'Apples to orangutans': Report reveals MAGA's new bogus voter fraud scheme

Republicans have come up with a new baseless theory for uncovering "voter fraud," wrote Abby Vesoulis for Mother Jones — and while the new lawsuits they are filing probably won't go anywhere, they could still succeed in their overall purpose.

This comes after years of former President Donald Trump pushing conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election being rigged, and his allies supporting it with bizarre stunts like the long-debunked "2,000 Mules" documentary.

The new tactic has the Republican National Committee suing counties in Nevada — Trump-supporting counties run by Republican election officials: "In Lyon County — which is located in western Nevada and has not favored a Democrat for president since FDR — the RNC initially asserted that 105 percent of voting-eligible residents were registered, an 'impossibly high' percentage, suggesting 'an ongoing, systemic problem with its voter list maintenance efforts.' The RNC made similar claims for nearby Douglas (104 percent) and Storey (113 percent) counties."

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But these figures were created using nonsensical math, Vesoulis said.

"To estimate registration rates in each county, the RNC compared voter data from the secretary of state to a US census dataset that averaged populations over five years. The census data does not account for the tens of thousands of people who migrated to Nevada during the pandemic. More crucially, it often misses people who are lawfully registered to vote but temporarily residing elsewhere — such as college students and military service members."

A Nevada legal official responded to the complaint by saying, “This is comparing apples to orangutans.”

The Nevada challenges were dismissed last month. But the real idea isn't to change election procedures for 2024, but to give MAGA activists permission to push for yet another coup against the election results should Trump be defeated, said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research.

Indeed, wrote Vesoulis, they are gearing up to spend an unprecedented amount of money, not on campaign ads or canvassing, but on election litigation and poll watchers: "The party’s recent maneuvering suggests a far more sophisticated — and more dangerous — strategy. Co-led by Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, the RNC is mobilizing what it has called the 'most extensive and monumental election integrity program in the nation’s history,' which will involve '100,000 dedicated volunteers and attorneys.'"