From Voter-Fraud Myths to Bogus Election Audits: The Evolution of the Big Lie
On Monday, American Oversight published an in-depth look at the "Big Lie" and the decades-long campaign by conservative activists and lawmakers to hype up the threat of voter fraud.
More than half a year into President Joe Biden’s first term in office, former President Donald Trump still hasn’t conceded his November 2020 defeat. Instead, after backing a string of legal challenges to Biden’s election and inciting a bloody attempt by his supporters to stop the certification of Biden’s victory, Trump has now placed his hopes in a series of sham “audits” of already counted and re-counted election results.
On Monday, American Oversight published an in-depth look at the “Big Lie” — that the election was “stolen” from Trump because of voter fraud — and the array of allies who for years have been sowing the seeds of this election-undermining lie. Those allies include his own inner circle of lawyers as well as grassroots leaders; legislators who used the Big Lie to restrict voting rights in their states; deep-pocketed conservative groups; and state attorneys general who backed outlandish legal challenges to the 2020 results.
American Oversight traces the origins of the Big Lie, which was built on a decades-long campaign by conservative activists and lawmakers, who hyped up the threat of voter fraud in order to impose restrictive voting laws and to cement their own political power. Today’s sham election “audits” and investigations are a continuation of these efforts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election, threatening to weaken confidence in the democratic system for years to come.