November 2020
A friend wrote me a couple of emails last week, following the invasion of the US Capitol Building by supporters of President Donald Trump. In one email, he suggested that “the Republic is now gone” and that he “personally will fight (however I can) to my last breath.”
He also noted that “the truth is always the bitterest of pills to swallow.”
As 150 million American citizens submitted their general election ballots to 3,142 separate county governments during October and November — with final ballots submitted on November 3 — the choices they faced were varied. Here in Colorado, each county voter had a choice of various US Representatives, US Senators, state legislative candidates, county officials, judges, as well as state amendments and propositions.
Once the ballots were submitted, it was up to the individual county clerks to tally the results. The county clerks were well aware of the legal requirements to tally the ballots as accurately as possible. Any fraud intentionally perpetrated by a county clerk was a criminal act, subject to serious state and federal penalties. Possibly jail time?
One particular race, however, appeared on every ballot in the nation: a contest between Republican President Donald Trump — hoping to win a second term in office — and the leading contender to replace him, Democrat Joseph Biden. Every Constitutionally-mandated presidential election in the nation’s 230-year history ultimately resulted in someone losing the presidential race, so President Trump was facing the possibility of losing.
President Trump was well-prepared to lose the election, however, because he had long ago developed his excuse. If Joe Biden won the election, then obviously the election was fraudulent.
Donald Trump had been practicing this favorite excuse — “election fraud” — for many years. Back in November 2012, he had warned Republicans about “voting machines switching Romney votes to Obama”, after previously warning voters to “be careful of voter fraud!”
In February 2016, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that his narrow loss to Senator Ted Cruz in the Iowa caucus had been the result of voter fraud, putting forward unsubstantiated claims Cruz “cheated” and “stole” the election and demanding, “either a new election should take place, or Cruz results nullified.” That claim should sound very familiar to all of us.
Donald Trump won the subsequent 2016 presidential election — as we all know — but the final count may have been too close for comfort. The new President clung to his claim of voter fraud, and shortly after his inauguration in 2017, he assembled a special presidential commission to unearth and document the fraudulent results. The commission was unable to find any evidence of widespread fraud, however, and President Trump disbanded the commission in early 2018.
But the theatrical stage was set for the President to continue spreading his well-rehearsed claim throughout the 2020 election campaign — that he could fail to be re-elected only if the “Democrats” stole the election. Those claims took on a much greater urgency following the November 3 election, when it appeared that Joseph Biden had won the national electoral college vote by a significant margin.
From a FOX News article by reporter Jamie Dupree, published on November 21, 2020:
Each step along the way – 2016, 2018, 2020 – President Trump has made claims about election fraud. But neither the President – nor his lawyers – have come close to convincing any judges that something nefarious went on.
But things got a little more interesting this time around, after a prominent Republican, investment mogul Fredrick Eshelman, donated $2.5 million to “True the Vote’, a Texas organization run by Catherine E. Engelbrecht of Houston, Texas. Ms. Engelbracht reportedly told Eshelman that her organization had a sure-fire plan to expose the fraud behind Trump’s losses in seven swing states. He quickly wired money to help fund her group’s plan to expose the election fraud.
By the end of the month, the media was reporting that donor Eshelman had filed a lawsuit against ‘True the Vote’ — for apparent fraud.
From that lawsuit filing (which you can download here):
Immediately after the November 3rd general election, Plaintiff decided to support efforts to investigate allegations of illegal and fraudulent conduct in connection with the 2020 general election.
Defendant holds itself out on its website as “the country’s largest voters’ rights organization” and notes that it is “well known for [its] ability to lead national unified plans to protect election integrity.” In describing its mission, Defendant describes its operations as “a network hub, working together with other organizations to implement targeted election integrity initiatives to expose and deter election fraud.”
On or around November 4th and November 5th, Plaintiff spoke with Defendant’s President, Ms. Engelbrecht, about Defendant’s Validate the Vote 2020 project.
During those conversations, Ms. Engelbrecht represented to Plaintiff that Defendant had organized its Validate the Vote 2020 effort to ensure the 2020 election returns reflect one vote cast by one eligible voter and thereby protect the right to vote and the integrity of the election. Ms. Engelbrecht further represented to Plaintiff during those conversations that Defendant believed those efforts were necessary in light of significant evidence that there were numerous instances of illegal ballots being cast and counted in the 2020 general election.
Ms. Engelbrecht explained to Plaintiff that Defendant had developed a multi-pronged plan (referred to as its ‘Validate the Vote 2020’ initiative) to investigate, litigate, and expose suspected illegal balloting and fraud in the 2020 general election. As part of its Validate the Vote 2020 plan, Defendant intended to: (1) solicit whistleblower testimonies from those impacted or involved in election fraud; (2) build public momentum through broad publicity; (3) galvanize Republican legislative support in key states; (4) aggregate and analyze data to identify patterns of election subversion; and (5) file lawsuits in federal court with capacity to be heard by the Supreme Court of the United States.
The rest of the lawsuit covers the failure of the ‘True the Vote’ to perform the actions promised to Mr. Eshelman, and the group’s subsequent failure to return his donation, which was conditional upon those actions being performed. It would appear that, at one point, an attorney representing ‘True the Vote’ offered to return $1 million of Mr. Eshelman’s $2.5 million if he promised not to take them to court.
Fraud?
I have been unable to find any information about how this lawsuit turned out. I do hope, however, that Mr. Eshelman will manage to get his $2.5 million returned, now that both parties in the US Congress have confirmed Joseph Biden’s election.