Election Fraud and the Bigger Lie
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By now, I thought we would have all moved on from this wearisome topic, but Donald Trump and his supporters are nowhere near giving up. Many who lean right seem to be sold on some form of 2020 election illegitimacy.
Last week, Breitbart posted Pollak: The Real ‘Big Lie’ Is That the 2020 Election Was Free and Fair. When it was brought to my attention, I had to respond.
A few things to clarify up front
There had to be some real fraud in the 2020 election. In my own state of Wisconsin, for example, an audit identified 27 possible cases of fraud out of 3 million votes. Assuming other states have similar or worse numbers, some of these cases will turn out to be real fraud. So, let’s clear some fog:
- There was some fraud in the 2020 election.
- Almost nobody disputes that!
- The real question is this: Was there enough fraud and other misconduct in the 2020 election to render it illegitimate, “deeply corrupt,” not “free and fair,” etc.?
Pollak, and many others answer emphatically, yes. It’s supposed to be one of the things that separates real Republicans from RINOs and traitors. It shows which side you’re on, and there are only two choices: the right and the left. Us and Them.
But every chance I get, I encourage people to approach questions like these differently. How about not taking the side of the left or the right, but taking the side of reason and truth and letting that take you where it will? Let’s reject our cultural habit of doing IFF first and evaluating truthfulness later (if ever).
I want to respond to some of Pollak’s statements individually, but first, let’s get factual. There’s way too much opinion out there these days!
All the contested states certified their election results. Most conducted audits and investigations of one sort or another resulting only in minor adjustments to vote totals.
- Pennsylvania: Risk-Limiting Audit Pilot of November 2020 Presidential Election Finds Strong Evidence of Accurate Count (This was a Republican-led initiative.)
- Michigan: Post-election audit report confirms accuracy and integrity of Michigan’s election (These were bipartisan audits.)
- Georgia: Historic First Statewide Audit of Paper Ballots Upholds Result of Presidential Race (Another Republican-led process.)
- Nevada: Facts vs. Myths NEVADA 2020 POST-GENERAL ELECTION (Republican Secretary of State. See also: Nevada review finds no evidence to support GOP voter fraud claims)
- Wisconsin: Wisconsin election officials flagged just 27 possible voter fraud cases. (More: All the audit details. Regarding unprosecuted cases of alleged fraud, this scenario is not uncommon.)
- Arizona: It’s a mess. A highly-politicized “audit” effort is going on there now. Facts: There was a hand count months ago. The final election result was certified with the support of Republican gov. Ducey (more details at Fox).
Miscellaneous other facts worth noting
- The Heritage Foundation has a searchable database of fraud cases. Many grab that top number of “1,328 proven instances” without noticing that these have accumulated since 1979. The database lists 17 fraud convictions in “disposition year” 2020 and 13 for 2021. 2016 alone has 62, and 2011 has a whopping 126. I assume “disposition” is later than “date of vote,” so we don’t have meaningful numbers for the 2020 election cases yet. Still, so far, they’re on track to be about average or less.
- The possibility that folks might want to cheat during an election didn’t just pop up here in the 21st century. Federal, state, and local authorities have been working to make cheating more difficult for at least 175 years, probably longer (haven’t found anything dated further back than 1845 yet).
Some point-by-point
Pollak is at least clear, so, points for that. His first paragraph:
Democrats and their media satraps are trying to censor anyone who supports what they call the “Big Lie” — the idea that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. But the real “Big Lie” is that the 2020 presidential election was free and fair.
First, the media. These remarks are, at best, distortions. What media are supposed to do is select sources, rejecting those that aren’t credible or that work against the goal of providing the public with good information.
They often fail to do this fairly and often don’t even try. The fact remains that when they filter out clearly counterfactual narratives, they’re doing their job. Nobody owes anybody a spotlight or a megaphone. This is not “censoring.”
Also, where are all the liberals, centrists, or even dissenting conservatives having their say on Breitbart?
Second, the stolen election story. It is, in fact, a Big Lie worthy of the name, and those who promote it deserve to be marginalized. They shouldn’t be “silenced,” but the idea should not be respected as a valid opinion.
Here we run into a major cause of confusion. Many Americans don’t know how to distinguish between fact and opinion. It’s fair to say that the difference isn’t always clear, but frequently—as in this case—it is.
- If anyone who honestly tries can verify it, it’s a fact.
- If people who have nothing to gain, and even people who have a lot to lose, accept it as true, there’s a good chance it’s a fact.
- If it’s only denied by people with strong incentives to deny it, it’s probably a fact.
Those spreading the lie should be marginalized, especially by conservatives. It’s neither “a matter of opinion” nor a harmless notion. It goes against overwhelming evidence and works to weaken confidence in our electoral system. That loss of confidence can only breed future political violence.
Frustration over the perceived illegitimacy of the 2020 election led to the January 6 demonstrations and also motivated the subset of demonstrators who engaged in property damage and violence.
Third, “free and fair” as the bigger lie. Even if it were a lie, “free and fair” is dwarfed by the lie that “the election was stolen,” from the lips of a defeated president who is supposed to be relinquishing his power and legitimizing his successor.
Which lie is “bigger”?
The “lie” that the election was free and fair | The lie that the election was stolen |
Encourages acceptance of illegal or unethical behavior that prevented voters from exercising their rights. | Encourages belief that our electoral system is broken and rights must be defended by other means. |
Promoted by judges, media, and politicians at various levels. | Promoted by media, various politicians, and a President of the United States. |
Results in victims accepting leaders as legitimate even though they really aren’t. | Results in victims refusing to accept leaders as legitimate, though they really are. |
Impacts the future by potentially allowing misconduct to increase. | Impacts the future by potentially ending peaceful transitions of power entirely. |
Overlooks cases of media unfairness and election worker misconduct and/or fraud. | Overlooks numerous court rulings, decisions by legally authorized county and state officials, and the results of numerous audits. |
Trump’s lie is far bigger because of the quality and quantity of evidence it rejects, the potential damage, and who is telling it.
“We should not do what Democrats did after 2016, and spend four years chasing conspiracy theories.”
Is he unaware of the irony here? There was some Democrat silliness after 2016. There was some investigation of entirely plausible potential crimes by the President. That’s not “chasing conspiracy theories.” In 2020 and 21 we have most of the Republican base, nearly all of the right wing punditry and news media, numerous congressmen and senators, and the former president himself defining themselves by conspiracy theories. But I agree with Pollak on this point: “we should not.”
“As I wrote in my ebook, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election …”
He’s selling something. That’s a clue.
“Voters were denied the ‘absolute’ right to a secret ballot [through flawed vote-by-mail systems].”
The mail-in vote issues have been greatly exaggerated. Some states made quick changes in order to try to enable voters to participate in the midst of quarantine, and some of the results were messy. But which is worse, “flawed vote-by-mail systems” or no ability to vote at all?
“American voters knew, as they went to the polls, that the left would not accept Trump’s re-election peacefully. Left-wing radicals posted online plans to ‘disrupt’ the country in the event that Trump claimed to have won a close election.”
What voters knew, if they were paying attention at all, was that a few “left-wing radicals” talked about resistance while a sitting President spread the narrative for months that, if he lost, it was going to be due to cheating and unreliable mail-in voting.
So, yes, some on the left were afraid he would try to steal the election and said some extreme things. They must feel pretty vindicated now, since Trump actually did attempt to steal the election after he lost!
“The 2020 presidential election was deeply corrupt.”
Again, numerous audits, investigations, and court cases—many decided by Trump-appointed judges—say otherwise.
So far, all the hard evidence indicates that the 2020 election was about as free and fair as elections in the U.S. ever are—which is pretty free and fair! The claim that Donald Trump was robbed of victory through fraud is a deceit worthy of the term The Big Lie, and “free and fair” isn’t a lie at all.
For further reading
I recommend the well sourced and well-reasoned work of the factchecking crew at The Dispatch. A sample of relevant Fact Checks:
- Assessing the Various Claims in Mike Lindell’s ‘Absolute Proof’
- Fact Checking Mike Lindell’s ‘Absolute Interference’ Video
- Did the Nevada Attorney General Admit to ‘Changing Signature Verifications’?
- Was the Voter Database ‘Deleted’ in Maricopa County, Arizona?
- Has the Maricopa County Audit Yielded Hundreds of Thousands of Votes?
- Did a Late Night Ballot Dump Let Biden ‘Steal the Trump Landslide’?
- Fact Checking Donald Trump’s Latest Voting Fraud Claims
- Has Michigan Authorized a Forensic Audit of the 2020 Election? No.
- Did Dominion Voting Systems Lose Its Lawsuits Against Giuliani and Powell?
- Does a Viral Photo Show Evidence of Shredded Ballots From the Georgia Runoff?
- Did Democrats Object the Last Three Times a Republican Won the White House?
- Did Joe Biden Receive Millions More Votes Than There Were Eligible Voters?
- Did Detroit Poll Workers Scan the Same Ballots Over and Over?
- Were There ‘More Votes Than People’ in Detroit?
- Fact Check: Addressing Claims That Joe Biden’s Vote Total Is Suspicious
- Did Pennsylvania Have More Mail-In Ballots Recorded Than Were Requested?
- Did a Postal Worker Witness Ballot Tampering in Pennsylvania?
- Did Michigan’s Election Website Show Donald Trump Winning the State?
- Does a Video Show Someone Burning Ballots With Votes for Trump?
Aaron Blumer 2016 Bio
Aaron Blumer is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in small-town western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored for thirteen years. In his full time job, he is content manager for a law-enforcement digital library service. (Views expressed are the author's own and not his employer's, church's, etc.)
Aaron, I don’t believe that an ex post facto survey could prove the things that are claimed because quite frankly, after the votes and recounts are done, the paper trail to any particular ballot is deliberately obscured to keep a secret ballot.
That said, when we’re talking about only 1300 or so convictions, I simultaneously remember times where independent auditors have found hundreds or thousands of apparently impermissible votes in a single election in a single state—things like known felons voting, known non-citizens voting, and the like. And hence it at least gives the strong indication that the reason we have 1300 instead of tens of thousands of convictions for illegal voting because prosecutors aren’t taking up the cases.
And thus the logic becomes “well, we didn’t look for problems, therefore we don’t find problems, therefore there is no problem”—nice tautology, but I don’t know that it proves anything.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Aaron:
Thank you for providing this helpful compendium of resources to refute the baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. I will be directing people to your work on this. Still, if folks take the approach, as many do, that “I can’t prove widespread fraud, but I know it happened”, then unfortunately no amount of sound reasoning and established fact will change their minds. I’m not surprised that worldings think that way, but I’m grieved that so many Christians do. My concern is not primarily political, but spiritual. Conspiratorial thinking that cannot be changed by logic and facts harms Gospel credibility.
Keep up the good work.
I see no reason to be confident either way as to whether the 2020 election was legitimate. My perspective is:
1. There should absolutely be voter ID. If you can’t be bothered to get an ID, then you shouldn’t be voting.
2. I do not know if the election was fair (with a basically correct count) or unfair (with deliberate and election changing cheating).
3. We should all hope that it was unfair. That is, I shutter to think that the majority of our electorate was stupid enough to have chosen Biden. That’s pathetic that we are at this point as a nation.
4. Since this election the liberals have been pushing hard for the type of things that will prevent legitimate elections in the next one. Obviously both sides want voter laws that help their side win. But the liberals seem to know that no voter ID, etc. will help them.
Especially his point #1. If you don’t have an official ID (drivers’ license or state ID card, the latter are often free), you cannot get a decent job, you cannot contract credit, you cannot purchase a home or rent an apartment , you cannot get medical insurance….unless you’re on government aid or earning your livelihood through crime.
Why, precisely, would we want to allow people who are so disengaged from our society (or acting against its interests) to vote?
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
One of the thoughts I wrestled with as I was writing this, but that didn’t make it into the post, is that one reason people are seeing the situation so differently is because of what’s happening upstream. What I mean by upstream is deciding how to decide. So we have differences in what we’ve decided happened or didn’t happen or might have happened, but I think we’ve also got differences in how we’ve decided to decide.
In my own case I’ve decided that I’m going to be as evidence-based as possible. In practical terms, that means if there isn’t high quality evidence, I’m pretty confident it didn’t happen.
But many are coming at this from a very different angle to begin with. They decided ahead of time that there was going to be a lot of cheating and fraud and so forth, and that the left was going to find a way to rip the election away from the rightful winner. So with that as a starting point, absence of evidence isn’t persuasive. They want proof that this fraud didn’t happen. But I want proof that it did.
So what I’m saying is that we’re starting in different places and approaching a conclusion from different directions. It wouldn’t be fair to say opposite directions, because I never thought Republicans were going to engage in large amounts of voter fraud in order to steal the election either. It’s just really not that easy to do.
So the different direction I’m coming from is a point that I think is just better informed about how elections work and the general difficulty of doing anything massive at all one way or the other.
It’s clear to me that there is not really much ambiguity in the situation. It’s not like all the election officials who are Democrats were in favor of certifying and all the Republicans were against it. It’s not like all county and state level Republicans believe there was cheating and all Democrats believe there wasn’t. The pattern is more like the more focused a Republican official is on national politics the more he or she leans toward fraud stories, but the more focused the official is on local concerns the less likely they are to believe that very much fraud happened.
To me that’s very significant.
Part of my starting point is the conviction that the people closest to where the work gets done are the ones with the most realistic view of the scale of things when it comes to fraud.
And of course I have to answer Dan’s point number three... If voters had actually had a better alternative to Biden, the point would be valid. As it was, not so much.
Oh, and plus one for voter ID also. I’m all for that.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I believe Aaron is correct in this evaluation. I wish I could be as sanguine as he is about assuming elections are fair unless fraud can be proved (as opposed to demanding fairness be proved). As he says, this is an assumption, and all things being equal, a good assumption. But are all things equal?
What continues to bother me is that nearly all the “innocent mistakes” which are unavoidable in any election with more than 150 million voters, seem to favor of Democrats. I’ve raised this issue before, and nobody has given a satisfactory answer. If the mistakes are truly innocent, half should favor Republicans, and half Democrats. If the mistakes nearly always favor Democrats, it looks like somebody is cheating. If that is true (an assumption based upon the above observation), we have no way of knowing how much success the Left had in undetected cheating, either because it occurred in precincts where election officials are all Democrats, or is impossible to trace once the ballots are cast. I believe this fuels wide-spread suspicion. Add the observation that it is Democrats who consistently oppose efforts to eliminate opportunities to cheat like voter ID and vote harvesting. Why this animus against anti-fraud measures? Until nearly air-tight controls are implemented, suspicions regarding stolen elections will continue. To some, it appears that Conservatives have to win by several points to be guaranteed enough votes to overcome cheating which tips the scales in close elections in favor of Liberals.
G. N. Barkman
Personally, I claim no expertise on elections.
I have neither the time nor the interest in trying to discern what happened in November.
Furthermore, even if there were “absolute proof” that the election was stolen, I do not foresee that anything would be done about it.
That being said, I think that any honest person would have to admit that this election cycle had numerous bizarre elements and twists and turns.
Also, I will feel much more confident that Wisconsin’s elections are “free and fair” the next time this does not happen in a statewide contest: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/11/04/play-play-wild-overnight…
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
Aaron,
I would say that much of the different views that people had were based on the importance they placed on certain elements. For example, many people viewed the fact that a state had a large portion of votes going toward Trump and then overnight it switch to Biden. So those individuals placed a lot of importance on the fact that this sounds “fishy”. It further played into their suspicion.
[Paul J. Scharf]Personally, I claim no expertise on elections.
…Also, I will feel much more confident that Wisconsin’s elections are “free and fair” the next time this does not happen in a statewide contest: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/11/04/play-play-wild-overnight-…
I think every American should find out how elections work in their state… though it’s similar in all of them, best I can tell. I’m not saying every detail of how they work, but a basic outline. (Here’s a very basic one for Wis.: https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/How-Your-Vote-Gets-Counted)
In the case of Wisconsin, the state senator for our area (Republican) was formerly (and maybe currently?) chair of the Assembly Elections and Campaigns Committee. Her take on election integrity in Wis. was very helpful to me in the early weeks after election day. While she would not denounce the stolen election story (to my disappointment), she seemed indignant at the idea that there was widespread fraud in Wis. She’s worked in elections for a lot of years and put a lot of work into it. Later, as things got more and more politicized in the national sense, she was batting more for reform in Wisconsin. But in her letters to constituents it was never clear to me if she wanted reform to stop fraud or wanted reform to stop false allegations of fraud.
Either way, tightening the ship is a good idea, and I have not doubt that progress will continue… though the legislature in Wis. seems a bit extreme in some of what it seems to be trying to do at the moment. I don’t know what Evers will sign or what they can mange a veto-override for.
[dgszweda]Aaron,
I would say that much of the different views that people had were based on the importance they placed on certain elements. For example, many people viewed the fact that a state had a large portion of votes going toward Trump and then overnight it switch to Biden. So those individuals placed a lot of importance on the fact that this sounds “fishy”. It further played into their suspicion.
Part of Trump’s strategy seems to have been to claim victory early so that when all the absentee and other mail ballots got counted later (which always takes longer) it would look like he was robbed. But whether this was calculated or not, it was the effect. By badmouthing mail in votes months, he ensured that his own supporters would overwhelmingly vote in person rather than by mail. So, of course, he had a lead early in many areas then lost that lead when his non-supporters’ overwhelmingly mail-in votes were tallied.
It’s not evidence of anything sinister. It’s just common sense… and long-known fact as far as the slowness of mail-vote tabulations piece is concerned.
Two things absolutely no one should see as evidence of shenanigans:
- The later mailed vote tallies swinging away from Trump (for reasons already explained: intentionally or not, he ensured that this would happen)
- That a very large number of unprovable reports of fraud/misconduct poured in during and after election day
About that second bullet, Trump and his supporters worked for months to ensure that people sympathetic to him would expect there to be cheating. Then, as soon as things looked iffy/like he was losing, he used his position as President to call for reports of fraud. There was no way that was going to have any result other than an huge flood of reports and tips from his many passionate fans.
It would have really been weird if there was not a huge number of reports/rumors/stories/affadavits after the propaganda campaign and public appeal for them. People just aren’t like that… anywhere on the political spectrum.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Aaron Blumer]In my own case I’ve decided that I’m going to be as evidence-based as possible. In practical terms, that means if there isn’t high quality evidence, I’m pretty confident it didn’t happen.
This is where I differ with you. In the absence of evidence, I’m not confident that either something didn’t happen or that something did. All I know at that point is that I have no idea if something took place, so I can’t be confident. C.f. the old saying “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
I may be wrong, but it sounds to me as if you think absence of evidence means something didn’t happen because of your (unstated, but fairly clear) assumption that “people just aren’t going to do that,” and your stated one of “it’s just not that easy.”
Elections have been subject to cheating since pretty much the time they were invented. That’s human nature. I expect people to try. As Christians, we understand what human nature is, and we shouldn’t discount it. It should be hard to succeed at election fraud, but with many people doing their best to make sure that mechanisms that would help prevent that are NOT implemented (and many of them weakened in the previous election), it only heightens my suspicions that people want to continue to not only try, but to succeed.
Human nature and opposition to election validation measures don’t mean that wide enough fraud took place to change the result of the November 2020 election. But such opposition also means I’m not just going to whistle a happy tune as many people try to tell me to not worry because it just didn’t happen (even though much evidence was not considered), and that it was the most secure in history, while every effort that can be expended to prevent both forensic audits and secure future elections is being brought into play. Everyone who thinks these elections were so clean should be falling all over themselves to want to show they were as clean as claimed. But apparently, any questioning is not allowed. That is suspicious in and of itself.
I certainly agree with both you and Dan that voter ID should be a no-brainer. I was just reading that 46 out of 47 European countries have voter ID (and only about 14 of them have mail-in voting, some with restrictions), and the one remaining one, Great Britain, still has it for Northern Ireland, and various localities. Interestingly, like here, there appears to be a movement to resist it being implemented nationally. I wonder why that is? I know, I know, there must be some really good reasons to not validate eligibility of voters that have nothing whatsoever to do with cheating. Who is gullible now?
Statements like “it absolutely did not happen” are just as fact-free as statements that “it absolutely did.” It’s just that the former is currently accepted in more “respectable” circles, and the other isn’t. Being accepted doesn’t make something true.
Dave Barnhart
Dave wrote,
Everyone who thinks these elections were so clean should be falling all over themselves to want to show they were as clean as claimed. But apparently, any questioning is not allowed. That is suspicious in and of itself.
What has frustrated me over this whole issue is that many who say that there is no evidence were also saying we were wrong for even looking for evidence.
I am also curious if Aaron believes the conspiracy theory that all the allegations of massive voter fraud were simply the result of a sinister Trump plot.
[JD Miller]Dave wrote,
Everyone who thinks these elections were so clean should be falling all over themselves to want to show they were as clean as claimed. But apparently, any questioning is not allowed. That is suspicious in and of itself.
What has frustrated me over this whole issue is that many who say that there is no evidence were also saying we were wrong for even looking for evidence.
I am also curious if Aaron believes the conspiracy theory that all the allegations of massive voter fraud were simply the result of a sinister Trump plot.
And don’t forget that they were happy to contest the election when Al Gore lost. Hanging chads…
Here is an article that I was looking for, and found: https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/23/5-more-ways-joe-biden-magically-ou…
Does it offer proof that the election was stolen? No.
Does it offer points that gave me significant pause at the time I heard them? Yes.
Did the MSM offer any viable explanation for any of this? Not even close.
Did the Biden team flaunt some of the more incredible aspects of their victory? Not a bit.
The bottom line is that this election produced results that were utterly astonishing … and we barely heard a word about these, shall we say, more peculiar aspects of it. I still suspect that we will know more at some point than we do now.
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
This is where I differ with you. In the absence of evidence, I’m not confident that either something didn’t happen or that something did.
The vital question here is evidence of what? What we lack evidence of is that large amounts of fraud/wrongdoing occurred—enough to warrant the idea of what Pollak calls a “deeply corrupt” election.
But we do not have an absence of evidence that the election was pretty much average. This is actually the starting point and disproving it is where the burden of proof lies. Past experience and patterns are evidence. More than a hundred years of improvements to election processes is evidence. The court cases are evidence. The bipartisan certifications of results are evidence. The inherent difficulty of falsifying votes in large numbers is evidence. I could go on.
Elections have been subject to cheating since pretty much the time they were invented. That’s human nature. I expect people to try. As Christians, we understand what human nature is, and we shouldn’t discount it. It should be hard to succeed at election fraud, but with many people doing their best to make sure that mechanisms that would help prevent that are NOT implemented (and many of them weakened in the previous election), it only heightens my suspicions that people want to continue to not only try, but to succeed.
It is hard, and they were implemented. There were exceptions to some procedures here and there (apparently only a little worse than usual), but nowhere were all procedures to prevent fraud suspended. Not even close.
Statements like “it absolutely did not happen” are just as fact-free as statements that “it absolutely did.”
I’ve already answered that. Evidence. We are talking about probability, so I wouldn’t put the probability of massive fraud at zero. But I would put it at “at this point in time, and in light of the evidence, not meaningfully greater than zero.”
Statements like “it absolutely did not happen” are just as fact-free as statements that “it absolutely did.” It’s just that the former is currently accepted in more “respectable” circles, and the other isn’t. Being accepted doesn’t make something true.
It’s true that being accepted doesn’t make something true. It’s also true that declaring evidence to not exist does not make it not exist. In this case, evidence that things went only slightly worse than usual exists. Evidence that the election was deeply corrupt does not. And because of the distributed nature of our electoral system, it is very unlikely that this evidence even could exist.
I linked to this earlier, but I’m going to paste it here because it illustrates the difficulty. This process happens at the local level. And then has to happen indepenendtly of one another in hundreds (thousands?) of locations across the state. And that’s just Wisconsin. I know not all states are as thorough as Wis. is, but Wis. was—for a while—one of the contested states.
How your vote gets counted
All ballots are counted on election day. Wisconsin election officials track who voted on election day through meticulously maintained poll books. The poll book is a list of all registered voters assigned to that polling place. In Wisconsin, voters may also register to vote at the polls on election day. Every voter is verified at the poll book check-in table by publicly stating their name and address and providing photo ID. If the voter is registered and provides valid photo ID, the voter will sign the poll book and be issued a ballot. Your vote is private, so no identifying information is applied to the ballot. Voters then mark the ballot and place the ballot in the tabulator where it is counted towards the election results.
Absentee ballots are also processed on election day. Election inspectors first verify the absentee ballot envelope meets all requirements, including the presence of a voter signature, witness signature, and witness address. If all requirements are met, election inspectors will open the envelope and place the ballot in the tabulator. These voters are marked with their voter number on the poll book when their votes are counted. The entire process is open to observation by members of the public.
After the election, local election officials review the poll book that voters signed on election day and manually update the voter registration system with who voted in the election. This process takes time. After your vote has been recorded in the voter registration system, you can verify by checking the My Voting Activity section under My Voter Info on MyVote. Note that clerks are allowed up to 45 days after a General Election to record this information in the voter registration system by state statute. https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/How-Your-Vote-Gets-Counted
One more…
Here is an article that I was looking for, and found: https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/23/5-more-ways-joe-biden-magically-out…(link is external)
Does it offer proof that the election was stolen? No.
Does it offer points that gave me significant pause at the time I heard them? Yes.
Did the MSM offer any viable explanation for any of this? Not even close.
This has all been debunked. Look it up at The Dispatch. I’m pretty sure I read the analysis there or at National Review. But I’ll throw in a few quick points of my own.
1. 80 Million Votes
Holy moly! A lot of Americans turned out for a Washington politician who’s been in office for nearly 50 years.
This is entirely ambiguous evidence. It’s not hard to explain. 80 million Americans voted against Trump. A subset voted for a known quantity in a very uncertain time.
2. Winning Despite Losing Most Bellwether Counties
Biden is set to become the first president in 60 years to lose the states of Ohio and Florida on his way to election.
It has happened before. Not all that surprising.
4. Biden Won Despite Democrat Losses Everywhere Else
Also already answered. See #1.
5. Biden Overcame Trump’s Commanding Primary Vote
….First, no incumbent who has received 75 percent of the total primary vote has lost re-election. Second, President Trump received 94 percent of the primary vote, which is the fourth highest of all time (higher than Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon, Clinton, or Obama). In fact, Trump is only one of five incumbents since 1912 to receive more than 90 percent of the primary vote.
Here we have something genuinely unusual. But is anyone here going to deny that Trump is unusual? Add to that that the party that nominated him is in an unusual state. And add to that the fact that Trump does not win over opponents. He intensifies his base and that’s where he put nearly all his energy. Since he never stopped campaigning, he put all that energy into energizing his base for four years.
And now we have a Republican party that is in permanent campaign mode, with the lower standards of accuracy and fairness in criticism—and general lack of honesty—that goes with campaign mode.
And we have scores of guys like Pollak breeding increased discontent, frustration, and belief that the electoral system no longer works. If things don’t turn around, there will be more more lawlessness and radicalism on the right—and, like January 6, it will be driven by lies.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Missed some things…
And don’t forget that they were happy to contest the election when Al Gore lost. Hanging chads…
They did this by legal means. I’m not against that. Law and order. Due process. And when they lost, they gave it up. It’s the opposite of what Trump urged everyone to do on January 6.
What has frustrated me over this whole issue is that many who say that there is no evidence were also saying we were wrong for even looking for evidence.
I am also curious if Aaron believes the conspiracy theory that all the allegations of massive voter fraud were simply the result of a sinister Trump plot.
I don’t know if I sould bother to answer this. Words mean things, to quote Rush Limbaugh. Conspiracy theory has a definition.
What Trump did, he did very openly and publicly and for months. That’s not a conspiracy theory—which always relies on lots of people secretly working together to make something nearly impossible happen. That a President who fired up his base for four years and then sold them in advance on a stolen election story would be able to gin up lots of reports and tips isn’t even slightly improbable.
…wrong for even looking for evidence.
I don’t know who said that, but I can’t speak for them, whoever they are. I’m glad there was lots of looking. There always is. That’s why Heritage Foundation’s database has more than a thousand voter fraud convictions documented in it.
There was lots of looking. There was not lots of finding. It’s past time to stop looking.
I wish I could be as sanguine as he is about assuming elections are fair unless fraud can be proved (as opposed to demanding fairness be proved). As he says, this is an assumption, and all things being equal, a good assumption.
It’s not an assumption in the sense of “someting one decides to accept as true without any evidence.” It’s like sitting in my car at Walmart finishing my coffee before I go in. The people coming out of there are sinners. Someone of have probably stolen things. If I sit long enough, I’m going to see somebody walk out who has stolen goods in his pocket.
Do I look at anyone in particular and think “That guy is a thief because that’s how sinners are”? No.
But more to the point, do I sit there and think “Huge numbers of people are walking out of Walmart with stolen stuff in their pockets and purses”? Why not? Because most people aren’t thieves. And because there is no evidence that this is happening. … and because the place is full of cameras, and there are people watching the registers, and there’s a thing that goes off sometimes if you try to take something out without paying for it, etc.
Now suppose the story is that millions of people actually walked out of Walmart with multiple stolen items each all on one night, even though there’s almost no evidence that this happened.
Oh well, it was an election…. so that makes it plausible. No, it really doesn’t.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Regarding the Gore case, the Democrats’ behavior was not entirely legal, as the Supreme Court did shut down the recounts because the Democrats wanted to keep recounting in places like Palm Beach County—amazingly always seeming to find a few more votes for Gore each time—without applying that to the state as a whole.
Really, that’s a lot of why many conservatives are so skeptical of what happened last year. There were any number of things that were done, sometimes by law but more often by bureaucratic fiat, that seemed to open the door to vote fraud. And as another noted, when the mistakes always seem to benefit one side, statistically speaking, that’s not a random process. That’s a guided process.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
There’s a significant moral and ethical gap between doing a recount of debatable legality and organizing a public protest of an election that has already been settled. The gap is orders of magnatude larger (if such things could be measured in numbers) when the protest turns into storming the capitol building… and even greater when more than a hundred police are injured at the site.
The recount was believed to be legal and was found not to be after due process. Engaging in a process you believe to be justified and later losing your case isn’t the same thing as engaging in a process that is direct resistance to the legal one.
And no, what the other guys did in the past isn’t any kind of excuse for doing something worse ourselves now. It’s a reason to run the other direction toward legality, due process, order, calm, and insisting on verifiable evidence.
But this is what has happened to the right in a nutshell. It’s no longer particularly conservative and is instead, populist, anti-establishment and increasingly radical and anarchist—often in the form of “they did it first, so we have to fight them by doing it even more” moral reasoning. In other words, it’s thoroughly anti-conservative.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
1) God is sovereign, and Joe Biden is our president.
2) The six states that Biden won that resulted in his victory were all won by very small margins.
3) Some of those states violated their own laws.
4) It is right to seek justice.
5) The overwhelming majority of legal cases were dismissed on procedural grounds, not on merit of the evidence. (If you want me to prove to you that this is a “fact” you can research it on the American Bar Association website. It’s all public record.)
Personally, I would have been satisfied if our justice system saw the evidence, considered the sworn testimony, and made judgments. Procedural dismissals, especially in the quantities we saw after the election, were so numerous that the public has lost confidence in the last of the three branches of government that had some level of respect (record low approval ratings for the legislative branch; an executive branch that produced two of the most laughable candidates in our history; surely the judicial branch was the only one that America still had some level of confidence in). Pro-Trumpers and anti-Bideners largely sought justice, and they got none. We now have states passing new legislation as damage control, drawing deeper lines in the sand. We see what happens to a society where there is no justice - people start taking things into their own hands. Our legal system forsook their responsibility, and so we suffer with the consequences. They could have put so much of this to rest if they did their jobs, but they chose not to - and so here we are.
Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)
Arizona is expected to release the results of an extensive audit of one of their counties where there were numerous accusations of voter fraud and enough evidence of it to warrant such an extensive audit. Perhaps the audit will find that there were reasonable explanations for the apparent evidence. Perhaps it will find that illegal activity took place. We do not yet know. The results are expected in August. I have appreciated that they are waiting to release the results until they have carefully looked over the information. Too many have jumped to conclusions since the election.
Now it appears that Pennsylvania may be ready to do a similar audit. Even the Sec of State in Georgia is now saying there were voting problems there that need to be investigated even though he denied that there were problems right after the election. The point is that it takes time to investigate evidence. Those in government positions and those on SI who immediately said that there could not be any election fraud before there was even an investigation destroyed their own credibility.
Many have pointed to the recounts as proof that the recorded election results were correct. That would be similar to a business being audited by the IRS and simply providing their ledger tallies and asking the IRS agent to re-add them without looking at any bank statements or receipts. If you told the IRS agent that that you refused to provide any additional info but would let him re-add your figures as proof that you did not cheat the IRS, I doubt he would accept your proposal. I am pretty sure there would then be an even more extensive audit.
Unless you’re referring to a different one, the audit in AZ is a very nonstandard partisan effort. It’s more likely to be more divisive than to resolve anything. But if they’re able to produce evidence that holds up to courtroom standards and get convictions, I don’t object to that. I just wonder if it’s a political stunt aimed at finding a way to further muddy the waters and spread the stolen election/extradordinary levels of fraud narrative… and further erode American citizen’s confidence in the system.
Hopefully, they don’t turn up much, and then even though it’s a partisan effort with some questionable practices, it won’t matter much.
Many have pointed to the recounts as proof that the recorded election results were correct. That would be similar to a business being audited by the IRS and simply providing their ledger tallies and asking the IRS agent to re-add them without looking at any bank statements or receipts.
A recount is not just a re-adding of numbers in columns. It’s an actual recounting of votes. In some cases, it’s even a recount by hand vs. an original count by machines. So there is significant additional scrutiny in the process. But bipartisan/nonpartisan standardized audit processes are another big step up from that.
5) The overwhelming majority of legal cases were dismissed on procedural grounds, not on merit of the evidence. (If you want me to prove to you that this is a “fact” you can research it on the American Bar Association website. It’s all public record.)
This is not as important as it sounds. “Procedural grounds” often means that evidence wasn’t gathered properly or that the cases themselves were too flawed to move forward, or deadlines were passed. These are all rules that exist basically to screen out weak cases. When cases are tossed on technicalities, they’re often relitigated later correctly. So… this is really not saying much.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I am contemplating how we should explain the court ordered audit in Fulton County, GA. https://thegeorgiasun.com/2021/05/21/court-orders-another-audit-of-fulton-county-ballots/ …. Perhaps we should assume that the court was also motivated by partisan interests. Umm, the idea of a partisan court- that is an interesting idea. If audits can be partisan and courts can be partisan, then perhaps recounts and even which votes are accepted and which ones are not could be partisan.
[JD Miller]I am contemplating how we should explain the court ordered audit in Fulton County, GA. https://thegeorgiasun.com/2021/05/21/court-orders-another-audit-of-fulton-county-ballots/ …. Perhaps we should assume that the court was also motivated by partisan interests. Umm, the idea of a partisan court- that is an interesting idea. If audits can be partisan and courts can be partisan, then perhaps recounts and even which votes are accepted and which ones are not could be partisan.
If I’m reading it correctly, the article you linked is about a month old. Coincidentally, that very inspection was halted by a judge only yesterday: https://www.ajc.com/politics/judge-dismisses-most-of-case-seeking-fulto….
Also, in my state of MI this week, every single fraud claim made for nearly seven months, which garnered much media attention and were promoted incessantly by the former president and his ‘Big Lie’ allies was debunked by the REPUBLICAN Senate: https://misenategopcdn.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/99/doccuments/2021062…. Who knows what the, um, unconventional ‘audit’ in AZ will claim, but to date there has been NO proof of widespread fraud in the last election.
I think the fact that courts have been so fickle in this kind of proves my point.
Ken Brown wrote:
If I’m reading it correctly, the article you linked is about a month old. Coincidentally, that very inspection was halted by a judge only yesterday: https://www.ajc.com/politics/judge-dismisses-most-of-case-seeking-fulton..
NBC is reporting the opposite of what Ken posted. That is part of the problem. We do not have accurate reporting. Here is a link to the NBC article from the Associated Press.
Here is a quote from the first line in that article:
A judge on Thursday allowed a lawsuit alleging fraud in Georgia’s most populous county during the November election and seeking a review of absentee ballots to move forward.
Edit added: the article I just linked from NBC/Associated Press was from yesterday.
Audit leader Doug Logan appears in conspiracy theorist election film
The AZ audit is not standard operating procedure for AZ. That much is fact. Its leadership are fringe conspiracy advocates. That’s quite clear also.
It’s hard to see how anything legally weighty could come out of it, but it could be quite weighty with the conspiracy crowd… Which makes it a sure win for those milking that crowd for power and money, regardless of the quality of evidence or legal outcomes.
Checking out the GA situation, but GA has already had so much scrutiny.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
The AJC article is 404 at the moment.
The NBC article reports that the case is going forward but some defendants were dropped.
Henry County Superior Court Chief Judge Brian Amero, who was specially appointed to preside over the case, agreed. He ruled that the constitutional claims against those three entities are barred by sovereign immunity and dismissed them. But he also granted a request by the petitioners to add the individual members of the county election board as respondents in the lawsuit instead.
This seems consistent: Future Of Fulton Ballot Inspection Uncertain After Judge’s Order
And this …..Judge allows Fulton County ballot review case to move forward
…Not that any of this makes the election illegitimacy narratives any more solid.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Aaron, accusing those you disagree with of conspiracy theories while ignoring your own conspiracy theories is irresponsible. What you are doing is commonly referred to as “gaslighting.” Rather than arguing the evidence, you just accuse those who bring the evidence of bringing a conspiracy theory. I am not saying you are right or wrong about your conclusions concerning the election, but you have been wrong in how you have represented those who have different perspectives. Before the conclusions of the AZ audit have even been presented you have already made up your mind to slander its intentions. Simply labeling those who have seen evidence of voter irregularities as conspiracy advocates to shut down the discussion is not the best way to deal with the evidence.
Maricopa County in AZ just announced that they will no longer be using the same voting machines they used in 2020 because they now believe they have been compromised by those doing the audit. We had been told over and over about how secure those machines were and how they could not be compromised and now that they have been in the hands of those hired by the Republican controlled legislature, suddenly they are compromised, yet we are to believe that they could not have been compromised when controlled by Democrats. This is very interesting.
An audit is not an election. What “we were told” was that voters and election officials would find it very difficult to interfere with the voting process. What a team like this crew of “auditors” can do, outside the normal regulatory process, is another question entirely.
The county is probably overreacting and/or pulling a political stunt by replacing the machines, but I can’t really blame them either. I don’t trust this auditing group any more than they do.
Aaron, accusing those you disagree with of conspiracy theories while ignoring your own conspiracy theories is irresponsible.
“Conspiracy theory” has a meaning. I didn’t invent the concept. I do not hold to any conspiracy theories. Never have. Never will.
Rather than arguing the evidence,…
Um… See the article. Lots of evidence and reasoning based on evidence. The views I’ve actually characterized as conspiracy theories… I made that case based on… yup, evidence. It’s all there to read. The funny thing is, the post is whittled down from more than 2000 words. I could easily have cranked out 6000 words more of reasoning from evidence, but this is all so obvious. I find the effort tedious, but wanted to at least push back a bit on Pollack’s foolishness.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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