Verification of data on demand with falsehoods from Trump to Supreme Court

Trump asks Ted Cruz to defend his fraud theory 1:18

(CNN) ––

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, presented a request to the Supreme Court this Wednesday, which included part of the same false and misleading statements that the president has published on Twitter.

The request seeks that the Supreme Court allow Trump to intervene in support of a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Republican attorneys general in 18 other states also back Texas.

They ask the court to invalidate the results of the elections in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, all of which were won by President-elect Joe Biden.

• LEE: Trump asks the Supreme Court to invalidate millions of votes in four states

The attorney who filed Trump's request, John Eastman, made a number of inaccurate claims in arguing the president's position.

Here we check some of them.

Florida and Ohio

The document reads: “President Trump prevailed over almost all historical signs of success in the presidential election.

For example, Florida and Ohio won.

No candidate in history - Republican or Democrat - has lost the elections after winning both states.

Facts first:

this is false.

Richard Nixon lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy, despite Nixon taking Florida and Ohio.

Furthermore, if Trump were actually the first candidate to lose an election despite winning Ohio and Florida, this argument would be an interesting fact, not evidence of fraud.

Different candidates build different geographic coalitions.

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Applications for absentee voting in Michigan

The brief filed with the Supreme Court reads: “In Michigan, the Secretary of State illegally flooded the state with requests for absentee ballots mailed to all registered voters, even though state law strictly limits the voting process. requests for electoral ballots ».

Facts first:

The Supreme Court has the final say on what is legal and what is not.

However, there is no apparent basis for the claim that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson violated the law by sending absentee ballot requests to all registered voters (in jurisdictions that did not themselves send requests to all registered voters).

The application was available online for anyone to print.

Michigan residents were even allowed to mail applications to other residents.

Trump continues to claim unsubstantiated fraud and does not concede 3:10

When reporters asked Trump last May to explain what he considered illegal about Michigan, he did not provide a specific response.

Nor did White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany offer details when asked in May.

Pennsylvania and signatures

Trump's request stated that "the Pennsylvania Secretary of State issued guidance that purported to suspend signature verification requirements, in direct violation of state law."

Facts First:

Once again, we turn to the Supreme Court on what is legal and what is not.

Still, it's worth noting that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, unanimously, and a Trump-appointed federal judge ruled that Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar's signature guide was legal.

They both argued that nothing in state law requires counties to verify signature.

That is, they check if the signatures of the voters on the voting envelopes match those in the file.

• LOOK: ANALYSIS |

  Trump's attempt to disenfranchise millions by threatening democracy will go nowhere in the Supreme Court

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled unanimously in October to uphold Boockvar's guidance.

"We refuse to interpret a signature comparison requirement in the plain and unambiguous language of the Electoral Code," the court said in the decision.

The ruling also barred counties from rejecting mail-in ballots due to mismatched signatures.

Similarly, J. Nicholas Ranjan, Trump's appointed federal District Court judge, issued his decision in October.

“After carefully considering the arguments of the parties and the relevant law, the Court concludes that the plain language of the Election Code does not impose any signature comparison requirements for ballots and applications sent by mail and in absentia.

In other words, the secretary's guide is consistent with the Electoral Code and does not create problems of vote dilution, "he said.

Delivery mailboxes in Wisconsin

Trump's brief asserted that "in Wisconsin, the largest cities deployed hundreds of unstaffed, unsecured absentee drop boxes, which were invalid means of returning absentee votes under state law."

The facts first:

we will leave the question of legality back to the courts.

But, it is not true that drop boxes in large Wisconsin cities were "unsafe."

Mailboxes were secured in various ways.

For example, they were anchored to the ground, sealed against tampering and were monitored by video 24 hours, according to instructions from the state electoral commission.

Pompeo criticizes Venezuela as Trump criticizes the US 1:33

Drop boxes and parking lots

The document does not provide evidence of any massive fraud. What it claims is that the policies of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania created a greater possibility of fraud.

As an example, he indicated that "leaving drop boxes in public parking lots invites fraud."

Facts first:

this is unfounded.

Official ballot drop boxes across the country are specifically designed and installed to safely receive votes without tampering, theft or other types of fraud.

So they have measures to prevent tampering.

Among them, the fact that they are fixed to the ground, durable materials are made and are often monitored by video.

Furthermore, there is no evidence that the mailboxes were used for fraudulent purposes in the 2020 presidential elections.

“There was a lot of debate about the use of mailboxes in past elections to deliver absentee ballots.

However, I am not aware of any case in which any fraud was found in the use of them during the past elections.

This was what Rick Hansen, an electoral law analyst and law professor at the University of California, Irvine, told CNN.

• READ: ANALYSIS |

  Trump's Phony Crusade Continues Despite Devastating Supreme Court Reprimand

Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center, told CNN in August that mailboxes don't "introduce any kind of exceptionally difficult security problems."

And he added that election administrators follow the same security practices they use to collect all other ballots.

Election observers

To hint that the US presidential election was unfair, Trump's request to the Supreme Court involved an earlier statement from Mike Pompeo.

In August, the secretary of state criticized the presidential elections in Belarus.

The document noted that Pompeo cited the "ban on independent local observers at the polls" as a factor that shows that the elections there "were not free and fair."

Facts first:

this is misleading.

Regardless of what happened in Belarus, there is no evidence that independent observers were consistently banned from US polling sites.

Georgia Towards New Decisive Senate Election 3:13

Since Election Day, Trump has falsely claimed on several occasions that poll watchers, especially Republicans, were prohibited from counting locations.

He has also maintained that they were prevented from observing the count and denied the access they legally deserved.

But every claim by Trump has been disproved.

Where Democratic observers were allowed, Republicans were also allowed.

You can read more about what happened to the election observers in the key contested states here.

Counties that set the winner's trend

Trump's brief to the Supreme Court says that he “won 18 of the 19 so-called trend counties in the country.

Counties whose vote, historically, almost always goes with the candidate who wins the elections.

Facts first:

this is true.

Trump won 18 of the 19 counties that voted for the candidate who ran for president in every election from 1980 to 2016, according to

The Wall Street Journal.

But this is irrelevant to the claim that the election was rigged.

As demographic and political preferences change, reference areas may cease to be for all sorts of completely benign reasons.

Supreme Court Lawsuit 2020 United States Elections