During his 2022 campaign, Secretary of State Chuck Gray sponsored several showings across Wyoming of the controversial film “2000 Mules,” which alleges that rampant “ballot harvesting” in swing states stole the 2020 election from former President Donald Trump.
Though fact-checkers and critics have previously debunked the film’s claims, the story remains a fixation in the minds of some politicians. Gray himself, whom Trump endorsed, ran in part on the promise to quash voter fraud and ban ballot drop boxes.
But the conservative nonprofit whose claims the film was based upon — True the Vote — has no evidence to back its assertions that widespread voter fraud occurred in one of the swing states examined in the film, the organization’s response to a court order shows.
Attorneys for True the Vote said in a written response to a judge’s order that the organization didn’t have recordings, documents or other evidence backing its claims of widespread voter fraud in Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported earlier this month.
This admission came about after True the Vote filed complaints in 2021 with the Georgia secretary of state alleging “coordinated efforts to collect and deposit ballots in drop boxes across metro Atlanta” during the 2020 election and a 2021 runoff. Georgia officials subsequently demanded that True the Vote turn over evidence and information about the organization’s claims, and an Atlanta judge eventually ordered True the Vote to do so.
But it didn’t have such evidence.
In response to each request, attorneys wrote that True the Vote doesn’t have in “its possession, custody, or control” this information.
WyoFile sent Gray questions Thursday afternoon about whether this new information has impacted his impression of the film’s merit and whether he would have still chosen to host showings of the film had True the Vote’s lack of evidence come to light sooner. Gray hadn’t responded as of Monday early afternoon.
Though election integrity has been a rallying cry for Gray and other electeds in Wyoming, voter fraud in the state is exceedingly rare, statistics show. Since 2000, there have only been three documented cases of fraud in Wyoming, according to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Gray ran partly on a platform of banning ballot drop boxes — a central focus of the film’s voter fraud claims — asserting that nixing drop boxes is “a basic election integrity and security measure” and that it’s “pivotal” to discontinue their use, the Casper Star-Tribune reported at the time.
In late 2022, Gray’s predecessor, interim Secretary of State Karl Allred, asked county clerks to do away with drop boxes. But none ultimately complied with his request.
Gray hasn’t acted against drop boxes since taking office in January 2023, focusing his attention on other election issues like durational residency requirements — a topic that lawmakers considered in the Legislature this year, but the proposed legislation died Friday.
Gray didn’t respond as of Monday early afternoon to questions from WyoFile about whether he still believes banning ballot drop boxes is important for election integrity and, if so, whether he has taken action to try to get rid of them.
People who have argued against the policies that Gray and others have espoused worry that further tightening election laws could disenfranchise voters more than it will protect against fraud.
My best advice is to be an election judge. You will be well trained. Best of all, you will discover there is no way to slide in, even on an extra ballot. All absentee and drop-off ballots are checked against the roll list of registered voters. If you get a ballot to vote absentee, the roll is marked off that they gave you one with instructions on signing the outside of the envelope. Being part of the process is the best way to verify our voting system works!
Keep at Gray. He knows he’s espousing false information and should be made accountable. If he claims he did not know – that demonstrates unfitness for office because he lacks critical thinking skills.
It’s very simple one person one verifiable vote. Anyone who tells you this is racist against those angry black women on rented busses is a liar and enemy of this country
What bothers me most about Gray’s pitch is that he is asking us to distrust our neighbors. Even casual readers of history should recognize this behavior.
Is it just me, or is the real fraud here Chuck Gray?
I recommend to all that you read Liz Cheney’s book Oath and Honor. She had the courage to stand up against the lies and disinformation campaign spread by the previous administration and trumpeted on Fox news.
It is worth noting that none of the voter suppression bills that Mr. Gray advocated in front of the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee has become law. Several were approved by that committee, but none of them passed the House this session.
Hmm, for a guy who had a whole lot to say about perpetuating a scam, now his lips are sealed after getting debunked
The really scary thing is Chuckee could become governor. Yikes
He knew there was no fraud but he kissed the orange blob and his wishes can true. He turned into a frog
“Evidence to the contrary, I know it’s true.”
Chuck Gray is all hat and no cattle, to put it politely.
Mr. Gray’s administration of a what was sound and valid election system, is now a dumpster fire that no one has the fortitude to extinguish.
When it comes to Wyoming elections , the only fraud we can confirm is Chuck Gray himself.
I don’t think anyone is surprised by the lack of evidence or by Grey’s lack of response. I was pissed when he showed up in Evanston with that film that I already knew wasn’t based on any factual evidence, but rather more conspiracy garbage. The question is, do voters care that the GOP candidates they are voting for run on a platform of lies? My guess is they don’t.
Todays GOP seems much more interested in limiting voters, than it does in winning people’s votes with good policy and governance. Could it be that the misinformation they’re peddling IS the fraud they’ve been so busy looking for?
They don’t have evidence because we can only speculate on the information they presented. Does this mean that the film is misleading? Or is it just as possible that it hit the nail on the head. How would you prove what ballots were deposited in the footage or by those who’s data tracks them visiting the boxes on so many occasions? It is likely to believe it is not the loser of the election.
It’s common sense and yet here we are attacking our those who might defend the integrity of voting by pushing back on the vulnerability that drop boxes creates.
Just stop Tim. Realize that you were lied to and manipulated into believing nonsense. The stolen election fantasy is just that…a fantasy. Find the intestinal fortitude to be honest with yourself and stop perpetuating lies and nonsense.
How would you prove that? Georgia officials identified the individuals depicted in the film and were able to confirm that each of the ballots deposited by those individuals shown in the surveillance footage did in-fact correspond to legal, legitimate ballots by legitimate voters that were deposited in the drop-box and collected that same day from the drop box in accordance with Georgia law. (It is legal in Georgia to return completed ballots for family and household members, which is what those seen in the film were doing). The film only showed video footage from Georgia and no other state. Much of the footage shown in the film was not even from the November 2020 election as claimed, but instead the 2021 Georgia runoff election. Some ‘footage’ in the film is actually dramatizations using a paid actor who is listed in the film’s end-credits, and not genuine footage of anything at all.
The film did not show a single person visiting multiple drop boxes or visiting the same drop box multiple times, nor did it show anyone depositing more than a handful of ballots (which again, is legal in Georgia). The film did not show ANY tracking data at all, let alone data that actually showed the things the film claimed. The film’s creator publicly stated that he did not analyze True the Vote’s tracking data, despite his many claims about that data in the film.
At this point, it isn’t fully clear that TTV even has any such data, let alone data that actually backs up the claims they have made about ‘mules’. TTV has never publicly released that data despite repeated promises to do so. And TTV alleged very specific crimes in specific detail, claiming to know specific individuals and organizations who perpetrated and participated in those crimes while stating that they had the hard evidence to prove it all. They were not merely speculating when they did that. Those are clear, testable claims.
Georgia Law enforcement took those allegations seriously, opened a criminal investigation, and asked TTV to turn all of that hard proof they claimed to have over to them. They did not do so voluntarily, so they were subpoenaed for that evidence. They did not comply with that subpoena, instead trying to claim that they had already provided everything that law enforcement asked for (which was not true). When that did not fly in court, they were ultimately forced to admit to the court the truth: that in-fact, they don’t have *anything* that they claimed to have, and therefore they could not comply with the subpoena because the information being sought by the subpoena didn’t actually exist in their possession at all. The Mules narrative is not merely just misleading. It is a complete and utter fiction, and a malicious one at that.
Gray lied to the fox news gullibles to get voted in. He’ll continue the stolen election fantasy because he knows the wyoming electorate is made up of gullible boomers who believe everything they read on the internet and see on the two TV channels they watch.
GIGO
This ‘boomer’ is offended at being lumped into a category I disdain, those misinformed loser lovers. Baby Boomers are of many minds and the ones I know are smart about civics and history, follow many sources for news, reject ageism and always vote.
My apologies for using the boomer generalization. However, as with any generation, there are rational and there are those who aren’t rational. In Wyoming, the gullibles of the baby boomer generation far outweigh those that are rational. When you vote for one political party instead of for the candidate it’s easy to be manipulated. It’s evident by the clowns that keep winning elections in the political circus that has become Wyoming.
Electing a liar to an office and expecting integrity is the funniest thing I will read all day. The logic and hypocrisy of republicans never fails to disappoint. They claim to believe in a guy that did not lie while breaking the 9th Commandment each and every day.
Whenever a politician, including our federal reps, lies to the public they should be disqualified and kicked out of office. There’s a lot of propaganda and projecting put out by these numbskulls.
That should also include Harriet Liar Haggeman who peddled that non-factual film and duped her constituents as well. You lie, you’re out.
Yes, she is the worst. Only Trump beats her.