2020 election

Workers strained their eyes to decipher ballot designations that voting machines had already tabulated as the hand count dragged on. Some officials on the Spalding County Board of Elections and Registration in Georgia didn’t trust the machines, so they’d initiated automatic hand recounts of all elections, and at the end of the third day of counting, Nov. 14, 2023, the workers had found what was to be expected: The counts by machine were the same as counts made by hand. The hand count was completely unnecessary, but the…

A number of major AI services performed poorly in a test of their ability to address questions and concerns about voting and elections. The study found that no model can be completely trusted, but it was bad enough that some got things wrong more often than not. The work was performed by Proof News, a new outlet for data-driven reporting that made its debut more or less simultaneously. Their concern was that AI models will, as their proprietors have urged and sometimes forced, replace ordinary searches and references…

Back in September, the former chairman of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison on “seditious conspiracy” charges related to the Jan. 6 raid of the U.S. Capitol. According to the Justice Department, the far-right group “played a central role in setting the January 6th attack on our Capitol into motion,” and as its leader, Tarrio created a special group within the militant organization called the Ministry of Self Defense that “established a chain of command, chose a time and…

When former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, he hired Ken Block’s data mining firm to try and find evidence to back up the wild allegations Trump and his campaign were making about voter fraud. Instead, Block found none, and now his work could be used to help prosecute Trump.  “I’ve received subpoenas from both Jack Smith’s federal investigation into potential crimes related to Jan. 6 and also Fani Willis’ investigation of potential election crimes committed in Georgia,” Block told Rolling Stone in…

Rudy Giuliani has been ordered to pay two Georgia election workers a total of $148 million for spreading defamatory conspiracy theories about them in the aftermath of the 2020 election. The eight person jury reached the decision unanimously on Friday, its second day of deliberation. Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman sued Giuliani in December of last year, alleging that the attorney had falsely accused them of manipulating the 2020 presidential vote in Georgia. In August, Giuliani was…

Nevada Republican Party Chair Michael McDonald was among those indicted over the effort to undermine the results of the 2020 election  Six Nevada Republicans have been indicted by a grand jury on charges related to their efforts to undermine Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election by creating a slate of fake pro-Trump electors. Among those indicted is Nevada Republican Party Chair Michael McDonald. On Wednesday, the office of Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, announced that the…

A new filing to D.C.’s District Court has revealed Special Counsel Jack Smith’s strategy to convict former President Donald Trump in his upcoming 2020 election interference trial.  Details contained in the Tuesday filing, a notice of evidence to be introduced in the trial, indicate that Smith and his team plan to present the court with a far-reaching historical review of Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, some of it dating back years before Trump even assumed the presidency.  “In an abundance of…

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, is investigating the plot, which has also drawn criminal scrutiny in Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan Nevada’s Attorney General Aaron Ford has opened an investigation into efforts by Republicans in the state to undermine Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election by creating a slate of fake pro-Trump electors.  The investigation, which was first reported by Politico, has been unfolding with little fanfare in recent weeks. According to three people with…