Trump campaign, pressed for evidence, offers court zero instances of mail-in vote fraud
President Donald Trump’s campaign, ordered by a federal court judge in Pennsylvania to back up its claims of fraud in the state’s vote-by-mail system, has documented only a handful of cases of election fraud in recent years — none of which involved mail-in ballots. The revelation, which came in the form of a partially redacted 524-page document produced by the Trump campaign last week, undermines the claim by Trump team operatives that mail-in ballot fraud is a grave risk to Pennsylvania voters.
The campaign is suing Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar and each of the state’s county election boards to prevent election administrators from providing secure drop boxes for mail-in ballot returns. These drop boxes allow voters to return their mail-in ballots by hand, without sending them through the postal system and risking delays. The Trump campaign alleges that the practice “provides fraudsters an easy opportunity to engage in ballot harvesting, manipulate or destroy ballots, manufacture duplicitous votes, and sow chaos.”
In a motion last week, Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future and the Sierra Club called on the Trump campaign to provide evidence of the existence of voter fraud, arguing that the campaign’s lawsuit was “replete with salacious allegations and dire warnings” about Pennsylvania’s elections and that they “must either be compelled to provide discovery concerning their fraud-based allegations or be precluded from pursuing these claims going forward.” Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan granted the motion, ordering the campaign to “produce such evidence in their possession, and if they have none, state as much.”
The response provided by the Trump campaign to the opposing counsel, which was shared with The Intercept and Type Investigations, contains a few scant examples of election fraud — but none of the instances in the 524-page discovery document involved mail-in ballots. [Continue reading…]