FactCheck.org and Others Make Inaccurate Claim of "Baseless" Voter Fraud

Image: Factbase

Mimicking what many media outlets have been saying since November 4th, FactCheck.org has joined the false claim of "baseless" and "no evidence of" voter fraud in a recent article under it's FACTCHECK POSTS category.

To first address the talking point of "baseless" voter fraud and "no evidence" of voter fraud, there are over a thousand affidavits signed under the penalty of perjury that state otherwise.

Under federal law his is legally admissible as evidence in federal court.

Moreover, many of these are currently part of public record on the various cases challenging the 2020 election results.

Affidavits are equivalent to sworn testimony and testimonial evidence, and testimony is the most common form of evidence used in court which can be collected in court, in a deposition, or in written via affidavit so long as it's signed under penalty of perjury pursuant to 28 U.S. Code § 1746.

Any and all statements by news media, fact checkers, or any other person to the contrary or suggesting "baseless" claims or claims "without evidence" is simply an absolute false statement.

FactCheck.org

The fact checking organization claims in an article that "Trump Repeats Baseless, False Claims About the Election".

Claim 1: "Bogus Attacks on Dominion Voting Systems"

FactCheck.org claims that the alleged fraud potential involving Dominion systems is "bogus" because the former head of CISA, Christopher Krebs, said so and because "Dominion Voting Systems categorically denies" the allegations on their website.

First let's address the website content. Dominions systems claims that:

The allegations included in the draft complaint are baseless, senseless, physically impossible, and unsupported by any evidence whatsoever.

 

Here's a piece of evidence: Testimony

Here's 19 more:  King Vs. Whitmer

In the latter, specifically exhibit 9 (attachment 9) debunks Dominions "impossible" claim. The rest clearly show the contrary to the "no evidence whatsoever" claim. In rebuttal to manipulation allegations Dominion said:

It is important to understand that this is not possible—not on a machine-by-machine basis, not by alleged hacking, not by manipulating software, and not by imagined ways of "sending" votes to overseas locations.

Has Dominion created the only unhackable system in the world as suggested by this statement, and others?

No. There is no unhackable system, with the exception of the bitcoin blockchain which to dare, has never been hacked. ATM's, casinos, and even the Federal Reserve itself has been hacked.

Moreover, there are countless articles regarding Dominion and other voting machine vulnerabilities, here's a few:

WSJ Article on Security Experts Fear of Hacking in 2020 Election

Politico Article on How to Hack an Election in 7 Minutes

NBC Article on Hacking Voter Machines

Simply searching Google or YouTube will result in videos on exactly how to do it as well.

The article then states:

In the Fox News interview, Trump also falsely claimed, “You know, the votes in Dominion, they say, are counted in foreign countries, OK?” Whoever says this is wrong.

 

While the "Whoever says this is wrong" is a strong opinion that is likely accurate, the rest of the statement, specifically stating that Trump falsely made this claim is absolutely incorrect according to their own data given. They quote Trump to have said "they say", which is correct in that other people have made this claim and as such, he did not falsely claim anything.

Furthermore, there is affidavit evidence of activity supporting this in Attachment 9 in this case (Pearson Vs. Kemp).

Claim 2: False Claim of Winning Before Votes Were Counted

In the statement FactCheck.org is referring to, Trump insinuates he was winning, but never actually claimed to have won. He has however, mention similar rhetoric in the past, so we agree with FactCheck.org on this being false other times he has said it, but it wasn't what he said in the quote they published.

Regardless, we are going to agree with this claim.

Notably, Joe Biden held an entire "acceptance event" before all of the votes were counted, without a concession, and knowing the votes were challenged in several jurisdiction.

Claim 3: "Dead People Voting"

The article states:

The president repeated the unsubstantiated claim that “thousands” of dead people voted in the election.

 

However, the truth is that state officials have indeed reported thousands of dead people voting nationwide. Georgia has an entire investigation looking into exactly that. Georgia Investigation

Which is nothing new, A 2012 report by the Pew Center on the States found that more than 1.8 million dead people were registered to vote and 2.75 million people were registered in more than one state.

Claim 4: "Poll Watchers and ‘Unexpected’ Ballots"

The article goes on to suggest that Trump's claim that GOP observers weren't present at some locations is false. However, there are countless affidavit accounts of this, including testimony from attorneys who were prevented from observing, in person testimony in state senate hearings regarding harassing and blocking GOP observers, and court documents outlining specifics of when observers were not present going so far as to ask the court to step in so that the GOP could place poll watcher where they were missing.

FactCheck.org's claim that this allegation is baseless is simply false as is their assessment regarding the "unexpected" ballots of which there is evidence from affidavits and video (this is not referring to the debunked video where a man is unloading camera equipment).

In one case a poll supervisor reported both unexpected ballots showing up and disappearing shortly thereafter.

Claim 5: Flawed Logic on ‘Just Biden on Top’ 

FactCheck.org states:

Trump claimed that “a lot of ballots” included votes only for Biden and no other down-ballot candidates, citing this as evidence of fraud. But Trump’s logic is flawed.

 

They go onto to offer a speculative opinion on why they presume Trump's logic is flawed. However, in both cases, these are two opinion and notably, they are bases on the same fact that this is exactly true.

Neither party has the ability to know the reasons this happened, both are speculating. Regardless, this is not a baseless claim as the article headline states.

Claim 6: "Trump Ballots Weren’t ‘Thrown Out’"

FactCheck.org falsely claims that Trump made a false claim regarding "Trump ballots" being thrown out, and then contradicts itself by mentioning a known account of "Trump ballots" being thrown out. FactCheck.org specifically states:

...there is no evidence that any ballots legally cast for Trump were not counted.

They follow up this statement with this one:

...there is only one instance of Trump votes — seven of them — accidentally being tossed out. It happened in September, when the Justice Department announced that nine military ballots — seven cast for Trump — were found in a trash can in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

This coming coming one paragraph after expressly stating there in no evidence of any being thrown out. We won't have to state that FactCheck.org falsely claimed this claim was false since they prove it themselves. 

Notably, there is also sworn testimony supporting this claim as well.

Claim 7: "Republicans Win with Mail-In Ballots"

In this case, both Trump and FactCheck.org are speculating. FactCheck.org is speculating and offering an opinion in contrast to Trump's opinion based on his speculation.

Trump states that "if Republicans allow it to happen, you’ll never have another Republican elected in the history of this country at a Senate level or at a presidential level. You’ll never — or at a House level." regarding mail-in voting, which appears to be a sarcastic exaggeration, by FactCheck.org took it seriously enough to write about it and present their own speculation and opinions.

The simple fact is that nobody can know what is going to happen in the future. FactCheck.org attempt to justify it's opinion with "Republicans fared surprisingly well" in the 2020 election, however, that is not the future.

As such it is not a contradictory statement.

Furthermore, the premise of mail-in voting fraud has been a focus now for a couple years by both Republicans and Democrats. In fact the current bill in the senate for mail-in voting reform is sponsored by a Democratic senator which is H. R. 8285, "The Election Fraud Prevention Act".

If both Republicans and Democrats agree with this and there's law in congress to address the problem, it's clearly not a baseless claim.

Congressional Findings

Here are some congressional findings on mail-in voting included in the aforementioned bill:

(3) Depending on the State or locality, voters have the option of leaving their mail ballots in a drop box, having their ballots collected and submitted by a third party, or returning them at the polls or a local election office.

(4)Third-party collection of ballots, which some refer to as “ballot harvesting”, is a practice long used by special-interest groups and both major political parties that is viewed either as a voter service that boosts voter turnout or an activity that has the potential to make elections vulnerable to fraud.

(5) Today, several States have allowed or tried to limit ballot harvesting by restricting who can turn in another person’s ballot. Nine States allow a family member to return a ballot for a voter, 27 States allow voters to designate someone to return their ballot for them, although some of these States have placed limits on who may collect the ballots or how many they may collect, and 13 States are silent on the issue of ballot collection.

Which not only gives all mail-in voting claims premise, but this was sponsored by a Democrat earlier this year.

Summary

Of the 7 claims made by FactCheck.org all 7 of them were technically false claims of false claims, however, one of them was somewhat credible in that Donald Trump has claimed he won the election in at least one tweet. He did not specifically say this in the quote mentioned, but it was insinuated, so for this reason, FactCheck.org was accurate on count 2.

FactCheck.org was inaccurate on the 6 other counts claiming Trump's claims were false, in some cases citing opinion and speculation in contrast to opinion and speculation which is far from a false claim, and certainly not "baseless" claims of voter fraud or claims that have "no evidence".

The article was posted under category "FACTCHECK POSTS" and was not labeled "OPINION" or mentioned as such. Thus, these 6 claims were false claims of false claims by FactCheck.org.

Claim: "Trump repeats baseless false claims about the election"


Fact Check Verdict:  6 FALSE CLAIMS   1 TRUE CLAIM 


Claimant: FactCheck.org

 

 

Addition Claimants: Lori Robertson, Eugene Kiely, Jessica McDonald and D'Angelo Gore