Election Conspiracy Theory Group Tells Court It Has No Evidence Of its Conspiracy Theory

The conspiracy theory-promoting group True the Vote says it has no proof to again up its claims about widespread, systemic voter fraud throughout the 2020 elections.

The group, which was closely featured in Dinesh D’Souza’s viral documentary “2000 Mules,” claimed that poll “mules” labored with a community of left-wing organizations to steal the election for Joe Biden. The movie and its claims made an enormous splash, and Donald Trump praised True the Vote for supposedly exposing “great election fraud.”

But in responding to a subpoena for any proof supporting these claims, the group got here up empty-handed.

In a courtroom submitting in Georgia, True the Vote stated it didn’t have any information of the supposed community of non-governmental organizations it alleged facilitated the huge poll trafficking scheme. True the Vote additionally stated it had no contact data for sources who had ostensibly supplied the group with an in depth account of the alleged poll scheme, nor for any of the unnamed researchers or investigators it relied on for its allegations.

The subpoena additionally particularly requested for the id, contact data, and any information evidencing the claims of “John Doe,” an unidentified one who True the Vote claimed had admitted to personally collaborating within the poll trafficking.

“TTV does not have in its possession, custody, or control, identity and contact information for John Doe or any such items concerning him,” the group stated within the submitting.

The new revelations had been in a Fulton County Superior Court submitting dated Dec. 11, reported on by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and subsequently the Associated Press, on Wednesday.

In 2021, True the Vote introduced a proper criticism alleging widespread irregularities within the 2020 election. In response, Georgia state officers requested ― after which demanded ― proof of the group’s claims as a part of their investigation. Georgia officers have adopted up on True the Vote’s criticism within the years since, however the group has repeatedly failed or refused to offer proof backing its claims to investigators.

“Once again, True the Vote has proven itself untrustworthy and unable to provide a shred of evidence for a single one of their fairy-tale allegations,” Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, stated in an announcement to a number of retailers Wednesday. “Like all the lies about Georgia’s 2020 election, their fabricated claims of ballot harvesting have been repeatedly debunked.”

“True the Vote made wild and false allegations as a fundraising grift that undermined public confidence in the integrity of Georgia’s elections,” Hassinger informed HuffPost in an electronic mail Thursday. “Now that they’ve admitted to their con in court, they owe the voters of Georgia an apology.”

True the Vote didn’t reply to HuffPost’s record of questions in regards to the submitting, however informed the Journal-Constitution that it had beforehand given data to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation relating to cellular phone indicators that got here near a number of drop packing containers in 2020.

“The [Georgia Bureau of Investigation] consequently has ready access to the underlying data, and could, we believe, reconstruct it, but it declines to do that,” the group informed the paper in an announcement. “At this point, it would be redundant and cost-prohibitive for True the Vote to do so on its own. It is in that sense that there is nothing more for True the Vote to provide that it has not already provided to the GBI.”

In brief, the group claimed the cellular phone location knowledge constituted proof of “mules” dropping off a number of ballots at a number of places. They additionally stated the cellular phone pings pointed to unnamed nonprofits that they stated organized and paid for the operation.

But there have been critical issues with that argument: The cellular phone knowledge is imprecise, and may’t decide something past basic places inside a 100-foot radius. What’s extra, drop packing containers are positioned at common communal places like libraries and county buildings, and it wouldn’t be in any respect unusual for somebody to go to these forms of places repeatedly.

True the Vote claimed to know the identities of the non-profits concerned within the supposed poll mule operation ― however by no means recognized them, and couldn’t establish them within the Georgia submitting.

True the Vote hasn’t supplied “any other kind of evidence that ties these cell phones to ballot harvesting,” D. Victor Reynolds, then director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, stated in 2021.

The Georgia State Election Board has tried for years to get True the Vote to show over any proof for its claims, together with with subpoenas courting again to April 2022. In October 2022, a spokesperson for the Georgia secretary of state’s workplace informed HuffPost, “The status of the subpoenas hasn’t changed ― they were issued, and TTV hasn’t complied.”

In July final 12 months, the Elections Board requested a Fulton County Superior Court choose to order True the Vote to adjust to the subpoena. Now, True the Vote has achieved so ― and had nothing particular to point out.

The courtroom submitting first reported Wednesday does embrace some imprecise responses, however no concrete data. For instance, requested for proof ― or contact data for people who supplied accounts ― of “coordinated efforts to collect and deposit ballots in drop boxes across metro Atlanta,” as referenced within the group’s 2021 criticism, True the Vote supplied a two-sentence response.

The first sentence stated the group didn’t have any contact data to share. The second sentence stated True the Vote was offering data that it deemed “non-privileged items not requiring retrieval of massive amounts of raw data from cold storage.”

True the Vote didn’t reply to HuffPost’s query about what that meant. The doc at different occasions referenced, however didn’t clarify, that it was offering “any otherwise responsive non-privileged items that are within TTV’s possession, custody, or control.”

“While the case has been administratively closed, the Court does contemplate further litigation,” a spokesperson for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s workplace, Shawn Conroy, informed HuffPost. The workplace declined to provide additional remark.

True the Vote’s submitting is way from the primary time high-profile election conspiracy theorists have stated they don’t have the proof to again up their claims.

Just a number of days in the past, James O’Keefe and Project Veritas ― the struggling right-wing media outfit ― admitted that they weren’t conscious of any proof that election fraud had occurred at an Erie, Pennsylvania, submit workplace throughout the 2020 election. The declare had originated with Richard Hopkins, a Trump supporter and mail provider.

The settlement within the lawsuit towards O’Keefe, Project Veritas and Hopkins over the declare final week got here greater than three years after Hopkins recanted his allegation.

And Mark Andrews, a Georgia resident who was accused in “2000 Mules” of breaking the regulation by performing as a poll mule, sued D’Souza, True the Vote and others for defamation and voter intimidation in 2022.

“What you are seeing is a crime,” D’Souza stated in “2,000 Mules” as video of Andrews legally dropping off his household’s ballots performed on display. “These are fraudulent votes.”

They weren’t fraudulent votes, an investigation into associated claims discovered.

In October, a federal courtroom greenlit Andrews’ lawsuit, permitting it to proceed to discovery.