Cincinnati teacher takes stage at Trump rally to tout false claims about 2020 election

Misinformation was the theme of the day at Donald Trump’s Ohio rally Saturday as the former president and his supporters falsely claimed that he won the 2020 election.

Among the spin doctors to take the stage was a Cincinnati-area chemist and mathematician who has attracted national notoriety for his ideas about COVID-19 and alleged voter fraud.

“So do you think in Ohio we had a clean election?” Douglas Frank asked the crowd.

“No!” they roared, despite the fact that Trump won the Buckeye State by 8 percentage points in November. 

News:Donald Trump tells Ohio rally he’s ‘trying to save American democracy’

Frank, of Morrow, is the math and science department chair at the Schilling School for Gifted Children in Cincinnati, but has become better known for his place on the political stage. He said Trump invited him to speak at the Lorain County Fairgrounds Saturday to share data that he claims prove widespread voter fraud in Ohio and across the country.

Frank’s presentation felt like a math lesson, complete with charts and graphs that the crowd seemed less than eager to absorb on a hot afternoon. He claimed election officials followed the same formula to rig the process: inflating the voter registration database, inputting false ballots and cleaning up the rolls afterward.

In an interview Wednesday, Frank promised that he and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell — a Trump supporter who also attended Saturday’s rally — will release information in July that shows voting machines were hooked up to the internet. Ohio law prohibits that.

“We need to undo the last election and have a real election,” he said.

Frank’s theories have been debunked more than once. The Washington Post broke down his math and determined it merely shows that turnout is consistent by age group. A report from the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee, led by two Republicans, argued Frank’s claims weren’t “sound,” saying they didn’t account for moving patterns or same-day registration that would create natural disparities between Census data and voter registrations.

“The patterns he sees are not unexpected or unusual to elections or human behavior in general,” the report stated. 

News:Trump Organization, CFO Allen Weisselberg expected to face tax charges Thursday

Frank said he’s taking a sabbatical from Schilling this year because he doesn’t have enough time to teach while spreading his gospel. (The school did not return a message seeking information about Frank’s employment. He’s been removed from YouTube, which tends to happen if regulators find the content is false or misleading.

He also recently joined Joe Blystone, a fringe Republican candidate for governor, in meeting with Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office to discuss their concerns. Spokesman Rob Nichols said the meeting lasted nearly two and a half hours.

“Dr. Frank acknowledged that he does not currently possess any evidence to prove his theories about irregularities in the 2020 election, or any previous elections which he also claims were tainted,” Nichols said. 

Still, Frank stands by his work: “You can’t argue with the math.”

Haley BeMiller is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from The Cincinnati Enquirer can be found here ***