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After two days of discussion of electoral fraud at the biggest Tory conference of the year, a woman asked two Republican election lawyers speaking on a panel: what do we do with the voting machines that have changed thousands and thousands of votes?
The crowd cheered, but Republican lawyer Charlie Spies shook his head.
“I can get booed from the stage for this, but I have to say it’s just not true,” he said, eliciting screams from the crowd. “There is no proof that this is true.”
It was a rare reality for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a weekend summit dominated by false and baseless statements about voter fraud and capped off by a 90-minute speech filled with lies from the former President Donald Trump who declared the 2020 presidential election. race rigged.
Spies, who worked for Republican Senate candidate John James in Michigan last year, has repeatedly rebuffed the wildest claims. His comments earned him heckling and nerves from another panelist, but they underscored the fault line the GOP faces as it moves forward as a party while entertaining – even celebrating – the lies of Trump that the election was stolen.
False election declarations were at the heart of the Orlando conference, where panelists and speakers repeatedly claimed that the dead voted, that fraud changed the election outcome, and that the American people were sold by everything the world, from Democrats to judges to lesser Republicans.
Speakers rallied to support restrictive voting laws – which Republican lawmakers have advanced in dozens of states – and urged attendees to work to defeat HR 1, a franchise bill that Democrats presented to the House.
During a panel Friday, Jesse Binnall, a campaign lawyer who sued in Nevada over Biden’s victory, alleged 42,000 double or multiple votes in that state.
“Postal voting is ripe for fraud,” he said.
The challenge to the 2020 election result was also a major line of applause throughout the four-day event.
Even Sen. John Hawley, R-Mo., Was greeted by a crowd on Friday after referring to his role in challenging Congress’ Jan 6 tally of Electoral College results. Five people have died and hundreds have been arrested after a pro-Trump riot stormed the Capitol to disrupt the count.
Trump finally appeared on Sunday night to deliver his first speech since leaving last month, a clear crescendo of the long weekend.
During a 90-minute speech that frequently revisits his most worn-out conspiracy theories on voting, he declared the election unconstitutional, illegal, and a “crook,” teasing that he could return for a 2024 offer.
“This election was rigged and the Supreme Court and other courts wouldn’t do anything about it,” Trump said.
He falsely claimed there were more votes than people in Detroit and Pennsylvania (patently bogus claims) and called for a flash of electoral reforms he said he would have won.
“We need to eliminate the madness of mass and highly corrupt postal voting,” he said. “We need to have voter ID.”
Trump’s election fraud allegations became all the more puzzling as he began to brag about the successes of low-voting Republicans, who he said had won on his “ponytails,” as if the fraud didn’t ‘had somehow affected that top of the ticket.
This tension has touched on a key question that Republican leaders will need to address in the run-up to future elections: How do we mobilize voters to go to the polls they believe will not count their votes correctly?
Georgia Republicans had to heed this issue earlier this year after the GOP’s turnout in the Jan.5 Senate second round was lower than the November contest, according to TargetSmart. Both seats turned blue.
Election plots are also becoming a financial liability: Polling companies have launched a series of billion-dollar lawsuits in recent weeks against conservative figures and media.
The dilemma also appeared to hang over heckled Republican lawyer Spiers on Saturday. He reminded CPAC attendees that postal voting hadn’t been a problem for Republicans for years leading up to the 2020 race. In fact, he said, Republicans used to win more. of postal votes than Democrats.
“The agreement is that early voting is not going to go away,” he said. “We have to take this and tell people not to vote early, it’s cutting your nose despite your face, it doesn’t work.”
He offered a solution, a solution that united him with other panelists – and much of his party.
“We are changing the system, we are making super confident,” he said. “Then encourage people to vote using the laws we have.”
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