counter tampering attempts or detect malicious activity.
“Election officials and their partners understand that the goal is not to create a perfect election system, but one that ensures that any attack on the election system does not exceed the ability to detect and fix it.” said David Levine, a former local election official who is now a member of the Alliance for Securing Democracy.
Among those listening to the presentations at the Tennessee conference was Luann Adler, a retired educator and school administrator, who said she lost faith in elections after reading articles and watching online videos about voting machines. She advocates banning voting machines and limiting voting to one day in her community.
Last year, as a survey, Adler said, she saw no problems. However, the experience did not change his mind.
“As we saw today, a car can be manipulated,” Adler said. “I’m not pointing fingers at any individual or community as nefarious, but I don’t trust the machine.”
Associated Press Writers Michelle R. Smith in Providence, Rhode Island; Nicholas Riccardi of Denver; and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
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