Concerns over the security of the 2020 presidential election is proving to be a major issue of contention in Alabama’s 2022 race for the U.S. Senate.

Former President Donald Trump recently withdrew his endorsement of U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville), saying that the congressman had insufficiently directed attention to the previous election. As U.S. Army veteran Mike Durant and former Business Council of Alabama CEO Katie Britt vie for Trump’s endorsement, election integrity has emerged to the forefront of the race.

Due to the significance of the issue and Trump’s popularity among Alabama’s Republican base, Yellowhammer News posed a series of questions to the candidates regarding the topic of the 2020 presidential election.

The response format is intended to provide clarity to each candidate’s position concerning the subject matter of each specific question.

In one word, do you agree with President Trump that the 2020 election was stolen?

Durant: Candidate did not respond in format requested.

Brooks: “Yes.”

Britt: Candidate did not respond in format requested.

If yes, how specifically was the election stolen, and by whom? If not, would you call on President Trump to stop using that rhetoric?

Durant: “I believe that Joe Biden was not rightfully elected and the American people were robbed of four more years under President Trump because of unconstitutional changes to the process. The Democrats changing election laws and the liberal media’s cover up of Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal are just two examples of the many injustices against President Donald Trump in the 2020 elections. The Hunter Biden laptop issue alone is likely enough to have changed the outcome of the election. The media also failed to acknowledge the effectiveness of President Trump’s policies and instead took every opportunity to attack him.”

Brooks: “Given space and time, I would give an answer far greater and with much more specific evidence than what I offer herein. For brevity purposes, I focus on only three major systemic flaws in the 2020 elections. I could add electronic machine computer programming issues, voting by dead people, voting by people who are not residents of the state they voted in, illegal voting by criminals, voting by people who are mentally incompetent (government investigations reveal this is a particularly grievous problem in Wisconsin), etc., etc.

As I repeatedly stated in the heat of the battle, between November 3, 2020 and January 6, 2021: ‘If only lawful votes cast by eligible American citizens were counted, it is my judgment that Donald Trump won the electoral college.’

For emphasis, pursuant to the U.S. Constitution and 3 U.S. Code 15, Congress (not courts or judges) is the final judge, jury and arbitrator over who wins and loses all federal elections for Congress, the Senate and the Presidency. Supreme Court rulings are inferior to the determinations of Congress. Period.

In my judgment tens of millions of ballots were illegally cast. Each illegally cast vote casts doubt on reported election results. In no particular order:

i. Based on ten different items of evidence I submitted into the Congressional Record on January 6 (the bulk of which were federal government studies, laws and documents), anywhere from 880,000 to 1.72 million illegal aliens and other noncitizens voted in the 2020 presidential election, giving Joe Biden a nationwide net gain of anywhere from 528,000 to 1,032,000 illegal votes. Voting by noncitizens, alone, likely changed the election outcome.

Joe Biden aided, abetted, and incited illegal noncitizen voting when he, at the October 22 presidential debate in Nashville, publicly solicited the illegal alien block vote by promising illegal aliens the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Joe Biden promised: ‘Within 100 days, I’m going to send to the United States Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people.’ Wow!

ii. Per Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress has absolute authority over the ‘times, places and manner of holding elections’ for federal offices. State legislatures have secondary authority and state laws govern except when they conflict with Congressional mandates. No other state or federal governmental entity has authority over elections.

U.S. Code Section 2 U.S.C. 7 set November 3rd, 2020 as the ‘day for election.’ For emphasis, Congress did not set an election week, month or season. Congress set an election ‘day.’ The essence of an election is voting, on that ‘day,’ not at some other time. Congress also set limited exceptions for when citizens can vote ‘absentee,’ outside that election ‘day’ (handicapped, out of the country, serving in the military, etc.).

In Georgia, Pennsylvania and a number of other states, unauthorized individuals (secretaries of state, judges, etc.) set election ‘times, places and manner’ in violation of Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution. Further, various state legislatures violated Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution by setting election ‘times, places and manner’ that conflicted with federal statutes passed by Congress.

By way of but one example, the mass mailing of tens of millions of ballots by various states violates Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution. This mass mailing of ballots cast a dark cloud of uncertainty over the entire election process because, as determined by the 2005 bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, mailed ballots ‘(increase) the risk of fraud,’ ‘has been one of the major sources of [voter] fraud’ and ‘vote buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail.’

As I argued on the House floor, states that mass mailed ballots rendered their own reported results ‘unreliable, untrustworthy, and unworthy of acceptance.’ As such, their reported results should be rejected.

iii. Numerous states do not require photo identification and some states require no identification of any kind! The lack of photo identification opens the door to voter fraud and paid election thieves. As the 2005 bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform stated, ‘Photo IDs currently are needed to board a plane, enter federal buildings, and cash a check. Voting is equally important.’ The Commission went on to add, ‘The problem . . . is not the magnitude of the fraud. In close or disputed elections, and there are many, a small amount of fraud could make the margin of difference.’

States that do not require photo identification render their results untrustworthy and those state submittals of their electoral college results should be treated with the suspicion they deserve.”

Britt: Candidate did not respond.

In one word, would you have voted to certify the 2020 election results?

Durant: “No.”

Brooks: “No.”

Britt: Candidate did not respond.

In one word, is Joe Biden the rightfully elected president of the United States?

Durant: “No.”

Brooks: “No.”

Britt: Candidate did not respond.

If not, do you believe Joe Biden should be removed from office and Donald Trump immediately be reinstated?

Durant: “Joe Biden continues to damage our national credibility, our economy and the future of our country each day he is in office. The only constitutional way to remove him at this point is to impeach him, which I would support, but I have zero confidence in the Vice President so we are forced to endure the remainder of this term. Every day that he remains in office is a disaster for America and everyone who supported Joe Biden for President shares that responsibility.”

Brooks: “My desires, opinions and beliefs are immaterial. The U.S. Constitution and U.S. Code answers this question and they plainly state that Congress must, on January 6, 2021, determine who the president will be. The Constitution permits no appeal from that January 6 vote by Congress. There are no ‘do-overs’ after January 6. Period. I support the rule of law. I took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution. I honor that oath. As such, I state there is no legal path by which Donald Trump can ‘immediately be reinstated.’ January 6, 2021 was the key date. That date has passed.”

Britt: Candidate did not respond.

If elected, what specific steps will you take to address election security issues?

Durant: “First, Voter ID is an absolute must. Until we have it, we cannot be certain that every vote is being cast by a legal US citizen granted that right by the Constitution. We also need to ensure that the Democrats are not able to change the rules like they did to help Joe Biden in 2020. By making voting by mail easier than showing up in person, states were begging for fraud – on top of that, states like Pennsylvania accepted ballots after election day. We need to strengthen the laws on voting methods, ensure we have reliable chain of custody with ballots and make sure only citizens are voting.”

Brooks: “I have been the target of voter fraud and election theft. In one of my elections, Democrats rigged 25% of all voting machines (11 out of 45) to register votes for everyone on the ballot . . . but Mo Brooks. That experience motivates me to do everything possible to prevent voter fraud and election theft. By way of example but not limitation, I fight against Democrats’ House Resolution 1 (the ‘Voter Fraud Enhancement Act’). I fight for the recommendations of the 2005 bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform. As confirmed by Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward’s endorsement of my candidacy, I support forensic audits in each and every state. I fight against fraud-tainted mass mailing of ballots. I fight for voter photo identification. I fight against voting by noncitizens. The list is endless. The problem, however, is that America has elected too many Democrats and RINOs. Heck, even one of the Republicans in our own Alabama delegation voted to make it illegal for voter registrars to require proof of citizenship when an illegal alien or other noncitizen demands to be registered to vote. We will lose America if citizens do not do a better job of protecting our Republic.”

Britt: Candidate did not respond.

The Britt campaign opted against providing direct responses to the questions above posed by Yellowhammer News and instead sent a general statement regarding the issue of election integrity, which is listed below.

“Ensuring that we have free, fair, and secure elections has been a pillar of my platform since day one. Anyone who can’t admit that President Trump is right that there were historically corrupt issues with the 2020 election simply isn’t paying attention to the facts. I continue to call for a nationwide forensic audit so that we can get to the bottom of 2020. An audit will prove to the nation what happened and how it happened, as well as informing us on how we prevent it from happening ever again. We cannot move on until this occurs, because right now there is a crack in our democracy that — if left unaddressed — could cause it to crumble.

Here are facts we know and what we need to do:

1. Democrat operatives systematically used the pandemic as the excuse to implement Nancy Pelosi’s electioneering power grab that she’s been working on for decades: ballot harvesting, unlimited drop boxes, and no signature verification. She introduced a bill to implement this plan the day after President Trump was sworn in. When she couldn’t get it through Congress, Democrats seized on the opportunity presented by the pandemic, unconstitutionally circumvented state legislatures, and implemented these tactics on the local level. This allowed Democrat operatives to run up the ballot count in key cities. That’s why on day one as Alabama’s next U.S Senator, I will cosponsor Senator Bill Hagerty’s PROTECT the Electoral College Act, which would require a state-by-state audit of the 2020 election.

2. Big Tech and the Mainstream Media systematically suppressed news stories that would have harmed Joe Biden in the days before the election. The New York Times just admitted this in the last few weeks when they said that Hunter Biden’s laptop was authentic. The Mainstream Media colluded with former deep state operatives and refused to report on this story in the days before the election. Even worse, Big Tech social media platforms censored the New York Post, one of our nation’s oldest newspapers, because they dared to tell the ugly truth about the Biden family. This is why we need to reform or replace Section 230.

3. Big Tech billionaires literally fueled Democrat’s electioneering operation, pumping their money into selected local election operations to inflate the vote there, but not elsewhere. Look at the investigation in Wisconsin, where it was found that Mark Zuckerberg pumped millions of private dollars into local jurisdictions. Since when are elections administered via private grants? This is a public function, and we cannot allow biased Big Tech billionaires to sway elections.

All of this is why we cannot afford to put the 2020 election in the rear view mirror. We need to take back the House and the Senate and stand strong for free, fair and secure elections. If we bury our heads in the sand and allow the far-left, the Media, and Big Tech to get away with these types of power grabs, and maybe more, we will lose our country, and we will not be putting Alabama or America first.”

Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL