On Thursday in Denver at a panel discussion, “State of the Local Media: Colorado Journalism in an Important Election Year,” Colorado Public Radio News Executive Editor Kevin Dale said we should never be surprised by the outcome of elections.
His reason being that optimal campaign coverage prioritizes getting out into all communities, talking about issues with voters in libraries, cafes, parks – wherever people are – and figuring out what exactly drives the vote.
He wouldn’t ask who they vote for. He doesn’t have to. If we spend enough time listening, we’ll know.
Dale is right.
And as we engage voters and candidates throughout the Southwest, surprisingly, we’re still hearing the words “rigged election,” singed into the American vernacular since November 2020.
These very words have fragmented – or ended – relationships, within our families and friend groups and workplaces. For election workers, it’s another story, with security now required and commonplace in voting spaces.
And despite zero evidence of widespread election fraud, that tall tale has staying power.
This is baffling. Arguments backing an alleged rigged election are continually unraveled and discredited in courtrooms, one after another, outside of the media glare.
Most recently in late June, when Colorado resident and former Dominion Voting Systems Vice President Eric Coomer, who was unjustly defamed numerous times and forced into hiding, settled with former Donald Trump attorney Sidney Powell.
That makes settlement No. 6 in the larger defamation lawsuit against Douglas County podcaster Joe Oltmann, host of the Conservative Daily, who claimed “Eric from Dominion” said on a call that he was going to make sure Trump lost.
Spreading like wildfire, this disinformation was picked up by the OAN network, then repeated by the Trump campaign, along with Powell and Rudy Giuliani. And it caused much harm.
In his 2020 lawsuit, Coomer identified more than a dozen individuals and companies that made him the villain in the narrative of baseless claims of election fraud. He has since filed additional lawsuits against Denver-based conservative radio host Randy Corporon and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell.
In 2021, Newsmax not only settled with Coomer but had to issue a subsequent retraction.
“Newsmax has found no evidence that Dr. Coomer interfered with Dominion voting machines or voting software in any way, nor that Dr. Coomer ever claimed to have done so,” Newsmax’s statement read. “Nor has Newsmax found any evidence that Dr. Coomer ever participated in any conversation with members of ‘Antifa,’ nor that he was directly involved with any partisan political organization.”
You’d think that retraction, along with Dominion’s $787 million settlement with Fox News over false election claims, would have decided the matter. (Coomer was not part of Dominion’s lawsuit.) Disingenuous actors have lost credibility, jobs, and spun out and away.
Still, we hear fraudulent-election talk. This makes no sense.
In New York, a court found Giuliani told numerous lies that were “designed to create distrust in the elective system of our country in the minds of the citizens and to destroy their confidence in the legitimacy of our government.” Trump’s former key White House adviser Steve Bannon hawked disinformation, too.
Giuliani cannot practice law in New York and Bannon is serving a four-month prison term for defying a House panel subpoena for documents and testimony concerning the Jan. 6 insurrection, and Trump’s efforts to overturn election results.
Yet, Trump is strong in polls in the race to become president.
At the media panel, guests were asked whether their newsrooms are “pro-democracy.” Since 2016, it’s a common question and the familiar response is that we’re pro-truth.
And we have much work to do. We’ll keep following the facts and providing context, going down that road wherever it takes us.
And listening, listening, listening to what voters have to say.
