Over 50,000 fraudulent votes cast in November 2020 from phantom voters were identified in Wisconsin, according to a testimony delivered before the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections. The bombshell testimony was delivered by data analyst Peter Bernegger during the 9 February hearing chaired by Republican Rep. Janel Brandtjen, from Menomonee Falls.
Liz Harrington, spokeswoman for former President Donald Trump, summed up some of the GOP-led panel's findings on Twitter on 11 February. There have been 1.5 million illegal voter registrations and 155,000 suspected fake voters with confirmed 50,000 illegally cast ballots, according to the testimony. In addition, 46,000 votes were cast on 3 November 2020 based on voter information that was never verified by the state.
One apartment complex in Madison that houses less than 700 people has 1,631 registered "voters." The building had a 102 percent turnout rate on 3 November 2020.
One voter was assigned 28 different voter ID numbers; 3,713 "voters" were registered to US post offices. There were "voters" registered with no first names in the state; 113 ballots were cast from addresses where no one lives.
Although Hudson, Wisconsin, experienced a 10 percent population growth between 2012 and 2020 it saw a 128 percent increase in registered "voters" in November 2020. In general, despite Wisconsin having 4 million adults there are 7.1 million voter registrations. At the same time, there are 625,000 dead people on Wisconsin's voter rolls.
"Even more voter fraud was just discovered in Wisconsin," former President Trump said in an official statement. "It shows the election was rigged and stolen. A hearing this week revealed at least 50,000 illegal phantom votes were cast in the 2020 Presidential Election, which is more than twice the 'victory' margin."
US mainstream media have largely ignored the findings, while some publications focused on the fact that data analyst Bernegger was convicted of bank fraud and mail fraud in 2009 for deceiving investors in two startup companies. He was released from federal prison in 2014.
GOP Rep. Timothy Ramthun forwarded a resolution to decertify Wisconsin's November 2020 election results by reclaiming its ten electoral votes in November 2021. "We can no longer delay with stall tactics, wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars, or the silence of the full legislative body," the lawmakers said in an official statement. "It falls upon us to take this historic action and answer the call for this injustice. It’s beyond time to work of, by, and for the people of Wisconsin."
A similar initiative was introduced by Republican Rep. Mark Finchem in Arizona on 7 February 2022. The lawmaker stated that while some may say there is no valid constitutional, nor statutory grounds to de-certify election results, "they clearly are disregarding longstanding jurisprudence."
“That there is no process under current law for the Arizona Legislature to ‘decertify’ an election, does not mean that the Legislature cannot provide a remedy for outcome-determinative fraud and illegality in the conduct of the election, exercising powers it has directly from Article II of the federal Constitution, for as the Supreme Court stated in McPherson, ‘there is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power [to appoint electors] at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated,'" Finchem stressed.
In this May 6, 2021, file photo, Maricopa County ballots cast in the 2020 general election are examined and recounted by contractors working for Florida-based company, Cyber Ninjas at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. Arizona’s largest county has approved nearly $3 million for new vote-counting machines to replace those given to legislative Republicans for a partisan review of the 2020 election. The GOP-controlled Maricopa County Board of Supervisors said Wednesday, July 14, 2021 that the machines were compromised because they were in the control of firms not accredited to handle election equipment. (AP Photo/Matt York, Pool, File)
© AP Photo / Matt York
Last year, the Arizona GOP carried out an independent forensic audit of the 2020 election outcome in its most populous Maricopa County. The results of the review prompted controversy: Democrats argued that the recount confirmed that Joe Biden won in Maricopa while the GOP cited the fact that the examination of ballots exposed glaring abnormalities and election irregularities. President Joe Biden won the state by a razor-thin margin of 10,000 votes, or 0.3 percentage points.
Findings prompting suspicion of alleged election fraud were registered by some other states as well. Thus, a Phase One Progress report released by Texas Secretary of State John B Scott on 31 December 2021 found around 12,000 potential non-citizens suspected of illegally registering to vote; 509 potential cross-state duplicate votes in the 2020 November elections as well as 67 potential votes cast in the name of deceased persons. A full forensic audit of the 2020 elections was launched by the Texas secretary of state in the counties of Collin, Dallas, Harris and Tarrant on 23 September 2021. Trump won Texas in November 2020 by 5.5 percentage points. However, Tarrant, Dallas and Harris counties were won by Democrat candidate Joe Biden.
In November 2021, VoterGA, a not-for-profit election-monitoring organisation, raised the alarm over the fact that 74 counties in Georgia failed to produce original images of more than 17,000 ballots from the 2020 election. Activists claimed that it could complicate a full audit of the election results in the state. Biden won Georgia by 11,779 votes or 0.23 percent.
Republican legislatures are seeking to toughen ID laws in order to ensure voting integrity ahead of the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential elections. According to New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, 19 states passed 33 voting laws bolstering ID rules. The Democratic Party has repeatedly slammed the GOP initiative as "racist" and "suppressing" the voter turnout. For its part, the Biden administration introduced a voting rights bill seeking to nationalise election rules for all the states, enhance voting by mail, automatic and same-day registration and loosen ID requirements. However, the legislation has stalled in the upper chamber.