Conspiracy theory whack-a-mole, 2020 election edition | Editorial Columns

Over the weekend in Pennsylvania, U.S. District Judge Matthew Braun (a lifelong conservative and Republican) tossed out the lawsuit by the President’s legal team, calling the tort “Frankenstein’s monster.” Braun further described the suit in his decision as “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations.”

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a longtime Trump loyalist who assisted with presidential debate prep this year, can also read the handwriting on the wall. “The conduct of the president’s legal team has been a national embarrassment,” Christie said Sunday on ABC News “This Week.” Like many Republicans, Christie is recommending a focus on the two remaining U.S. Senate runoff contests in Georgia. “The rearview mirror should be ripped-off.”

Also late last week, Michigan’s legislative leadership rejected efforts to block certification of the election giving Biden a win in that state by more than 150,000 votes. The President and his legal team have the right to continue pressing their case, but it would likely be quite helpful at this point for them to share any significant demonstration or proof of ballot fraud if such exists.

Here’s a brief look at a few of the myths and enchantment tales keeping various conspiracy theories alive:

• Faithless Electors: Ill-advised efforts last week in multiple GOP led states to change the manner and method for selecting electors for the Electoral College. A decision last year by the current Supreme Court binds electors to the results of the popular vote in that state as well as prevailing state law. A faithless elector ignoring those results faces felony criminal prosecution. That is a high entry-point price for Trump victory fealty.

• Dominion Voting Systems Hack: There are three major players in the elections equipment industry operating in North America. Dominion Voting Systems (DVS) sold and maintains voting equipment in all or parts of 20 U.S. states, including several won by President Trump. DVS is a private, nonpartisan company with headquarter operations in Denver, Colorado and Toronto, Canada. Dominion was founded in Canada and in 2010 acquired U.S.-based Diebold Election Systems (proprietor of Georgia’s prior voting system).

• A Felony Steal: In a federal election contest, each fraudulent ballot would also constitute a felony charge. If the election for the White House was ‘stolen’ by several hundred thousand votes, that would likely represent potential lifetime sentences for the perpetrators. With such a stiff penalty, why not also steal the U.S. Senate (22 Republican Senate seats up, 1 loss), contribute more GOP seats to the U.S. House (net gain of 6 by GOP thus far), two new GOP Governors, and one more new statehouse chamber, all heading into a reapportionment year?

And as recently noted by Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, there were 24,000 mail-in absentee ballots cast by GOP primary and runoff voters during those June and July contests (primarily from metro Atlanta), who did not vote at all during the Nov. 3 general election. If those voters had turned out, assuming most would have voted for Trump, this would have closed and surpassed Biden’s margin of victory by roughly the same 12,000 vote by which Biden now leads. Who was advocating against mail-in voting?

• Better Use of Legal Fees: The President’s campaign and his donors are likely to continue funding legal challenges even after the Electoral College meets on Dec. 14, 2020. Congress will likely certify the Electoral College vote the first week of January. Perhaps a more practical use of at least a small portion of all those billable hours might be looking into which properties owned/operated by Trump International are in countries without U.S. extradition agreements already in place.

Bill Crane is a senior communications strategist who began his career in broadcasting and has worked at the state capitol and in Washington in both political parties. Contact him at bill.csicrane@gmail.com.