The Washington Post was caught red-handed for reporting false quotes from an unnamed source, attributing them to a sitting president, and then using those quotes to speculate about whether or not the president had committed a crime. The made-up Donald Trump quotes, which were included in Democrats’ impeachment brief and during the Senate impeachment trial, were linked to a dispute over election integrity in Georgia.
However, as bad as the false quotes were, they are only one of several examples of how the media has failed to cover the state’s election disputes.
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The Georgia presidential election, according to the media narrative, was run as flawlessly as any election in history, and anyone who claims otherwise is a liar. To advance the narrative, the media routinely downplayed, ignored, or prejudiciously dismissed valid concerns and grievances regarding Georgia’s November 2020 election.
That was the polar opposite to how they were reporting on Georgia elections prior to the Democrats’ strong showing. When writing about Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Dominion Voting Systems, legal problems in the state, and Georgia election integrity in the months leading up to November, some media sounded a little like Lin Wood.
How the Media Treated Georgia Before Biden Won
The headline of a report by Richard Fausset and Reid Epstein in the June 10, 2020, New York Times about the “disastrous primary election” in June that was “plagued by glitches, but Democrats also saw a systemic attempt to disenfranchise voters” read, “Georgia’s Election Mess: Many Problems, Plenty of Blame, Few Solutions for November.”
The authors said Georgia’s “embattled election officials” were grappling with a voting system that had “spectacularly collapsed,” citing irregularities with absentee ballots and peculiarities at polling sites.
They said it was uncertain if the issues were the result of “mere bungling” or a concerted attempt by Raffensperger and his Republican colleagues in the secretary of state’s office to cause them.
The article stated that voting by mail and the increased strain of handling absentee ballots would worsen “Georgia’s troubled system.” The “problem that threw Georgia’s voting system into disarray” was triggered by the Dominion Voting Systems, “for which some elections experts had been raising red flags for months.” They had, indeed!
In March 2019, Politico’s Eric Geller wrote about Georgia’s decision to replace voting machines, writing, “Georgia likely to plow ahead with purchasing insecure voting machines.” He said that cybersecurity experts, election integrity supporters, and Georgia Democrats had all shared concerns about the new machines’ security issues, which would be electronic but still spit out a marked paper ballot.
He wrote, “Security experts warn that an attacker can corrupt the machines and change barcode-based ballots without voters or election officials realizing it.” A “meaningful audit” was said to be “impossible.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution cautioned that “critics believe the system would still be open to hacking” when Georgia chose Dominion Voting Systems in August 2019, citing high-profile hacks of Capital One and Equifax, as well as online attacks on Atlanta and Georgia courts. The article continued, “Election officials would have to be on the lookout for malware, viruses, stolen passwords, and Russian interference.” Russians, indeed.
In a June 9, 2020, report, The New York Times declared, “Georgia in Uproar Over Voting Meltdown,” citing issues with Dominion Voting Systems and Raffensperger’s election management.
“The computers purchased by the state last year sparked immediate controversy. They were deemed vulnerable by security experts. The screens could be seen from about 30 feet away, according to privacy experts. Budget skeptics scowled at the price. And Jared Samuel Thomas, a lobbyist for Dominion Voting Systems, has deep ties to Gov. Brian Kemp, the Republican who defeated Ms. Abrams in 2018,” according to the report.
“As Georgia rolls out new voting machines for 2020, concerns about election security persist,” according to the Washington Post, which also stated that “election security experts said the state’s newest voting machines remain vulnerable to possible intrusions or malfunctions.”
If right-wing critics re-stated their concerns now, it’s possible that tech platforms will ban them or restrict their freedom of speech. These statements and concerns will almost certainly be dismissed by the same media outlets.
‘Sue and Settle’ Brings a Big Change to Mail-In
To limit voter transparency or make it more difficult for election overseers and observers to detect election fraud, Democrats use a variety of tactics to introduce reforms to voting laws. One tactic is known as “sue and settle.”
Perkins Coie, the law firm that also ordered the Russia collusion hoax against Trump in 2016, is conducting a well-funded and well-coordinated campaign to reform the way elections are conducted in the United States. The firm plans to sue states in order to force them to agree to change their voting practices.
Marc Elias, who is best known for his involvement in the Russia collusion hoax and other Democrat operations, is in charge of a movement to reform voting laws and procedures to help Democrats. Perkins Coie paid the Democratic Party at least $27 million for its plans to dramatically reform voting laws ahead of the 2020 election, more than twice what they charged Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee for simulating the 2020 election.
Elias was recently sanctioned in federal court for his role in a Texas election integrity lawsuit.
Raffensperger voluntarily agreed to a settlement with multiple Democrat groups in federal court in March, after they sued the state over its absentee voting laws. The end result was a significant shift in Georgia’s 2020 election process.
Despite their keen interest in the event, Republicans were not part of the deal. The agreement specifically notes that neither Raffensperger nor the Democratic organizations who sued him can take a stance on whether the laws and procedures being changed are lawful.
Several major reforms were initiated by Democrats’ high-powered lawyers, including the right to “cure” ballots. That ensures that if an absentee ballot is returned with issues that would normally cause it to be discarded, the voter is given the opportunity to “cure” or correct the ballot. Democrats will also provide training and advice on signature verification to county registrars and absentee ballot clerks, according to the release.
The settlement, most significantly, eliminated any real signature match. Previously, the legislation allowed signatures to match those on file in Georgia’s voter registration database.
The settlement, however, required any signature on file to match the signature on the absentee ballot application. This suggested that a fraudulently obtained ballot would easily fit a signature and there would be no way to detect fraud.
Another burden that made it easier to just let all ballots pass without review was that the ballot could only be refused if a majority of registrars, deputy registrars, and ballot clerks agreed to it. It made a significant difference in the number of ballots that were rejected.
Many Republicans, including Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, were outraged when they heard of Raffensperger’s decision to voluntarily agree to such a drastic change in the rules of the game without input from the Republican Party of Georgia, much less the Republican National Committee, after the November 2020 election. Some Republicans believed he jeopardized voter legitimacy by sending out millions of absentee ballot applications, presumably due to COVID-19-related health issues.
