One year after President Biden's inauguration, more than two thirds of Republican voters believe his election was illegitimate.PBS
In the early morning hours of Nov. 4, 2020, Donald Trump finally spoke about the election results that were coming in: “This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country.”
In the time since then, several things have become clear. First, the election fraud theory has been debunked. Second, belief in an election fraud has only become stronger among some followers of Trump. Also, there’s the usual problem with conspiracy theories – they don’t get talked about in mainstream media because nobody wants to give them credence. The nitty-gritty of the election-fraud story and the words of people involved become material for late-night TV hosts looking for laughs.
Frontline: Plot to Overturn the Election (Tuesday, PBS, 10 p.m.) is a new documentary tracing several of the shadowy sources of disinformation about the 2020 election, and it sets out to show that this is no joke. At times the story becomes near ludicrous, typical of Trump-era shenanigans, as reporter A.C. Thompson seeks out figures who claim to have proof of election fraud. Some have inflated or misrepresented their own credentials. One he finds at a bar outside Austin, surrounded by gun-toting cronies.
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The story starts, if it even has a logical start, in remote Antrim County, Michigan. Sheryl Guy, a lifelong Republican, is the County Clerk for the area. The morning after the election, she realized that votes for a candidate for local trustee had not been counted and, in correcting the error, another error was made, and the county temporarily showed Joe Biden the winner in the presidential vote in the area. That was rectified within hours. Guy, interviewed in the program, kneads her hands constantly, showing the stress that resulted from human error. Her nightmare goes on and on.
Days after the mistake was revealed and rectified, a group of people arrived in Antrim by private jet. Their mission was to examine the voting machines. What authority did they have? None. How did they get away with it? “Intimidation,” says Guy.
The group belonged to a company, Allied Security Operations Group, that claimed to specialize in “Executive protection and cybersecurity.” Never more than a tiny company with seven employees, it came to play an outsize role in the election-fraud story. One of its employees, who also operates as a hacker known as Jekyl, took the view that the voting machines in Antrim, supplied by the company Dominion, were faulty. This guy, who overstated his qualifications, takes the view when interviewed here that Dominion allowed China and Iraq access to its machine infrastructure. This has been debunked, but the theory took hold.
The election-fraud narrative became lore, with millions accepting it and Trump promoting it. It’s also become a going concern as a business. Millionaire Patrick Byrne, a self-described libertarian, has launched the America Project, which travels the U.S.; a paying audience hears Byrne and others – including retired general Michael Flynn – amplify the election-fraud myth. There are tangents too: Byrne has admitted he had a relationship with Maria Butina, who served 18 months in jail, convicted of being an unregistered foreign agent for Russia. Be forewarned, there are so many digressions and so many shady characters, that I had to rewatch several segments of this program, to get it straight.
The idea that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump is now a defining issue of the Republican Party.PBS
There’s a point, however, near the end of the hour-long program, where the tangled tale becomes untangled and bumps into current events. What A.C. Thompson calls “a mass movement that is already shaping elections to come” is in focus. To get Donald Trump’s endorsement, people running for office now must relentlessly promote false claims about the results of the 2020 election. They are, in most cases, people who, if elected, will manage local elections and be able to challenge the results.
After all the theatre of amateur-hour audits – seen here – and outlandish claims heard, the myth of election fraud can be seen in its vastness and its power: You don’t need to prove fraud, you just need to keep suggesting it, and no late-night host telling jokes can quell that.
This Frontline frightens as much as it enlightens.
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