The country’s largest right-wing summit has devoted at least seven panels to re-enact or expand false allegations about the 2020 presidential election, not to mention speeches by high-level Republicans and right-wing figures raising questions about “electoral integrity” after the defeat of Donald Trump and a persistent lie that the election was “stolen” from his supporters.
Matt Schlapp, president of the American Conservative Union, which hosts the CPAC, told CNN ahead of the conference that “we will spend a lot of time analyzing what happened in the states”, despite the great legal spuriousness of the Trump campaign and the admission of its own Department Justice and electoral officials across the country that no such fraud has occurred.
“Just because you failed in court doesn’t mean you don’t have a good case,” he said.
Speakers said their concerns were about “protecting the elections” and ensuring “electoral integrity”, but they promoted the same baseless and legally dubious complaints that the ex-president and his campaign argued for months that led to the deadly Capitol riot in 6 January, when his supporters invaded the corridors of Congress to prevent the certification of votes.
The persistence of the “big lie” and claims about “irregularities” – along with the loss of a majority in the White House and Senate amid record Democratic attendance during a pandemic – has motivated Republican lawmakers in at least 43 states to present more of 400 bills to restrict voting rights, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in 43 states have submitted more than 700 bills to expand access to voting.
Among this year’s CPAC panels are “Failed states (PA, GA, NV, oh my!)”, Referencing the results of the state elections that the Trump campaign sought to overturn and “Other culprits: Why do judges and the media stand up?” refused to look at Evidence ”, during which Fox News contributor Deroy Murdock called the election“ nightmare ”and moderator Denise Cohen asked why judges and the media“ did not look at all of this evidence collected at all the places “.
Right Side Broadcasting cut the panel’s coverage, telling viewers to “do their own research on what they’re talking about”. Voting machine companies issued legal notices and threatened multibillion-dollar lawsuits against various media outlets that broadened conspiracy theories related to the election involving the companies.
Murdock also argued against absent or mailed ballots, suggesting that Democrats would deny medicines to seniors in their families, unless they voted for candidates they supported.
Also on the panel was the representative of Alabama US Mo Brooks, the first member of Congress to announce his objection to the votes of the Electoral College and who was accused of collaborating with organizers to “stop the theft” to pressure lawmakers to oppose the results . On January 6, Mr. Brooks said, “Today is the day when American patriots start taking names and detonating.”
A former South Korean lawmaker explicitly told the crowd: “Like President Trump, my loss was due to electoral fraud.”
The former president himself will address the CPAC on Sunday.
Also attending the 20210 conference is Pennsylvania Representative Mike Kelly, who tried to invalidate the Pennsylvania election results in court, and Cleta Mitchell, who was on the January 2 phone call between Mr. Trump and Georgia election officials to ” find “votes for him to win the state.
On Friday, US Senator Josh Hawley was given a standing ovation after announcing that he opposed the results of the Electoral College after a deadly Capitol insurrection mounted by supporters of the former president, fueled by his lie that the election was stolen from them.
“On January 6, I was opposed to the Electoral College certification – maybe you heard about it,” he said. “I got up and said, ‘We should have a debate on electoral integrity’.”
He said that “the left” tried to “cancel me, censor me, expel me, shut me out” by his decision to try to block the results of the Electoral College.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
Former Fox News congressman and contributor Jason Chaffetz commented on “The Left pulled the strings, covered and even admitted” addressed to House Resolution 1, the People’s Law, which would expand voting rights and eliminate party gerrymandering – that if approved, it would be a big blow for Republicans who count on the suppression of voters.
Mr Chaffetz said the bill “has nothing to do with ‘for the people’ and everything to do with winning elections and securing elections” for Democrats, as he summed up a report by the right-wing Heritage Foundation .
“Don’t fall into the trap that liberals want to fall into, which is the federalization of that,” said Chaffetz, urging Republicans to “fight in their own community” against electoral reforms.
“This is where conservatives need to be organized,” he said.