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    • Trump-aligned group already considering lawsuit over election results
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    Trump-aligned group already considering lawsuit over election results

    Umito Posted on

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    A Trump-aligned group that has filed lawsuits in several swing states. voter registration lists already planning to sue the results of this year’s electionsone of the group’s founders told USA TODAY.

    “We feel obligated to defend this beautiful country,” said Marly Hornik, co-founder of United Sovereign Americans in 2023. “We already have signs and numbers that indicate things are going wrong in the process.”

    The organization, which describes itself as nonpartisan, is regularly represented by Bruce Castora lawyer from former president Donald Trump in his impeachment trial for the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

    Prosecutions of the group and republican organizations suggest widespread voter fraud could occur – without by providing proof that it is.

    Complaints fuel the false story from the former president Donald Trump that he did not lose the 2020 election, which critics fear is a harbinger of similar electoral theft if he loses again. Numerous accounts and audits have shown President Joe Biden won the last presidential election. Almost all of the more than 60 lawsuits filed Trump’s allies following this election have failed.

    “Those seeking to disrupt the election want to sow the fictional narrative that there is reason to panic about the process. That is not the case,” said Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount who studies elections. election issues, to USA TODAY.

    Hornik said the group would seek to conduct external audits of the 2024 elections. It would need to file lawsuits before the results are certified, but likely only after a state announces the results or the media announces the results. results, she said. The group could file a lawsuit sooner, but it is internally wondering whether a court would consider pre-results legal action to be premature.

    “For some reason they keep saying they did a great job,” she said, referring to past election audits. “But all other emerging industries need to be audited by external auditors. That’s how you really find out what happened.”

    Lawsuits already filed

    This year, United Sovereign Americans has already sued officials in nine different states, alleging widespread errors in voter registration data that they say could indicate fraud.

    For example, in a Pennsylvania lawsuit, the group alleged there are nearly 3.2 million violations out of nearly 8.8 total records, which “casts doubt” on the reliability and credibility of the state’s midterm results for 2022. Examples of The alleged errors include “illogical voter history” or “questionable” registrant addresses that the group says violate two federal laws, the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.

    Pennsylvania Secretary’s Attorneys replied that the group’s questions about the dates on the documents “are both factually baseless and irrelevant” under the National Voter Registration Act, which is “designed as a shield to protect the right to vote, and not as a sword to pierce him.'”

    The lawyers also said the Help America Vote Act is about operating standards for voting machines, not voter registration.

    “Every state just told us these were clerical errors,” Hornik told USA TODAY.

    Sowing doubt about the American elections?

    The lawsuits filed by United Sovereign Americans are part of a broader trend of legal challenges to state voter rolls, which also includes several lawsuits filed by the Republican National Committee and state Republican parties.

    The trials, including several to have has been rejected, came despite no evidence of widespread electoral fraud.

    A review by the AP of every potential case of voter fraud in the six swing states contested by Trump in 2020 – Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – found fewer than 475 cases out of 25.5 million ballots cast for president. These cases had no impact on the results: Biden won each state by more than 10,000 votes, and all six by a total of 311,257 votes.

    Trump’s own Attorney General, Bill Barr, said in December 2020 that the The Justice Department found no evidence of fraud which would modify the results.

    A Brennan Center for Justice study of the 2016 election revealed only 30 referrals of alleged non-citizens voting for further investigation or prosecution in 42 jurisdictions that accounted for 23.5 million votes in that election.

    For some, the failure of legal efforts and lack of evidence of widespread fraud raises the question of why lawsuits are being filed, and particularly — in many cases — as elections approach.

    “The natural conclusion is that this is setting the stage to claim that an election was stolen,” David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonprofit, told USA TODAY which works with Republican and Democratic election officials to build confidence in elections. .

    “There is a significant risk that the continued noise will teach a significant portion of the American public — by falsely lying to them and convincing them — that they should not have confidence in their elections,” Levitt said.

    Hornik said that if his organization’s lawsuits cast doubt on the election, it’s because of underlying problems in the systems — even though the group has so far failed to win in court. Most of his lawsuits were filed in August or September. A lawsuit filed in March against Maryland officials was dismissed in May and is on appeal.

    What would post-election trials look like?

    Hornik said the group’s pre-election concerns motivated its desire to sue over audits that are not conducted by state officials.

    “We know that none of these systems were repaired. We were fired because of our concerns,” Hornik said. “There is therefore no clear reason to have more confidence in the process than before.”

    However, some of the issues raised may seem different from his previous prosecutions.

    The sovereign United States sued Texas state officials in late August, argue – as was the case in Pennsylvania – that there are numerous errors in voter registration data.

    But in his phone call with USA TODAY, Hornik raised an entirely different issue with the state, saying early votes in Texas were already being counted “on machines that failed their certification test.” She said Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson, appointed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, “drafted a waiver” authorizing the use of faulty machines.

    That’s not true, Alicia Phillips Pierce, Nelson’s spokesperson, told USA TODAY.

    “All machines used in Texas meet certification requirements. No waivers have been issued,” Pierce said in an email.

    Prosecutions could depend on outcome

    Hornik said she would still sue if Trump wins a state.

    “It’s not about one candidate. There are 435 congressional seats up for re-election or re-election in a few weeks,” Hornik said.

    However, she declined to say whether any lawsuits would be filed regardless of the election outcome.

    “It really depends on our resources, and we’re going to do everything we can to make the election as secure as possible for the American people,” Hornik said.

    In addition to Pennsylvania, Texas and Maryland, the sovereign United States has filed lawsuits this year challenging voter rolls in Georgia, Michigan, Colorado, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio.

    “Nobody Needs Another Maricopa Mardi Gras”

    After the 2020 election, Trump spread misinformation about the election results in Phoenix’s Maricopa County, including falsely claiming that an election database had been deleted. An audit supported by Republicans that lasted months confirmed that President Joe Biden won the county.

    Yet the post-election chaos in this county and elsewhere around the country has resulted in unprecedented election security efforts, including bulletproof glass, security cameras, panic buttonsand de-escalation training for election workers.

    The sovereign United States is not looking to sow chaos in the aftermath of this year’s elections, Hornik said.

    “Nobody needs another Maricopa Mardi Gras, as I like to call it,” Hornik told USA TODAY.

    But it may seek to bring in voters to verify their identity or correct a clerical error before their votes can be counted.

    “You report anything that looks like garbage. And if these people want to vote, that’s fine. They vote provisionally. They come in, they show ID and say, ‘Yeah, I’m actually here, here’s …my address,’” she said.

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