4 minute read
False Election Fraud Claims Divide Voters
As the House and Senate gathered to certify the Electoral College votes Jan. 6, a riotous mob gathered outside with the intent to stop them. The spectacle was a climactic moment for those who have denied the results of the 2020 presidential election, but the falsehood that it was stolen existed long before any vote was cast.
Senior Brandon Geissler shared the concerns of many that the election was potentially fraudulent.
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“I believe Trump and his supporters had the right to a legal and democratic challenge of the election that would take place in the courts,” Geissler said. “Trump’s administration was granted this, and not enough evidence was found to change hardly any votes at all.”
Geissler, a Trump supporter, expressed frustration with Trump’s persistence with claims of election fraud.
“I was on board with a legal and democratic process utilizing the courts to investigate if there was large scale fraud that would have significantly altered the election results,” Geissler said. “That being said, the courts repeatedly struck down these claims saying there wasn’t enough evidence to support the assertion, and therefore, I do not agree with him continuing to say there was fraud to a point where the election would have had a different outcome.”
Geissler does, however, support pursuing structural change through the states, rather than searching for inconsistencies at the national level.
“I do still believe the election process is flawed to an extent with some local irregularities, but these are changes that must be made at the state level and not anything that has been found to have made a significant enough difference in this election,” he said.
Geissler’s waning support was compounded by the events of Jan. 6 at the Capitol Building and the President’s volatile rhetoric.
“The recent events at the Capitol have one hundred percent been an overstepping of the boundaries and something I am not afraid to condemn,” Geissler said. “It was one of the saddest days in modern American political history, if not the saddest. I have been a firm supporter of President Trump throughout his time in office; however, the recent events and since the results of fraud were denied in the courts have made me lose a great deal of support for him. My support for him has been weakened drastically over the last several weeks with his continued rhetoric of the election being fraudulent and rigged despite not having enough evidence to prove these claims in court.”
The claims, which include false accusations that Hugo Chavez, the former and deceased Venezuelan President, changed votes from Trump to Biden through his ownership of voting machines; allegations that Pennsylvania poll workers altered votes, when in reality, they were fixing damaged ballots, and that Dominion Voting Systems, a voting machine company, had been compromised by foreign interference, are entirely incorrect. Two of President Trump’s Lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell, are being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for defamation.
Another way that people are refuting these claims is by increasing transparency into the election process, including Gabriel Sterling, a Republican election official in Georgia who gave a press conference Dec. 6 detailing the legitimacy of the election.
“One of the things specifically I’ve had to argue with people whom I’ve known for 20 years, they say, ‘Well, we feel like our election was stolen. We feel like our votes don’t count,’” Sterling said. “And I said, ‘Okay, I’m not acknowledging that the election was stolen, because it wasn’t. I’m not acknowledging that there was massive voter fraud, because there wasn’t.’ But I said, ‘But if you believe in your heart of hearts that there was, the best thing for you to do is to turn out and vote and make it harder for them to steal. If that’s what you genuinely in your heart of hearts believe, turn out and vote. There are people who fought and died and marched and prayed and voted to get the right to vote. Throwing it away because you have some feeling that it may not matter is self-destructive ultimately and a self fulfilling prophecy in the end.’”
Sterling then spoke directly to the President about his continued denial of his loss.
“Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia,” Sterling said. “We’re investigating, there’s always a possibility, I get it, and you have the right to go through the courts. You need to step up and say this... stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone is going to get hurt. Someone is going to get shot. Someone is going to get killed. And it’s not right.”
Sterling was correct, as the claims allegedly resulted in the Capitol riot that ended with five people dead. The Capitol riots have driven a split between Republicans, making many of them decide whether or not the disproven theories have a place in their party. right now within the party between those who want to contest the election further and the ones who are ready to move on,” Geissler said. “Obviously, it doesn’t look good currently, but I think in the long term, the party will be able to heal itself if we are able to return to the values and ideals that brought us together to begin with. I also believe a very large majority of young Republicans and conservatives understand this and will be able to help bring the party back together in the future in a common effort to further our party’s goals and political influence on the future of our country.”
WRITER | Jack Clay
