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.)
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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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