Trump Loyalists Take Over Election Boards in Key States: Shocking Analysis Reveals

Over 100 election officials from eight pivotal states in the U.S. presidential race have demonstrated partisan election denial in recent years. This has led to concerns that they could attempt to manipulate the November result in favor of Republican candidate Donald Trump, as per a report published on Friday.

The comprehensive 88-page report, compiled by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), outlines the history of election denial by 102 county and state election officials in Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. The researchers discovered that election deniers control the majority of 15 county election boards in these states and also hold sway over the statewide board in Georgia.

“Our research highlighted the extent to which election denialism and voter fraud myths have permeated and taken control of the Republican machinery in each of these crucial states,” said Arn Pearson, CMD’s executive director, in an interview with The Guardian.

“With 102 deniers on election boards in the swing states, the potential for creating chaos is enormous,” Pearson added.

The three Republicans on the five-member Georgia state election board endorse Trump’s baseless allegations that the 2020 election was rigged. Recently, they altered the rules to increase their power to reject or postpone certifying election results while conducting undefined investigations, and they seem to be planning further rule changes before November 5.

Trump recently praised these three Republicans by name at an Atlanta rally, stating that they were “on fire” and were “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.”

In 2020, Trump was defeated by Democratic President Joe Biden by a thin margin of about 12,000 votes in Georgia, a state anticipated to be fiercely contested again this year as the Republican former president goes up against Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump is facing criminal charges in Georgia for attempting to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. Four other individuals involved in the felony racketeering case have already admitted guilt.

Marc Elias, an election lawyer advising the Harris campaign, called the new rules in Georgia “somewhere between insidious and insane.” He, along with many other experts, stressed that election boards should not wield such power. Drawing a football analogy, Elias stated that the rules provide “the scoreboard operator the opportunity to investigate for themselves whether a touchdown was scored,” on The New Yorker Radio Hour.

The CMD report reveals that partisan conspiracy theories among election officials extend far beyond Georgia. Pennsylvania has 29 election administration officials loyal to Trump—the highest of any of the eight states—and they control the boards in seven counties there, according to the report.

The report not only examines election officials but also other Republican “election deniers,” including U.S. congressional candidates and party officials from the eight states. The researchers identified 239 election deniers, including the 102 election board officials.

The CMD described someone as an “election denier” if they had done any of the following: “denying that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election”; “promoting baseless allegations or conspiracies about election and voter fraud during the 2020 election or subsequent elections”; “refusing to certify election results, or encouraging others to refuse to certify, based on unfounded accusations of interference or fraud”; “expressing support for partisan or ‘forensic’ audits of 2020 election results”; “filing or voicing support for litigation aimed at overturning election results”; “participating in or supporting the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol assault or ‘Stop the Steal’ events.”

Opinions vary on whether Republican efforts to subvert the election, in the event of a Trump loss, will be more or less effective than in 2020.

“Our democracy’s safeguards held firm in 2020, but election deniers and MAGA extremists have spent the last four years infiltrating election administration and political party positions in order to disrupt and cast doubt on the 2024 election results,” Pearson stated, accompanying the report.

However, officials not loyal to Trump have also had more time to prepare for potential election interference, and the Electoral Count Reform Act, passed by Congress in 2022, could make it harder for Trump’s efforts to succeed, according to experts.

Pearson suggested that Trump’s allies on election boards might not ultimately succeed in overturning the election but could cause doubt that undermines democracy.

“While it’s highly unlikely that these officials, along with deniers in Congress, will be able to prevent certification of the 2024 election results, they are ideally positioned to provoke litigation and delay what should be a simple task while they and their allies promote false claims of voter fraud, noncitizen voting, and a stolen election,” he stated.

The CMD report follows those of various other media outlets and watchdog groups over recent months, which have found similar trends, albeit with different exact numbers. An investigation by CBS News in May found 80 election-denying officials in seven battleground states. Rolling Stone and American Doom discovered nearly 70 in six states in July. Last month, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington released a detailed report pinpointing 35 “rogue” officials.