WaPo:
More than a year after Donald Trump lost the presidency, election officials across the country are facing a growing barrage of claims that the vote was not secure and demands to investigate or decertify the outcome, efforts that are eating up hundreds of hours of government time and spreading distrust in elections.
The ongoing attack on the vote is being driven in part by well-funded Trump associates, who have gained audiences with top state officials and are pushing to inspect protected machines and urging them to conduct audits or sign on to a lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 results. And the campaign is being bolstered by grass-roots energy, as local residents who have absorbed baseless allegations of ballot fraud are now forcing election administrators to address the false claims.
The fallout has spread from the six states where Trump sought to overturn the outcome in 2020 to deep-red places such as Idaho, where officials recently hand-recounted ballots in three counties to refute claims of vote-flipping, and Oklahoma, where state officials commissioned an investigation to counter allegations that voting machines were hacked.
State and local officials said no one has presented actual evidence that rampant fraud tainted the 2020 election, and numerous ballot reviews and legal proceedings have affirmed that the vote was secure. Yet they and their staffs have been forced into a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole, debunking a steady stream of false allegations only to see similar claims emerge again from other groups or in other states.
Among those leading the efforts against the 2020 presidential election are MyPillow founder Mike Lindell — who said in an interview this week that he has spent $25 million promoting claims of election fraud — and one of his associates, Douglas Frank, a longtime math and science teacher in Ohio who claims to have discovered secret algorithms used to rig the 2020 election.
Throughout the year, the two men have been pressing their case with state and local election officials around the country and gaining meetings with many of them, according to people familiar with their activities.
In Ohio, Frank met for more than two hours in May with the senior staff of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R), presenting unsubstantiated claims that voting machines are connected to the Internet and have been hacked, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Washington Post. Frank warned that he planned to pursue multiple legal actions around the country and said there could be consequences if LaRose’s office did not cooperate
“I’m warning you that I’ve been going around the country. We’re starting lawsuits everywhere,” Frank said, according to the recording. “And I want you guys to be allies, not opponents. I want to be on your team, and I’m warning you.”
After the meeting, LaRose posted a video on Facebook reiterating that under state law, no voting machines are connected to any network.
The doubts that Lindell, Frank and other Trump allies have whipped up about the vote have taken root across the country….
On social media, Frank recently began calling for prison or “firing squads” for those found guilty of “treason,” stating in one post that “history will not look kindly on state officials who turned a blind eye to the massive election fraud that took place in 2020.” On Saturday, he wrote that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who has refused to entertain his claims, should face a jury “capable of dispensing capital punishment.”
In an interview this week, Benson said she views the latest escalation as an assault on democracy. She said she intends to spend next year fighting back, and urging Americans to do the same.
Benson called the pressure on election officials “a political strategy to break down our democracy and put people in charge of our states who are unaccountable and will act in a way that doesn’t reflect the will of the people.”
Asked Tuesday about his comments, Frank said that after he and others who share his view about 2020 “win the war,” election officials such as Benson should face trial — adding that federal law calls for traitors to be subject to capital punishment.
“After the Nuremberg trials, there were hangings and firing squads,” Frank wrote in an email, referring to the military tribunals that tried Nazi leaders after World War II. In an interview, he added that he believes it is critical for officials to investigate elections to restore faith in their outcome: “I firmly believe they are not fair and free. I believe they are being manipulated.”