Trump supporters remain convinced 2020 election was marred by fraud

By Marta Garde

Richmond Hill, Georgia, Oct 24 (EFE).- Vashan, an electrical engineering student and supporter of then-President Donald Trump, requested an absentee ballot ahead of the United States’ November 2020 general election.

The ballot was finally delivered in June of the following year, causing him initial surprise and then suspicion that its extremely late arrival time was just one manifestation of a larger vote-rigging scheme.

Although dozens of election-challenge lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies were dismissed or dropped due to lack of evidence, the lack of faith in the US election system remains widespread.

Half of all Americans, according to a survey by London-based market research and data analytics firm YouGov, expect there to be “a lot” or “some” fraud this fall.

And 20 percent said fraud will be significant enough to change the balance of power in the US Congress, which is currently narrowly controlled by Democrats.

Vashan, who studies in Savannah, Georgia, said that under normal circumstances the ballot would not have taken more than two days to arrive.

The young man said he was planning on voting for the first time in 2020 and intended on casting his ballot for Trump because the Republican is not “politically correct,” says what he thinks and “other countries fear him.”

Georgia proved to be a key swing state in the 2020 election, with now-President Joe Biden edging Trump by just two-tenths of a percentage point. The margin of victory was so narrow that a manual recount was needed to dispel all doubts about the outcome.

Vashan said he still cannot believe that Biden defeated Trump in Georgia, a traditionally conservative state that had not supported the Democratic presidential candidate since 1992.

He recalled that Barack Obama had failed in both 2008 and 2012 to win that state, which has one of the US’s largest African-American populations.

Doubts about the 2020 election not only persist among ordinary voters but also nearly 300 Republican candidates for the US Congress or state legislative seats.

Of those GOP hopefuls, 171 are expected to win their districts or states, while around 50 others are in tight battles and may eventually prevail.

Richard James Lee, a 58-year-old owner of a fair tent, told Efe in Richmond Hill – a small town in eastern Georgia with a significant military population due to its proximity to Fort Stewart – that he believes the 2020 election was tainted.

“I knew there were going to be some shenanigans, let’s put it that way. There were a lot of ballots coming across state lines. You can’t do that. That’s a federal offense,” he said, adding that he is not surprised that voter-fraud challenges went nowhere in court.

“Look at the Democrat judges. You think Democrat judges are going to side with Republicans. No they’re not.”

Although a manual recount confirmed Biden’s victory in Georgia in 2020, Sara Lain-Moneymaker, co-founder of Ladies on the Right, an organization with a vision to “secure the constitution, our republic and democracy for future generations,” said voting machines cost Trump his bid for re-election.

“2020 was stolen by the Dominion (voting) machines. We need to get rid of the machines,” she said, adding that they can be “hacked” and misused. “We need to go back to hand ballots. It’s very easy to count hand ballots. And anybody that tries to tell you it’s not, they need to rethink it.” EFE

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