Republicans continued to embrace the myth of a stolen election in the annual right-wing conclave of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), underscoring how the party continues to support the groundless idea months after Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 race and the attack deadly to the capital.
This year’s meeting of some of the party’s most fervent supporters has seven surprising sessions focused on electoral fraud and election-related issues. Several have inflammatory titers. “Other culprits, why the judges and the media refuse to look at the evidence,” was the name of a panel discussion on Friday. “The left pulled the strings, covered it up and even admitted it”, was another. “Failed states (GA, PA, NV, my God!)” Is the title of another one scheduled for this weekend.
Several speakers on Friday repeated unmasked falsehoods about the election. Deroy Murdock, a Fox News contributor, repeated the lie that there were “mysterious last-minute dumps” that rocked the election for Joe Biden and that there were vehicles with out-of-state license plates unloading ballots in the early hours of the election. Both claims were debunked.
Nurturing fears about fraud and upholding stricter voting rules has become common among Republicans in recent years, but in the wake of Trump’s presidency – and his loss to Biden – it has become a common rallying cry in the party. Even so, some observers said the focus on fanning the flames of CPAC conspiracy theory was still alarming.
“A program on the lessons learned from the vote in 2020 is appropriate to restore confidence for half of America, but not seven!” said Eric Johnson, a former Republican lawmaker in Georgia who advised Kelly Loeffler’s campaign for the US Senate.
“Donald Trump convinced his base – most Republicans, to believe the polls – that the election was stolen. Although CPAC organizers probably know it is false, they are using it as a problem to stimulate the base and sell more tickets, ”said Nick Pasternak, who recently left the Republican Party after working on several Republican campaigns.
He added: “The CPAC’s willingness to make the election a major problem this year is a worrying symbol of what many in the party think – and what they will do.”
While dozens of judges across the country, including several nominated by Donald Trump, dismissed allegations of fraud after the election, Murdock and other CPAC speakers accused the judges of not being willing to examine evidence of fraud.
Hans von Spakovsky, a well-known conservative who has been agitating for more restrictive election policies for years, said the judges are reluctant to examine the evidence because they fear being attacked. “When it becomes an extraordinary electoral dispute, with national implications and in which it is in danger of being attacked by one of the political parties, the media, the reluctance is even greater,” he said.
Pressed if the judges were afraid to look at the evidence, Von Spakovsky added: “I think that in some cases this is true, in other cases they may have had valid procedural grounds, but it certainly didn’t seem to me.”
Asked how much evidence of fraud there was now, Murdock said falsely, “It can be fragmented now.”
Jesse Binnall, a lawyer who represented the Trump campaign in Nevada, complained about the short term lawyers had to set up a case after the election and said the judges were pressured by media reports that electoral fraud was not a widespread problem. . “Right or wrong, they never tried to investigate the facts about electoral fraud,” he said. “Our legs were cut before we even entered the court.”
Litigants in American courts have to comply with procedural limits to advance their case, something that prevents courts from having to hear frivolous claims. Repeatedly, Trump and his allies have failed to convince the courts that they have removed those barriers.
“One can expect that, in pursuing such an astonishing result, a plaintiff will arrive terribly armed with convincing legal arguments and factual evidence of rampant corruption,” wrote Matthew Braun, a federal judge in Pennsylvania, in December, while making an attempt at Trump. and his allies to block certification of election results there. “Instead, this court was presented with tense, unsubstantiated legal arguments and speculative charges … not supported by evidence.”
CPAC comments highlight how Republicans continue to fuel uncertainty about the election. Even after Republican and Democratic elected officials and judges have repeatedly examined allegations of wrongdoing and found no fraud, they continue to insist that there is unexamined evidence.
State legislatures across the country are pushing new voting restrictions, and there are at least 253 bills pending to restrict voting in the United States, according to a count by the Brennan Center for Justice.
In his speech on Friday, Von Spakovsky expressed support for efforts to restrict voting by mail and said that HR1, the bill pending in Congress that would require automatic registration and the same day among other reforms, was “the most anti-democratic that I “saw during my 20 years in Washington”.
Jay Williams, a Republican strategist in Georgia, said the focus on the elections was a way to garner support among the party’s loyal base, which remains largely loyal to Trump and his allies.
“I would not equate ‘the party’ with CPAC, so I would not bet much on that from that perspective,” he said. “CPAC exists to make money, so it comes as no surprise to me that the organizers approached this issue as a way to boost the engagement of their target market.”