A week after the election, the Election Integrity Network, a well-funded group that has been at the forefront of the election denial movement, hosted a meeting to discuss next steps. Nearly 200 members attended.
“The red wave came on very slim margins, so it’s very important that we keep in mind during our moments of celebration that we have much more work to do,” Kerri Tolosko, the group’s executive director, said during the conference. meeting, according to a recording reviewed by WIRED. He then added that the group should focus on future elections, including the 2026 midterms, while warning of vague voter fraud conspiracies.
“Obviously we’re not going to leave,” Toloczko said. “We have new elections coming soon. Virginia has one every year. We have the midterms. New elections (mean) new games. We don’t know what they’re playing yet, but I guarantee they’ll be playing something. So we have to find out what that is.”
The group’s founder and former Trump adviser, Cleta Mitchell, continued to push the baseless claim that a flood of illegal immigrants were voting in the US elections, when that number has been shown to be eminently small. He said the group “had a lot of work to do” on the issue and “hoped the incoming administration would take it seriously.”
While Mitchell and the Election Integrity Network haven’t stopped, some groups in the election denial movement are pausing to reassess and see what’s next for them.
Catherine Engelbrecht, co-founder of True the Vote, one of the most prominent voter denial groups that has organized large-scale mailbox monitoring and voter challenges, said last week that she was taking “a brief pause.”
“Our focus is shifting toward supporting grassroots organizations to build local influence and advocate for common-sense reforms,” Engelbrecht wrote on his channel on the fringe platform Locals.
For Lindell, who approaches election denial with the fervor of a religious fanatic, the idea of stopping now is not something that has crossed his mind, even if his efforts have left him with no money and huge legal bills.
“I have to (move on), or we will lose our country,” Lindell says, adding that if he has to borrow money to continue funding his efforts, he will. “I would never trust any election made with computers. “I will never stop until we get the paper ballot, hands numbered.”