‌‌‌‌‌The Disappearing Evidence Behind A Conspiracy Theory Hit

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Hello readers!

The stars of the voter fraud hysteria film “2000 Mules” told an eager conference of conspiracy theorists that Chinese hackers had wiped out their evidence! Oh no! 

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Alas! ‘2000 Mules’ Crew Falls Victim To Wiley Chinese Hackers!

True The Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, a researcher working with her who popularized the lie that millions of undocumented people voted illegally in 2016, were all set to — finally — present their evidence.
 

The Arizona event, dubbed “The Pit” for some reason, was months in the making, and the investigators were set to reveal the basis for “2000 Mules,” the Dinesh D’Souza film that had dramatized their work. While the film claimed that cell phone data and video surveillance showed a massive network of illegal ballot traffickers, it actually showed no such thing. Instead, it was an amalgam of “take our word for it” and spooky lighting effects.
 

Well, “The Pit” came and went without any proof: Phillips and Engelbrecht announced a website, open.ink, that they said would be an interactive storage facility of sorts for their election fraud evidence, but TPM’s membership at the website is apparently still under review. Days later, the website still boldly declares “No posts were found” under “Latest Posts.” It does, however, have an option for a premium membership… At The Pit, Phillips and Engelbrecht explained the problem: When they’d tried to upload their data, it was immediately hacked and cleared out by Chinese hackers! That’s a shame. Watch here.
 

“So… Did the Chinese really hack their databases and delete their files? lol. No,” Maricopa County, ARIZONA’s top elections official, Recorder Stephen Richer, said in response to my coverage. “No grand scheme by super criminals occurred. Instead what occurred is one of the oldest things in human history: A few people convinced a bunch of hopeful voters to pay $30 for snake oil.” 

Pro-Trump Lawyers, Technicians Traveled County Hacking Voting Machines

The Washington Post had a fascinating story last week based on documents surfaced in a lawsuit in federal court in GEORGIA. They primarily concern the pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and the network of attorneys and computer technicians who seem to have been working under her direction across the country.
 

In Georgia, Michigan, even Nevada, lawyers worked with locals who had access to election machines — such as Matthew DePerno, the current GOP contender for Michigan attorney general — in a nationwide effort to provide “evidence” for Donald Trump’s lies about widespread voter fraud.
 

The Michigan example in particular is interesting. DePerno, representing a local voter in Antrim County who sued over the election results, was granted access by a judge to the county’s voting equipment. Then, months later, digital images of the system popped up at MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium.” 
 

The Post reported that on the day forensics experts copied the Antrim election server’s hard drive, Powell received an email — though she was not involved in the suit — telling her that the files would soon be made available. DePerno has denied wrongdoing. It’s probably nothing! 

Around The States

FLORIDA Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Thursday — just days before Tuesday’s primary election — held a made-for-TV extravaganza to announce that 20 out of 11.1 million votes in the 2020 election in Florida had allegedly been cast by Floridians whose past criminal convictions had made them ineligible to vote.
 

DeSantis didn’t get into details, but that wasn’t really the point: “This was my idea!” he told the cheering crowd inside, curiously, the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale. Attendees, reportedly, had been screened by a Republican Party volunteer. 
 

There’s an emerging trend in these charges and other recent election-related prosecutions of people with felony records in Florida: Defendants didn’t know they couldn’t vote! What’s more, several defendants claim authorities — parole officers, sheriff’s deputies — affirmatively told them they could vote. Election officials even issued them registration cards. And yet it’s apparently the voter’s fault, and their criminal liability. 
 

Also in Florida, ballot drop boxes are being legally rebranded to “secure ballot intake stations.” And that relabeling alone — literally, the price of slapping a new sticker on equipment — is costing one county election office $5,600, and could reach as high as $125,000 statewide, according to one outlet’s calculations. 
 

A federal judge in GEORGIA declined to block Republicans’ new prohibition against passing out food and water to people waiting in line to vote.
 

The pro-abortion access vote in KANSAS was recounted at great expense, reaffirming the results. 
 

In a somewhat unique case, the NORTH CAROLINA Supreme Court essentially found that the state’s legislature was too gerrymandered to legitimately pass multiple 2018 constitutional amendments, including a photo ID requirement for voting. The Raleigh News & Observer explains, “North Carolina’s state legislature was unconstitutionally gerrymandered to the extent that lawmakers may have lacked the authority to claim to represent the people, when they passed new constitutional amendments in 2018, the N.C. Supreme Court ruled Friday.”
 

A state judge ordered three PENNSYLVANIA counties to count undated mail-in primary ballots that were nonetheless received on time, writing, “[T]he lack of a handwritten date on the declaration on the return envelope of a timely received absentee or mail-ballot does not support excluding those ballots from the Boards’ certified results under both Pennsylvania law and … the [federal] Civil Rights Act,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. Further litigation is likely, the paper noted.
 

The entire elections staff in Gillespie County, TEXAS, home to Fredericksburg, stepped down last week in response to death threats, stalking and understaffing. 

The Latest In Election Sabotage

A judge tore into former WISCONSIN Supreme Court justice Michael Gableman’s “investigation” of the 2020 election a few days after Gableman was fired by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R). For several months in 2021, Circuit Court Judge Frank Remington said, Gableman’s office “accomplished nothing.”
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Meanwhile, the Trump- and Gableman-endorsed primary challenger Vos defeated a few days ago, Adam Steen, announced Thursday he is pursuing an independent bid.
 

In an interview with the New Yorker last year, NEW HAMPSHIRE Senate contender Don Bolduc said “absolutely” he would “walk the walk” if and when potential election objections come before the Senate again in 2024. He recently said he supports repealing the 17th Amendment, which established the direct election of senators. And… he’s leading in GOP primary polling. 

Bolts: Meet the First Election Denier Poised to Win for Secretary of State This Year
 

ProPublica: The GOP Turns Against the League of Women Voters
 

VoteBeat: Election officials brace for onslaught of poll watchers
 

NYT: An Unusual $1.6 Billion Donation Bolsters Conservatives

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