Donald Trump is preparing to fight the judicial battle and revive the “big lie” of fraud if Kamala Harris wins

Donald Trump described the 2020 election result when he lost against Joe Biden as a “big lie.” Trump’s “big lie” resulted in a group of armed people in front of the door of the Maricopa County vote counting center, Arizona, after the polls closed. Four years later, the building is surrounded by a two-meter-high fence and at the entrance there are two agents searching backpacks after having passed through the metal detector. Security measures stop people, but conspiracy theories seem not to have completely gone away.

The team of the vice president and Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, fears that Trump will declare himself the winner without an official result. According to NBC, Harris campaign officials say they “fully expect” Trump to declare victory before all the votes are counted, and that there are hundreds of Democratic lawyers across the country and in the most contested states prepared to fight. against the legal maneuvers of the Republican Party.

After challenging thousands of votes, Trump published this Wednesday on your Truth Social profile that “Pennsylvania is cheating and being exposed on a scale never seen before.”

“REPORT TRAPS TO THE AUTHORITIES. The law must act, NOW,” said the Republican. The former president assures that an electoral fraud campaign is already underway in a state where none of the votes (not even those sent by mail) begin to be counted until after the polling stations close on November 5.

In Bucks County, in the Philadelphia suburbs, Republicans filed a lawsuit against authorities for “hindering” the Republican vote. Of the seven swing statesPennsylvania is the one that distributes the most delegates in the Electoral College and is seen as one of the most competitive territories for both presidential candidates.

But that does not mean that other territories are safe from conspiracy theories.

In Maricopa last week a man was arrested for setting fire to a mail-in ballot collection box. Five days later, mail-in ballot collection boxes were also burned in the states of Oregon and Washington. These mailboxes, known as drop boxeshave been one of the focuses of unfounded conspiracy theories by the right and the orbit for years trumpist.

In recent weeks, the trumpism has also been oiling the machinery of the “big lie.” At the Madison Square rally last Sunday, journalist Tucker Carlson assured that “it is going to be very difficult for them to say that Kamala Harris obtained 85 million votes and that the first former California prosecutor […] with low IQ is elected president.” Suspicions about the North American electoral system have been a constant in the Republican’s actions. Although it is not the only channel through which they are spread.

“November 5 will be the beginning of the end,” a Steve Bannon, recently released from prison, said this Thursday. The ultra ideologue was the one who whispered in Trump’s ear the possibility of carrying out a coup on January 6, 2021, and this summer he went to prison for having refused to collaborate with the legislative committee investigating the assault on the Capitol. “It is possibly what Churchill defined as the battle of El Alamein,” he said in the video posted on Instagram. The quote from the former British Prime Minister that Bannon was referring to is the following: “Before El Alamein we had never had a victory. After El Alamein we never had a defeat.”

fertilized land

During these four years, the Trumpist orbit has not stopped fueling distrust in the voting processes. The “big lie” has always been there, lurking, waiting for Trump to give the order.

In July, a delegate from South Carolina who had attended the Republican Convention was convinced of Trump’s victory and assured elDiario.es that he would not let the elections be “stolen” again. Earlier this month, attendees at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, applauded Elon Musk’s call to “protect the vote.” It was October 5, just one month before the elections, but Rick Shawn, one of those attending the event, was convinced that “Trump will lose because the elections are rigged.”

In Tempe (Arizona), on October 17, Donald Trump Jr. and MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk speculated before an audience made up mostly of 20-year-olds about alleged hacks in the vote counting machines, about undocumented immigrants registering to vote and the plans of the deep state to get Trump out of the way. “Last elections they lied to us, they cheated,” Karen explained while listening attentively to the talk, “if Trump loses it will be because there was fraud.” A couple of rows back, in the room at the Omni Hotel where the event was taking place, Brittany and her husband repeated similar slogans.

“Nothing was normal in the last elections. I remember we were watching the news, and it was early in the evening, and I think they had only counted about 10% of the votes, and all of a sudden they announced that Biden had won. And Arizona hadn’t voted for a Democrat in decades. So nothing was normal. These elections, I am still very worried about what could happen, as you hear, migrants registering to vote when they can’t,” explained Brittany, who had traveled from Phoenix so as not to miss the event.

Arizona, ground zero of the conspiracy

The colloquium was organized by the Turning Point Action platform, one of the main speakers on the theories of electoral fraud of 2020 and which in the state of Arizona have been especially active. Arizona, which is also a swing state these elections, has become the vanguard of electoral denialism. The wing trumpist has taken control of the Arizona Republican Party and remains convinced that fraud was committed in Maricopa, even though the county supervisor, Republican Stephen Richer, certified that the vote count had been clean.

Going against Trump’s mandate, Richer was not only ostracized by the party, but also became the target of death threats. Some of which have been instigated by members of the Republican party, such as Senate candidate Kari Lake, against whom Richer filed a lawsuit for continuing to make false claims about the vote count in Maricopa County.

In the midterm elections –mid-term– 2022, Lake replicated Trump’s tactic: he accused the election result of “theft” after losing against Democrat Katie Hobbs for the governorship. The Republican still does not recognize defeat.

Electoral denialism has not only led to death threats for Richer, but has also resulted in cases of intimidation towards electoral workers. “We have several people who have suffered intimidation and some have quit their jobs,” confirmed the spokesperson for the Maricopa County Elections Department.

As a result of the theories of fraud, not only was the vote counting building fortified, but policies of maximum transparency were also applied: 24-hour cameras where you can see live what the counting process is like, overhead cables to see perfectly where the counting machines and guided tours to the public are connected. All in order to appease distrust of the system.

“Those from Turning Point Action also came one day to visit. They had a lot of questions, but I think they left satisfied,” explained Borunda during the tour of the center. After the episode of violence they experienced in Maricopa four years ago, and as a result of threats and intimidation, election workers not only receive training on the electoral process, but also on security. “They are explained what to do in case an angry person appears on voting day or what to do in case of problems,” Borunda said.

A new criterion that has also been included when deciding where the Maricopa voting points will be enabled is that “we know that we will be able to block access to the interior once the day ends and ensure that no one can enter the place.” . Apart from the two-meter-high barrier, on the night of November 5, the Maricopa vote counting center will have the deployment of a large police force that will have the presence of FBI agents and even snipers.