Dozens Of State Lawmakers Sign Letter Calling For MAGA Audit Of All 50 States

UNITED STATES - Sept. 14: Wendy Rogers, candidate for Arizona's 1st congressional district, is interviewed by CQ Roll Call at their D.C. office, Sept. 14, 2018. (Photo by Thomas McKinless/CQ Roll Call).
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Dozens of state lawmakers from around the country have signed onto a letter falsely referring to the 2020 elections as “corrupted” and insisting on “forensic audits” in all 50 states. 

The letter also calls for states to “scrub” their voter rolls, and to “decertify” their electors if they determine that the results of the 2020 race were certified “prematurely and inaccurately.” It then demands that the U.S. House of Representatives to hold its own vote for president if enough states cast doubt on the November results. Those latter two action items are impossible, given Joe Biden was sworn in as President nine months ago. 

“This is our historic obligation to restore the election integrity of the vote as the bedrock of our constitutional republic,” the letter, which has been signed by 138 state lawmakers from 38 states, reads. “If we do not have accurate and fair elections, we do not have a country.” 

The effort to gather signatures has been spearheaded in recent weeks by Arizona State Sen. Wendy Rogers (R), an outspoken and militant booster of the so-called “audit” of Maricopa County, led by the Trump-friendly firm Cyber Ninjas.

In September, after the release of the final report from that politicized “audit,” Rogers announced the letter and described it as “our new Declaration of Independence” and a “manifesto of freedom.” Since then, its list of signatories has grown.

She’s also repeatedly called for Arizona’s election results to be decertified, and at one point for Maricopa County, Arizona officials to be jailed. 

Though the letter’s signatories represent a tiny fraction of the roughly 7,400 state legislators across the country, they include some prominent names: Colorado State Rep. Ron Hanks, for example, is a contender for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. 

Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano, another signatory, has deep ties to Trumpworld and is the leading voice for a politicized election investigation in his own state. 

Election truther Mark Finchem, a signatory and state representative from Arizona, is Donald Trump’s pick to be that state’s next secretary of state. Finchem began selling t-shirts over the summer with the phrase “#proveit” — as in, “prove that there was no fraud in the election.” 

In light of the results from the Maricopa County, audit — which, to the great disappointment of many Trump dead-enders, failed to find election fraud and may have actually bungled the counting of thousands of votes — Finchem called for an audit of Arizona’s second-largest county, Pima. Donald Trump on Friday upped the ante, demanding that either a new election to be held, or that he immediately be declared the winner of the 2020 race there. (“Pima County conducted a free, fair, secure, and accurate election,” County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said Friday.)

Nearly a third of the Arizona statehouse’s Republicans signed Rogers’ letter, which claimed that “an inaccurate election was held” in that state and others.

At least a dozen signatories of the letter, as listed on Rogers’ website, also attended pillow millionaire Mike Lindell’s August “Cyber Symposium,” where attendees analyzed sensitive leaked election software and bonded over the myth of a stolen election

At that conference, Rogers and another state senator, Virginia’s Amanda Chase — who was not listed as a signatory on Rogers’ letter — announced their intention to form a multi-state “Election Integrity Caucus.” 

In a recent interview with “Intercessors for America,” a conservative prayer network, Chase said the group would be calling for “audits” of all 50 states, and noted that the caucus was working on creating a political action committee and website for the group, “so that other legislators can simply click and find us.”

Latest News
314
Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. Reminder that Trump overperformed the public polling in 2020 by several percentage points.

    Also reminder that it’s no use voting, Republicans. We’ve got this thing stolen. All voting accomplishes for you is to give us more votes to steal, so you best just stay home.

  2. Dozens of state lawmakers from around the country have signed onto a letter falsely referring to the 2020 elections as “corrupted” and insisting on “forensic audits” in all 50 states.

    Further attempting to frame the election system as corrupted. Working to create uncertainty in the people that their system even comes close to working. Tell me this is just a Republican ploy for re-election or a master plan of disinformation coordinated out of Moscow. Can we even tell the difference?

  3. Avatar for bkmn bkmn says:

    Then all the Republicans that were elected in 2020 will vacate their seats, right?

  4. Waving the flag and carrying the cross…

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

308 more replies

Participants

Avatar for ajm Avatar for playitagainrowlf Avatar for austin_dave Avatar for pluckyinky Avatar for mattinpa Avatar for squirreltown Avatar for teenlaqueefa Avatar for cvilledem Avatar for sniffit Avatar for ralph_vonholst Avatar for lastroth Avatar for darrtown Avatar for thunderclapnewman Avatar for lizzymom Avatar for news247 Avatar for justruss Avatar for glowgirl Avatar for zenicetus Avatar for rascal_crone Avatar for staggerlee Avatar for randome Avatar for emiliano4 Avatar for dogselfie Avatar for john_adams

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: