Commentary: Voter fraud conspiracy theories read like science fiction

I recently read an entertaining new science-fiction novel called “Project Hail Mary” by bestselling author Andy Weir. It’s about an astronaut sent to a distant solar system to learn how to stop an alien organism that sucks up our sun’s energy, thereby threatening life on Earth. It’s wild, but no more far-out than recent tall tales that far-right supporters of former President Donald Trump have dreamed up to argue that he won the 2020 presidential election.                         

One tale alleges that Italian hackers, using computers and military satellites, helped win the 2020 election for President Joe Biden. Another one claims that electronic voting machines made by two companies were manipulated to rig the election for Biden. Both stories are false, according to media fact-checkers. These and other baseless conspiracy theories illustrate that far-right Republicans will create any wacky excuse rather than admit that Trump lost the election. And they are willing to do almost anything to promote Trump’s big lie, including threaten our democracy by tarnishing our election system.                                      

The so-called “Italygate” conspiracy theory, which has been debunked repeatedly, alleges that an employee of Leonardo SPA, an Italian defense contractor, admitted using company computers and military satellites to switch votes to Biden. Conspiracy quacks apparently turned a nugget of fact into a fake story. The fact, according to Reuters, is that two men who worked at Leonardo SPA. were arrested last December for computer hacking between 2015 and 2017, not the 2020 election. An attorney for one of the men told Reuters that allegations of his client’s involvement in a plot against Trump were “pure fantasy.”                    

To make things worse, the New York Times and others reported last week that Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows unsuccessfully pressed the Justice Department to investigate baseless election fraud claims, including “Italygate.”                                                                  

Another conspiracy theory spread by Trump supporters claimed falsely that two firms that provide electronic voting equipment in the U.S. initially built their equipment to falsify election results for Venezuelan dictators. Conspiracy mongers suggested that the companies played a role in rigging their voting machines in 2020 against Trump. The companies, Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, alleging financial harm to their businesses, each filed several lawsuits seeking damages. Those sued included Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and right-wing media outlets Fox News and Newsmax. In a motion to dismiss Dominion’s suit against her, Powell stated that “no reasonable person would conclude” that her voter-fraud claims were statements of fact. Too bad Trump supporters haven’t gotten that message.

Meanwhile, in Maricopa County, Arizona, a small Florida firm, Cyber Ninjas, has been leading what critics call a “fraudit” of votes at the behest of Arizona’s Republican-run Senate. Cyber Ninjas has no apparent election auditing experience, and its CEO is a supporter of Trump’s voter-fraud allegations, the Associated Press reported. At one point, according to media reports, some “auditors” searched for bamboo fibers in ballots because of wild rumors about ballot-stuffing from Asia. Some of them also used ultra-violet light to check for watermarks following wild claims that the Trump administration secretly embedded watermarks in ballots to spot fraudulent ones.                   

Another reported audit participant is a Dallas inventor named Jovan Pulitzer, who claimed to be using a technology he developed to find fraudulent votes in Maricopa County, which gave Biden the win in Arizona. Pulitzer also is known for inventing a barcode scanner that Time Magazine once named one of the 50 worst inventions.                                                                                                   

Sci-fi author Andy Weir clearly knows his books are fiction, intended to entertain. The problem with the far-right conspiracy kooks is their failure – or refusal – to see the difference between fact and fiction.

McCann is a contributing columnist for the Advertiser. He is a retired journalist and may be reached at Easywriter12345@yahoo.com.

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Austin American-Statesman can be found here ***