Kris William Kobach is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the attorney general of Kansas since 2023. He previously served as the 31st secretary of state of Kansas from 2011 to 2019.
Hans Anatol von Spakovsky is an American attorney and a former member of the Federal Election Commission (FEC). He is the manager of The Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation's Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. He is an advocate for stricter voting laws. He has been described as playing an influential role in making concern about voter fraud mainstream in the Republican Party.
Thomas J. Fitton is an American conservative activist and the president of Judicial Watch.
John Charles Eastman is an American lawyer and academic. Due to his efforts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, attempting to keep then-president Donald Trump in office and obstruct the certification of Joe Biden's victory, he has been criminally indicted, ordered inactive by the State Bar of California, and recommended for disbarment. Eastman has lost eligibility to practice law in California state courts, pending his appeal of the state bar judge's ruling that recommended him for disbarment. Eastman is also named as a co-conspirator in the federal indictment brought against Trump over his attempts to subvert the 2020 election results and prevent the certification of Biden's election.
Brian Porter Kemp is an American politician serving since 2019 as the 83rd governor of Georgia. A member of the Republican Party, Kemp served as the state's 27th Secretary of State from 2010 to 2018, and as a member of the Georgia State Senate from 2003 to 2007.
Voter ID laws in the United States are laws that require a person to provide some form of official identification before they are permitted to register to vote, receive a ballot for an election, or to actually vote in elections in the United States.
Voter suppression in the United States consists of various legal and illegal efforts to prevent eligible citizens from exercising their right to vote. Such voter suppression efforts vary by state, local government, precinct, and election. Voter suppression has historically been used for racial, economic, gender, age and disability discrimination. After the American Civil War, all African-American men were granted voting rights, but poll taxes or language tests were used to limit and suppress the ability to register or cast a ballot. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 improved voting access. Since the beginning of voter suppression efforts, proponents of these laws have cited concerns over electoral integrity as a justification for various restrictions and requirements, while opponents argue that these constitute bad faith given the lack of voter fraud evidence in the United States.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Harris defeated the incumbent Republican president Donald Trump, and vice president Mike Pence. The election took place against the backdrop of the global COVID-19 pandemic and related recession. The election saw the highest voter turnout by percentage since 1900. Biden received more than 81 million votes, the most votes ever cast for a presidential candidate in U.S. history.
In the United States, electoral fraud, or voter fraud, involves illegal voting in or manipulation of United States elections. Types of fraud include voter impersonation or in-person voter fraud, mail-in or absentee ballot fraud, illegal voting by noncitizens, and double voting. The United States government defines voter or ballot fraud as one of three broad categories of federal election crimes, the other two being campaign finance crimes and civil rights violations.
John Robert "Jay" Ashcroft is an American attorney, engineer and politician serving as the 40th and current Secretary of State of Missouri since 2017. A member of the Republican Party, he is the son of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The social policy of the Donald Trump administration was generally socially conservative. As of 2016, Donald Trump described himself as pro-life with exceptions for rape, incest, and circumstances endangering the life of the mother. He said he was committed to appointing justices who may overturn the ruling in Roe v. Wade. Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices during his presidency. All of them later went on to vote in the majority opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Supreme Court case overturning Roe v. Wade and ending federal abortion rights nationwide.
Gregg Allen Phillips is an American conspiracy theorist and the former head of the Mississippi Department of Human Services, Deputy Commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, and the author of a tweet cited by U.S. President Donald Trump that falsely alleges, without evidence, that between three and five million non-citizens voted in the 2016 elections. Phillips executive produced and appeared in Dinesh D’Souza's political film 2000 Mules and about election fraud. He was partnering on a project with a Texas-based, partisan-conservative organization named True the Vote which falsely alleges widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, even though "on the record there has been still no evidence or proof provided that there was any sort of fraud".
The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, also called the Voter Fraud Commission, was a Presidential Commission established by Donald Trump that ran from May 11, 2017, to January 3, 2018. The Trump administration said the commission would review claims of voter fraud, improper registration, and voter suppression. The establishment of the commission followed Trump's false claim that millions of illegal immigrants had voted in the 2016 presidential election, costing him the popular vote. Vice President Mike Pence was chosen as chair of the commission and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach was its vice chair and day-to-day administrator.
The 2020 United States presidential election in Georgia was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Georgia voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump of Florida, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence of Indiana against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware, and his running mate Senator Kamala Harris of California. Georgia has 16 electoral votes in the Electoral College.
The 2020 United States presidential election in North Carolina was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. North Carolina voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote. The state was narrowly won by the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump of Florida, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence of Indiana, against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware, and his running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. North Carolina had 15 electoral votes in the Electoral College.
In the United States, Sanders–Trump voters, also known as Bernie–Trump voters, are Americans who voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 or 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, but who subsequently voted for Republican Party nominee Donald Trump in the general election. In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, these voters composed an estimated 6%-12% of Sanders supporters.
Members of the United States Republican Party have reacted differently to Republican president Donald Trump's claims about the 2020 United States presidential election, with many publicly supporting them, many remaining silent, and a few publicly denouncing them. Trump claimed to have won the election, and made many claims of election fraud. By December 11, 2020, 126 out of 196 Republican members of the House backed a lawsuit filed in the United States Supreme Court supported by nineteen Republican state attorneys general seeking to subvert the election and overturn the election results. The Trump campaign hired the Berkeley Research Group to investigate whether there had been voter fraud. The researchers found nothing, and the consultancy reported this to Trump and his chief of staff Mark Meadows on a conference call in the final days of the year, before the attack on the Capitol.
After Democratic nominee Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, Republican nominee and then-incumbent president Donald Trump pursued an unprecedented effort to overturn the election, with support from his campaign, proxies, political allies, and many of his supporters. These efforts culminated in the January 6 Capitol attack by Trump supporters in an attempted self-coup d'état. Trump and his allies used the "big lie" propaganda technique to promote claims that had been proven false and conspiracy theories asserting the election was stolen by means of rigged voting machines, electoral fraud and an international conspiracy. Trump pressed Department of Justice leaders to challenge the results and publicly state the election was corrupt. However, the attorney general, director of National Intelligence, and director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency – as well as some Trump campaign staff – dismissed these claims. State and federal judges, election officials, and state governors also determined the claims were baseless.
The election denial movement in the United States is a widespread false belief among many Republicans that elections in the United States are rigged and stolen through election fraud by Democrats. Adherents of the movement are referred to as election deniers. Election fraud conspiracy theories have spread online and through conservative conferences, community events, and door-to-door canvassing. Since the 2020 United States presidential election, many Republican politicians have sought elective office or taken legislative steps to address what they assert is weak election integrity leading to widespread fraudulent elections, though no evidence of systemic election fraud has come to light and many studies have found that it is extremely rare.
Jesse Richman is an associate professor of political science and geography at Old Dominion University. His research has focused on legislative politics, public opinion, electoral politics, and intellectual property. He is known for his 2014 study with David Earnest about illegal non-citizen voting, which was widely rejected by the broader academic community and was notably misused by Donald Trump and the election denial movement in the United States to justify false claims of widespread fraud. Richman's expert testimony on noncitizen voting in Fish v. Kobach was widely criticized while his expert testimony in Arizona received mixed reviews.
