- Republican MP Madison Cawthorn’s long-standing allegations of electoral fraud collapsed on Saturday.
- Cawthorn said he contested the election “to prevent the constitution.”
- When pressed by CNN’s Pamela Brown to cite specific cases of fraud, Cawthorn was unable to do so.
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Republican deputy Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina took office promising to challenge President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Through the night of the deadly January 6 Capitol riots, Cawthorn continued to challenge the results of the Arizona and Pennsylvania elections, emphasizing his focus on electoral integrity and the constitution.
Yet, during a Saturday interview with CNN’s Pamela Brown, her argument for contesting the results collapsed.
When Cawthorn was questioned by Brown for evidence to support allegations of electoral fraud, he was unable to cite any specific cases.
“The things that I was not opposing the election on behalf of were things like Dominion voting machines exchanging ballots, or these U-Haul trucks stopping full of ballots for Joe Biden as president,” he said.
“What I was objecting to is things like, as I said in the state of Wisconsin, especially in the city of Madison … there was an official named in that city who actually went against the wishes of the state legislature and created ballot boxes, which is basically the harvest of votes that was happening in the parks, “he continued.
—CNN (@CNN) January 24, 2021
Brown reminded the 25-year-old freshman congressman that then-President Donald Trump’s campaign litigated several Wisconsin election issues and lost in court.
When Brown asked if Cawthorn had seen a specific case of fraud, he found no answer.
“So you wanted to throw away millions of votes without really seeing any concrete evidence of fraud?” Brown asked. “This is what you were doing when you were running for election.”
Cawthorn then said he contested the election “to prevent the constitution”.
After Brown told Cawthorn that his own state changed electoral laws in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was a central part of his earlier argument, he said he did not know that North Carolina had changed any laws.
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“In fact, I am not aware of the laws that have been changed within North Carolina,” he said. “I believe that we had a very safe election here.”
Trump beat North Carolina last November.
Biden won in Arizona and Pennsylvania – states where Cawthorn fought for voting certification. He was unable to formally challenge Wisconsin’s results because no senator came forward to challenge the results for the state, which Biden won.
At the end of the interview, Cawthorn’s previous allegations of fraud disappeared into thin air.
“Yes, I think I would say the election was not fraudulent,” he admitted to Brown.
He added: “The Constitution allowed us to step back as far as we could and I did that within the constitutional limits I had at my disposal, so now I would say that Joseph R. Biden is our President.”