Biden's Pennsylvania lead is now big enough to avoid an automatic recount

[Shabibilicious]

Politics

Biden's Pennsylvania lead is now big enough to avoid an automatic recount

 

Tim O'Donnell

,

The Week•November 11, 2020

 

 

President-elect Joe Biden's lead in Pennsylvania has, for now at least, cleared the state's automatic recount threshold.

If one candidate wins an election in Pennsylvania by a 0.5 percent margin or lower, the state will recount the ballots, regardless of whether a request is made. But with new ballots in from Allegheny County, which is home to Pittsburgh, Biden is now up by 0.74 percent. Theoretically, the number could shrink with more tallying underway, but Biden's lead is expected to continue going up, so President Trump or Pennsylvania voters will have to seek out a recount should he desire one.

 

In terms of raw totals, Biden is now up by 50,000 votes, which means that even if Trump's legal team is successful in getting courts to toss out 10,000 votes received between Election Day and Nov. 6, there's little chance they could actually alter the results unless they find evidence of large-scale voter fraud, which The New York Times reports is nonexistent.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/bidens-pennsylvania-lead-now-big-214500917.html

 

GO RV, then BV

[yota691]

Split to new thread...Please stay on Topic with Post!!! First and only warning...

[Shabibilicious]

1 minute ago, yota691 said:

Split to new thread...Please stay on Topic with Post!!! First and only warning...

 

Sorry, thought the topic I posted the story in was about the election.  

 

GO RV, then BV

[Shabibilicious]

 

‘Math doesn’t care about your baseless allegations,’ Pennsylvania Lt. Gov Fetterman says about Trump lawsuits

Kristin Myers

Thu, November 12, 2020, 6:37 AM EST

 

 

The Trump campaign has continued to file lawsuits, trying to prevent the states of Pennsylvania and Michigan from certifying their election results. The critical swing states went to President-elect Joe Biden, providing him the necessary electoral college votes to win the election.

Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman said he anticipates Trump’s lawsuits to be tossed out of court.

“The bottom line is math doesn't care about your feelings, math doesn't care about your baseless lies and allegations, and math has made Joe Biden President-elect and you are standing in the way of an orderly transition,” Fetterman told Yahoo Finance Live. “And it's just time we get on with it. So this idea that you somehow can alter the outcome through a lawsuit without any evidence, without any facts, when the math is overwhelmingly against you, I don't understand, you know, why they want to continue this on.”

The Trump campaign had cited allegations made by U.S. Postal Worker Richard Hopkins from Erie, Pa. that his supervisor had tampered with ballots mailed after the election, backdating them so they could be counted.

According to a tweet by the House Oversight Committee, the allegations made by Hopkins were later recanted.

The only evidence of fraud in the state, the Lt. Governor shared, was that of a man who tried to have his dead mother vote for Trump.

“The margin continues to grow. And these lawsuits are nothing but lies attached to an agenda of continual chaos, when there isn't one person from the president on down that actually believes any of this,” Fetterman said “We all have to collectively turn our backs on all of this nonsense and say and affirm that yelling voter fraud in the absence of one scintilla of evidence is the metaphorical yelling fire in a crowded theater.”

“That is dangerous and that is and cannot be acceptable,” he added.

In court on Wednesday, Trump lawyers told a court in Pennsylvania that they were not claiming fraud.

Fetterman told Yahoo Finance he didn’t know what the “upside” to Trump’s lawsuits were, adding that “it must be pretty nice to be filing baseless lawsuits and getting paid for it.”

Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman (D-PA) said voters made Joe Biden President-elect and President Trump should step aside. (Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images)

“They keep threatening to go to the Supreme Court over these so-called late arriving ballots in Pennsylvania that arrived from 8:00 p.m. Election Day until Friday,” he said. “Give them all to the president as far as I'm concerned. Because we're talking maybe 10,000 ballots and the president-elect's lead is on the order of 50,000 votes and growing. It's not going to have any impact.”

According to the Associated Press, Biden leads in Pennsylvania by nearly 50,500 votes.

“There is no card to play left, none. And it's not dignified. It's long stopped being dignified. And at the end of the day, we just have to get down to one fact and that's math. And math has said the President-elect is Joe Biden.”

Though protestors in Pennsylvania have demanded election officials in the state “stop the steal,” Fetterman said people have “already accepted this on the ground. It's all over but the crying. I would just hope that the president just acknowledges math.”

“And when he does, he will step up and step down and allow for a Biden presidency to begin to assume and help unite this country,” he said.

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/math-doesnt-care-about-your-baseless-allegations-pa-lt-gov-fetterman-says-about-trump-lawsuits-113729644.html

 

GO RV, then BV

[Johnny Dinar]

5 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

Sorry, thought the topic I posted the story in was about the election.  

 

GO RV, then BV

 

They can't help it.. The meltdown is in full swing.

[coorslite21]

The dead people voting, and all the rest needs to be cleaned up.....election reform.....has been needed for a long time...really no reason for the US to look like a banana Republic in this process...

 

The voting fraud by Dominion Voting Systems will be the game changer on this one....hundreds of thousands of votes affected in these swing states in question....you'll see....board up the businesses......😮CL

[Shabibilicious]

10 minutes ago, coorslite21 said:

The dead people voting, and all the rest needs to be cleaned up.....election reform.....has been needed for a long time...really no reason for the US to look like a banana Republic in this process...

 

The voting fraud by Dominion Voting Systems will be the game changer on this one....hundreds of thousands of votes affected in these swing states in question....you'll see....board up the businesses......😮CL

 

What's next......evil George Soros is somehow connected to Dominion?

 

GO RV, then BV

[nstoolman1]

5 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

What's next......evil George Soros is somehow connected to Dominion?

 

GO RV, then BV

No, but evil Nancy is.

How in the Good Lords name did anybody think using a voting system

that connects to the internet was a good thing?     

No possible way for potential hacking or nefarious activities. 

[Shabibilicious]

2 minutes ago, nstoolman1 said:

No, but evil Nancy is.

How in the Good Lords name did anybody think using a voting system

that connects to the internet was a good thing?     

No possible way for potential hacking or nefarious activities. 

 

Right?!....just think how many thousands of votes were surely changed from Biden to Trump by nefarious hacker types. 

 

GO RV, then BV 

[nstoolman1]

3 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

Right?!....just think how many thousands of votes were surely changed from Biden to Trump by nefarious hacker types. 

 

GO RV, then BV 

No proof of that supposition. 

[Shabibilicious]

6 minutes ago, nstoolman1 said:

No proof of that supposition. 

 

No concrete proof of any rampant game changing election fraud....only internet fodder.   We're 9 days past the election and nothing....other than military votes coming in, which is widening Biden's lead. 

 

GO RV, then BV

[coorslite21]

17 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

Right?!....just think how many thousands of votes were surely changed from Biden to Trump by nefarious hacker types. 

 

GO RV, then BV 

 

This has been posted already...you may have missed it......

 

Just watch the first 3 minutes...and then a little more.......it's not a right or left issue.....every US citizen needs to see this....analysis by a pretty bright guy.....  CL

 

 

 

[coorslite21]

44 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

What's next......evil George Soros is somehow connected to Dominion?

 

GO RV, then BV

 

You asked.......?      CL

 

Ties to Clintons, Pelosi, and McConnell

It’s not entirely unusual for a major company to have ties to political leaders—often on both sides. Dominion apparently is no exception here. 

 

The company donated between $25,000 and $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation in 2014, according to a Washington Post donor database. 

 

The Clinton Foundation, run by former President Bill Clinton; his wife, former Secretary of State Hillarious Clinton; and his daughter, Chelsea Clinton, includes a laudatory post about Dominion on its website. 

 

“In 2014, Dominion Voting [Systems] committed to providing emerging and post-conflict democracies with access to voting technology through its philanthropic support to the DELIAN Project, as many emerging democracies suffer from post-electoral violence due to the delay in the publishing of election results,” the Clinton Foundation post says, adding:  

Over the next three years, Dominion Voting will support election technology pilots with donated Automated Voting Machines (AVM), providing an improved electoral process, and therefore safer elections. As a large number of election staff are women, there will be an emphasis on training women, who will be the first to benefit from the skills transfer training and use of AVMs. It is estimated that 100 women will directly benefit from election technology skills training per pilot election.

The company hired the lobbying and law firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP, which employs House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s former chief of staff, Nadeam Elshami, according to Bloomberg News.

 

The firm includes lobbyists David Cohen and Brian Wild, who also lobby for Dominion and contributed $2,000 and $1,000, respectively, to the 2020 campaign of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., according to the left-leaning site Truth Out. 

 

Close political ties pose a danger of a conflict of interest for a company in charge of getting the votes right, said Ty McCoy, a former assistant secretary of the Air Force who is vice chairman of the Cyber, Space, and Intelligence Association. 

 

“Allowing people with strong political views to essentially count the votes when they are politically connected is almost like allowing a defense contractor to sit in on meetings where the Pentagon decides what weapons systems to use. It’s highly improper,” McCoy told The Daily Signal. 

3. George Soros and Philippines Election

One of the rumors traveling on the internet before Election Day was that liberal financier and philanthropist George Soros owned Dominion. He doesn’t. There is a link between the two, though. 

 

Two partners, John Poulos and James Hoover, founded Dominion Voting Systems in 2000 in Toronto. The company is headquartered in Denver. 

 

A Penn Wharton study titled “The Business of Voting” says Dominion Voting Systems reached about 71 million American voters in 1,635 jurisdictions in 2016. 

Dominion entered a 2009 contract with Smartmatic, which builds and implements electronic voting systems, and provided it with optical scanners used in the 2010 election in the Philippines, Accesswire reported. 

 

Lawsuits in the Philippines ensued over glitches and allegations of fraud. An independent review of the source codes used in the machines found numerous problems. The review said, “The software inventory provided by Smartmatic is inadequate, … which brings into question the software credibility.”

 

The chairman of Smartmatic is Mark Malloch-Brown, a member of the British House of Lords, who also is a member of the Global Board of the Soros-founded Open Society Foundations, The Associated Press reported.

[coorslite21]

19 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

No concrete proof of any rampant game changing election fraud....only internet fodder.   We're 9 days past the election and nothing....other than military votes coming in, which is widening Biden's lead. 

 

GO RV, then BV

Clock is ticking....Gore got 36 days.....what's your rush?    CL

[Shabibilicious]

2 minutes ago, coorslite21 said:

 

You asked.......?      CL

 

Ties to Clintons, Pelosi, and McConnell

It’s not entirely unusual for a major company to have ties to political leaders—often on both sides. Dominion apparently is no exception here. 

 

The company donated between $25,000 and $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation in 2014, according to a Washington Post donor database. 

 

The Clinton Foundation, run by former President Bill Clinton; his wife, former Secretary of State Hillarious Clinton; and his daughter, Chelsea Clinton, includes a laudatory post about Dominion on its website. 

 

“In 2014, Dominion Voting [Systems] committed to providing emerging and post-conflict democracies with access to voting technology through its philanthropic support to the DELIAN Project, as many emerging democracies suffer from post-electoral violence due to the delay in the publishing of election results,” the Clinton Foundation post says, adding:  

Over the next three years, Dominion Voting will support election technology pilots with donated Automated Voting Machines (AVM), providing an improved electoral process, and therefore safer elections. As a large number of election staff are women, there will be an emphasis on training women, who will be the first to benefit from the skills transfer training and use of AVMs. It is estimated that 100 women will directly benefit from election technology skills training per pilot election.

The company hired the lobbying and law firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP, which employs House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s former chief of staff, Nadeam Elshami, according to Bloomberg News.

 

The firm includes lobbyists David Cohen and Brian Wild, who also lobby for Dominion and contributed $2,000 and $1,000, respectively, to the 2020 campaign of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., according to the left-leaning site Truth Out. 

 

Close political ties pose a danger of a conflict of interest for a company in charge of getting the votes right, said Ty McCoy, a former assistant secretary of the Air Force who is vice chairman of the Cyber, Space, and Intelligence Association. 

 

“Allowing people with strong political views to essentially count the votes when they are politically connected is almost like allowing a defense contractor to sit in on meetings where the Pentagon decides what weapons systems to use. It’s highly improper,” McCoy told The Daily Signal. 

3. George Soros and Philippines Election

One of the rumors traveling on the internet before Election Day was that liberal financier and philanthropist George Soros owned Dominion. He doesn’t. There is a link between the two, though. 

 

Two partners, John Poulos and James Hoover, founded Dominion Voting Systems in 2000 in Toronto. The company is headquartered in Denver. 

 

A Penn Wharton study titled “The Business of Voting” says Dominion Voting Systems reached about 71 million American voters in 1,635 jurisdictions in 2016. 

Dominion entered a 2009 contract with Smartmatic, which builds and implements electronic voting systems, and provided it with optical scanners used in the 2010 election in the Philippines, Accesswire reported. 

 

Lawsuits in the Philippines ensued over glitches and allegations of fraud. An independent review of the source codes used in the machines found numerous problems. The review said, “The software inventory provided by Smartmatic is inadequate, … which brings into question the software credibility.”

 

The chairman of Smartmatic is Mark Malloch-Brown, a member of the British House of Lords, who also is a member of the Global Board of the Soros-founded Open Society Foundations, The Associated Press reported.

 

Yikes....I hope they're not tied to the Ford Motor Company, Buffalo Wild Wings or Rural King....or my whole existence will thrown into disarray. 

 

GO RV, then BV 

[Shabibilicious]

2 minutes ago, coorslite21 said:

Clock is ticking....Gore got 36 days.....what's your rush?    CL

 

No rush....Biden's inauguration isn't until January 20th.  

 

GO RV, then BV

[yota691]

TRUMP TEAM WIN: MAJOR Legal Win For President Trump IN PENNSYLVANIA
300,330 views•Nov 12, 2020

 

[Shabibilicious]

Law firm drops Trump’s Pennsylvania lawsuit days after legal team in Arizona did the same

 

James Crump

,

The Independent•November 13, 2020

 

 

Trump supporters react as people celebrate after major news organizations called the US 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden, defeating incumbent US President Donald Trump outside the Pennsylvania Convention Centre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 7 November 2020 ((EPA))

The law firm leading the Trump campaign’s post-election litigation in Pennsylvania has withdrawn from the federal lawsuit it filed earlier this week.

On Monday, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, in which it argued that there had been “irregularities” in ballots submitted in the state that President-elect Joe Biden won.

In reaction, the Democratic National Committee filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, according to The New York Times.

Although Mr Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election on Saturday, Mr Trump has still not conceded, and has repeatedly falsely claimed that there was widespread voter fraud in multiple swing states.

 

The Trump campaign issued lawsuits in several states, including Pennsylvania, but there is no evidence to back up the claims of voter fraud.

In a court filing on Friday, Porter Wright announced that the “plaintiffs and Porter Wright have reached a mutual agreement that plaintiffs will be best served if Porter Wright withdraws.”

The filing came a few days after the Times reported that internal tensions had arisen at the law firm this year, due to its representation of Mr Trump.

One Porter Wright employee resigned in protest over the firm’s affiliation with President Trump, as it has received at least $727,000 (£552,051) from the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) this year.

Other employees were reportedly concerned that the firm was helping the Trump campaign undermine the integrity of the country’s electoral process.

The firm released a statement on Wednesday, prior to withdrawing from that lawsuit in Pennsylvania, addressing the criticisms it has faced for representing the Trump campaign.

It said that the firm has a “long history of election law work during which we have represented Democratic, Republican and independent campaigns and issues,” and continued: “At times, this calls for us to take on controversial cases.”

Porter Wright added: “We expect criticism in such instances, and we affirm the right of all individuals to express concern and disagreement.”

The law firm previously filed several other lawsuits challenging aspects of Pennsylvania’s voting process, and it is currently unclear whether it is still representing the Trump campaign on those cases.

On Tuesday, law firm Snell & Wilmer withdrew from a similar post-election lawsuit in Maricopa County, Arizona.

The lawsuit, which was filed by the RNC, the Trump campaign and the Arizona Republican Party, alleged that the vote-counting centre in Maricopa County incorrectly counted ballots cast in the presidential election.

There is no evidence that votes in Arizona, which Mr Biden was declared the winner of last week, were counted incorrectly.

The Independent has contacted the Trump campaign, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur and Snell & Wilmer for comment.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/law-firm-drops-trump-pennsylvania-152843485.html

 

GO RV, then BV

[boosterbglee]

You will not receive a Christmas card from me!🙀

[Shabibilicious]

1 minute ago, boosterbglee said:

You will not receive a Christmas card from me!🙀

 

How about a Happy Holidays card?  

 

GO RV, then BV

[coorslite21]

7 hours ago, Shabibilicious said:

Law firm drops Trump’s Pennsylvania lawsuit days after legal team in Arizona did the same

 

James Crump

,

The Independent•November 13, 2020

 

 

Trump supporters react as people celebrate after major news organizations called the US 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden, defeating incumbent US President Donald Trump outside the Pennsylvania Convention Centre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 7 November 2020 ((EPA))

The law firm leading the Trump campaign’s post-election litigation in Pennsylvania has withdrawn from the federal lawsuit it filed earlier this week.

On Monday, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, in which it argued that there had been “irregularities” in ballots submitted in the state that President-elect Joe Biden won.

In reaction, the Democratic National Committee filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, according to The New York Times.

Although Mr Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election on Saturday, Mr Trump has still not conceded, and has repeatedly falsely claimed that there was widespread voter fraud in multiple swing states.

 

The Trump campaign issued lawsuits in several states, including Pennsylvania, but there is no evidence to back up the claims of voter fraud.

In a court filing on Friday, Porter Wright announced that the “plaintiffs and Porter Wright have reached a mutual agreement that plaintiffs will be best served if Porter Wright withdraws.”

The filing came a few days after the Times reported that internal tensions had arisen at the law firm this year, due to its representation of Mr Trump.

One Porter Wright employee resigned in protest over the firm’s affiliation with President Trump, as it has received at least $727,000 (£552,051) from the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) this year.

Other employees were reportedly concerned that the firm was helping the Trump campaign undermine the integrity of the country’s electoral process.

The firm released a statement on Wednesday, prior to withdrawing from that lawsuit in Pennsylvania, addressing the criticisms it has faced for representing the Trump campaign.

It said that the firm has a “long history of election law work during which we have represented Democratic, Republican and independent campaigns and issues,” and continued: “At times, this calls for us to take on controversial cases.”

Porter Wright added: “We expect criticism in such instances, and we affirm the right of all individuals to express concern and disagreement.”

The law firm previously filed several other lawsuits challenging aspects of Pennsylvania’s voting process, and it is currently unclear whether it is still representing the Trump campaign on those cases.

On Tuesday, law firm Snell & Wilmer withdrew from a similar post-election lawsuit in Maricopa County, Arizona.

The lawsuit, which was filed by the RNC, the Trump campaign and the Arizona Republican Party, alleged that the vote-counting centre in Maricopa County incorrectly counted ballots cast in the presidential election.

There is no evidence that votes in Arizona, which Mr Biden was declared the winner of last week, were counted incorrectly.

The Independent has contacted the Trump campaign, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur and Snell & Wilmer for comment.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/law-firm-drops-trump-pennsylvania-152843485.html

 

GO RV, then BV

You seem to be forgetting the Dominion Voting Systems issue.....    CL 

[nstoolman1]

7 hours ago, Shabibilicious said:

Law firm drops Trump’s Pennsylvania lawsuit days after legal team in Arizona did the same

 

James Crump

,

The Independent•November 13, 2020

 

 

Trump supporters react as people celebrate after major news organizations called the US 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden, defeating incumbent US President Donald Trump outside the Pennsylvania Convention Centre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 7 November 2020 ((EPA))

The law firm leading the Trump campaign’s post-election litigation in Pennsylvania has withdrawn from the federal lawsuit it filed earlier this week.

On Monday, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, in which it argued that there had been “irregularities” in ballots submitted in the state that President-elect Joe Biden won.

In reaction, the Democratic National Committee filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, according to The New York Times.

Although Mr Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election on Saturday, Mr Trump has still not conceded, and has repeatedly falsely claimed that there was widespread voter fraud in multiple swing states.

 

The Trump campaign issued lawsuits in several states, including Pennsylvania, but there is no evidence to back up the claims of voter fraud.

In a court filing on Friday, Porter Wright announced that the “plaintiffs and Porter Wright have reached a mutual agreement that plaintiffs will be best served if Porter Wright withdraws.”

The filing came a few days after the Times reported that internal tensions had arisen at the law firm this year, due to its representation of Mr Trump.

One Porter Wright employee resigned in protest over the firm’s affiliation with President Trump, as it has received at least $727,000 (£552,051) from the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) this year.

Other employees were reportedly concerned that the firm was helping the Trump campaign undermine the integrity of the country’s electoral process.

The firm released a statement on Wednesday, prior to withdrawing from that lawsuit in Pennsylvania, addressing the criticisms it has faced for representing the Trump campaign.

It said that the firm has a “long history of election law work during which we have represented Democratic, Republican and independent campaigns and issues,” and continued: “At times, this calls for us to take on controversial cases.”

Porter Wright added: “We expect criticism in such instances, and we affirm the right of all individuals to express concern and disagreement.”

The law firm previously filed several other lawsuits challenging aspects of Pennsylvania’s voting process, and it is currently unclear whether it is still representing the Trump campaign on those cases.

On Tuesday, law firm Snell & Wilmer withdrew from a similar post-election lawsuit in Maricopa County, Arizona.

The lawsuit, which was filed by the RNC, the Trump campaign and the Arizona Republican Party, alleged that the vote-counting centre in Maricopa County incorrectly counted ballots cast in the presidential election.

There is no evidence that votes in Arizona, which Mr Biden was declared the winner of last week, were counted incorrectly.

The Independent has contacted the Trump campaign, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur and Snell & Wilmer for comment.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/law-firm-drops-trump-pennsylvania-152843485.html

 

GO RV, then BV

 

 

I read on line these lawyers quit because of death threat against their families.

[yota691]

 

Election Night 2020 PA Vote Change: Trump Mysteriously Loses 19,958 Votes!
1,413 views•Nov 9, 2020

 

Coconut Pete
527 subscribers
Well that sure is convenient.  In less than a minute, Trump goes from 1,690,589 votes to 1,670,631 votes.  And what do you know... Biden gains the same number!
 

[yota691]

Trump loses PA votes during CNN coverage as Biden gains.
 

 

[Shabibilicious]

On 11/13/2020 at 9:28 PM, coorslite21 said:

You seem to be forgetting the Dominion Voting Systems issue.....    CL 

 

 

QAnon's Dominion voter fraud conspiracy theory reaches the president

Joe Biden's win and the disintegration of the broader QAnon narrative do not spell the end of the broader conspiracy ecosystem it has built.

ecosystem it has built.

 

A Qanon believer speaks to a crowd of President Donald Trump supporters outside of the Maricopa County Recorder's Office where votes in the general election are being counted, in Phoenix on Nov. 5, 2020.Dario Lopez-MIlls / AP file

 

 

Nov. 13, 2020, 4:53 PM EST

By Ben Collins

For days after the election, adherents to the QAnon conspiracy movement had been trying to get President Donald Trump’s attention with constant false claims about voter fraud connected to a company that makes voting machines.

On Thursday, they celebrated. Trump tweeted in all-caps about a conspiracy theory that baselessly alleges that Dominion Voting Systems, a company that makes voting machines, “deleted” millions of Trump votes, citing a report on the far-right cable news outlet One America News Network.

 

While the theory has already been debunked — including by Chris Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is tasked with national security related to the internet and technology — Trump's tweet offered a sliver of energy at a time when the QAnon movement had stalled, waiting for its leader, “Q,” to return with guidance from a hiatus that began on the morning of Election Day and lasted more than a week.

But QAnon is far from done. The movement's recent evolution and activity around the Dominion conspiracy theory highlight how even Joe Biden's election win and the disintegration of the broader QAnon narrative do not spell the end of the broader conspiracy ecosystem it has built.

Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks misinformation, found that 1 in 7 tweets about “#Dominion” since Nov. 5 originated from accounts that self-identified as QAnon accounts. Tweets featuring the #Dominion hashtag rose from about 75 tweets per day to over 35,700 each day in the last week.

QAnon adherents had been reeling in the last week, as the conspiracy prophecy had seemingly failed. The conspiracy theory posited that Trump was secretly working to save the world from a cabal of high-profile Democrats who murder children to appease Satan, and that an anonymous user named “Q” on the extremist website 8kun was outlining his secret plan to round up and execute them.

 

 

But "Q" did not post in the seven days after polls closed, and the administrator of 8kun, Ron Watkins, resigned on Election Day.

QAnon followers, however, quickly moved past the failed prophecy and began following QAnon influencers on Twitter, including Watkins, for guidance and talking points, which led Q believers to push the Dominion conspiracy theory.

The ability for QAnon accounts to shapeshift into ambassadors for brand new political conspiracy theories outlines how the conspiracy movement has built a lasting and unwavering digital army that will work to absolve Trump of any negative outcome, despite the foundations of the conspiracy falling apart.

“The QAnon community’s ability to crowdsource false but catchy narratives that spread through the far-right media ecosystem and beyond is an important clue about the longevity of the movement," said Travis View, the co-host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast. "Even if 8kun went offline tomorrow and Q stopped posting, the community of true believers would remain. And so would their inclination towards building and promoting conspiratorial fantasies."

“It's a self-sustaining misinformation factory,” View said.

False conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems had been floating around the fringes of the internet, especially the message board 4chan and QAnon-related Twitter accounts, in the days since Biden was announced as the projected winner of the 2020 election.

With the official Q account silent, followers turned to high-profile QAnon influencers on YouTube and Twitter, and even seized on new government insiders. On 4chan and Twitter, QAnon followers began idolizing — and even pretending to be — Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a Trump loyalist who was promoted to acting undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security after a series of firings and resignations at the Defense Department this week. Similar to "Q," they claimed “ECW” had almost mythical powers to aid the president’s fight against a nonexistent cabal and help Trump remain in office.

Some people who are central figures in the QAnon world helped push the Dominion conspiracy theory into conservative media favored by Trump. The theory reached a critical mass when Watkins tweeted that he knew technical details about how the votes could be flipped, and offered to help Trump associate Rudy Giuliani in discovering voter fraud.

Watkins tweeted shortly after midnight on Thursday morning that Chanel Rion, White House correspondent for One America News Network, reached out to him about the claims. About 10 hours later, Rion aired a report on the network that summarized internet conspiracy theories about Dominion. The president tweeted a quote from the segment shortly thereafter.

When asked by NBC News if Watkins' ideas informed Rion’s report, Watkins responded, “Sounds like you should ask Chanel that, not me.” When asked how much Watkins’ ideas informed her report that was tweeted by the president, Rion responded “None” in an email.

Dominion Voting Systems has forcefully denied the possibility its software could be used to “switch” votes.

“Dominion Voting Systems categorically denies any claims about any vote switching or alleged software issues with our voting systems. Dominion systems continue to reliably and accurately count ballots, and state and local election authorities have publicly confirmed the integrity of the process,” the company said in a statement. “Claims about Dominion switching or deleting votes are 100% false.”

The future of QAnon still remains uncertain. Fredrick Brennan, who created the 8chan website that was later rebranded as 8kun, has said that Ron and his father, Jim Watkins, could post under the QAnon account at any time. Ron Watkins’ Election Day resignation further fueled speculation he could be part of a team making posts as "Q." Watkins has repeatedly denied that he has anything to do with "Q."

Brennan has publicly distanced himself from 8chan and 8kun and has repeatedly tried to get the site removed from hosting providers because of its ties to white supremacist mass shootings.

“The Q people now are in a very vulnerable place, because they're looking for a new narrative,” Brennan said. “They're trying to figure out how they can still continue their growth and continue their control over this digital army without necessarily believing that there's a commander in the White House.”

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/q-fades-qanon-s-dominion-voter-fraud-conspiracy-theory-reaches-n1247780

 

GO RV, then BV