Conservative publication fact checks election fraud stories
“All of these claims, with the exception of the absentee Georgia ballots (which seemed like honest confusion and could actually have hurt Joe Biden if true, given his general advantage in mailed-in ballots), were shared to bolster the claim that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. And all of them, with the exception of the claim that Pennsylvania reported a batch of ballots all for Biden, were false. (Even that one was missing some context.)” - The Dispatch
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This source asserts that there is statistical evidence that there was widespread election fraud in this election:
https://www.newsmax.com/bruceabramson/fraud/2020/11/13/id/996950/
From this article:
The sole anomaly arose around the most critical number: zero. Based on current tabulations, four states cluster around the zero, showing a victory margin of less than 1%. All four show Biden ahead: Georgia (0.2%), Arizona (0.5%), Pennsylvania (0.7%), and Wisconsin (0.7%). That heavy skew towards one side is statistically anomalous — occurring with probability less than 0.01 (one chance in 100).This finding is robust. Thresholds other than 1% yield similar results. Combined with other statistical anomalies pointing in the same direction; the reports and affidavits of irregularities in ballot printing, distribution, collection and tallying; and the numerous warnings prior to the election that the procedural changes many states put into place compromised the integrity of the election; by far the most likely conclusion is these data were manipulated to favor Biden.
It’s fantasy. What matters in cases of fraud is evidence of specific crimes. It may be possible to manipulate data to suggest some kind of general pattern of foul play, and that sort thing more than meets the standard for supporting conspiracy theories (a very low standard to say the least), but it doesn’t hold weight in a court of law.
I also get the impression the author is not familiar with all the barriers in place that make large scale fraud like he’s suggesting (“millions of votes”) extremely difficult. If it happened, there will be specific evidence.
Interestingly, we have a state senator here in western Wis. who has considerable experience with how elections actually work. An excerpt from her newsletter 11/13 (emphasis added). (Republican, by the way: Kathy Bernier)
As a former county clerk and the current head of the Senate committee dealing with elections law, I strongly believe that the integrity of our elections and the public’s faith in those elections is of paramount importance for our Republic. That’s why I have spent the last several years working to strengthen our elections law, increasing security and transparency, while ensuring that all municipalities across the state are following every aspect of our elections law. Although we are taking allegations of voter fraud seriously, I want all Wisconsinites to know that in recent years we have adopted many election safeguards like Voter ID and uniform early voting rules that make voter fraud in Wisconsin difficult to accomplish, especially on a large scale.
Local election officials are now in the process of certifying the election at the municipal and county levels, before the results undergo the state certification process. Vote numbers from election night are considered preliminary results and are not official until canvassed. After every election the county board of canvass meets. There is always a county clerk, a Democrat and a Republican represented on that board. They will review the results, vote totals for all races, total number of ballots and the final number of voters on the voter rolls. If those numbers do not match it will be noticed. In addition, there will be random audits of numerous polling locations from around the state. Those audits will be available for public inspection.
Most states have similar procedures, but in each state it’s a bit different. So the kind of large scale manipulation the article wants us to believe happened would require multiple distinct breaches of security at multiple levels in multiple states. “Improbable” is understatement.
In any case, where evidence of fraud, etc., can be produced, the courts will require various corrective measures. In some cases, hand recounts will happen. I’m not a prophet or a betting man, but I really don’t think hand counts will change totals much or the final outcome at all.
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.
[RajeshG]This source asserts that there is statistical evidence that there was widespread election fraud in this election:
https://www.newsmax.com/bruceabramson/fraud/2020/11/13/id/996950/
Rajesh, a few items you need to be careful about. First, the source, newsmax, is highly biased to the right. All things are biased. And things biased to one extreme can still generate truth. What I tend to try to do is to capture news across the spectrum. I read between 10-20 news sources a day across both far left, moderate and far right, including those that present high factual and others that produce more opinion pieces. This gives me a better pulse of the truth. What you are finding is that the idea of large scale fraud or anomolies is only found in the far rigth news outlets with limited to moderate factual writing. Even right news outlets like Fox is not propogating these stories anymore. So you need to be careful. Second, the article purports that statistical evidence shows that fraud was committed. The problem is that it doesn’t show actual fraud. This is the problem that the lawsuits are having. A whole slew, I believe 10 were thrown out on Friday. All of them are being thrown out for lack of evidence. Not poor evidence, and not some evidence that doesn’t meet a threshhold, but absolutely no evidence that fraud was being committed or that any counts have been affected. Even the one that was won on Thursday was only about a handful of votes, they were not even counted yet, and had nothing to do with fraud, but a rule that was changed that the court ruled could not be done. Two law firms have now abandoned Trumps lawsuits, because they are increasingly getting cited for lack of ethics and potential contempt because they are knowingly bringing forth frivolous lawsuits with no evidence. Third, the problem with the statistical model you cited is that voting does not necessarily follow a determine set of guidelines that makes statistical modeling accurate. Behaviors and how those behaviors translate into voting can in many cases not follow statistical models. This is why everyone thought Trump was going to loose to Clinton in 2016.
[dgszweda]David, since you consider yourself to be so well-informed and others of us not to be, it would be good to get a key explanation from you. On the night of the election, all of the states that Biden has suspiciously “won” stopped counting when Trump was way ahead in those states. As we know, “miraculously” Biden has “won” everyone of them. Why did they all stop counting on that night?Rajesh, a few items you need to be careful about. First, the source, newsmax, is highly biased to the right. All things are biased. And things biased to one extreme can still generate truth. What I tend to try to do is to capture news across the spectrum. I read between 10-20 news sources a day across both far left, moderate and far right, including those that present high factual and others that produce more opinion pieces. This gives me a better pulse of the truth. What you are finding is that the idea of large scale fraud or anomolies is only found in the far rigth news outlets with limited to moderate factual writing. Even right news outlets like Fox is not propogating these stories anymore. So you need to be careful. Second, the article purports that statistical evidence shows that fraud was committed. The problem is that it doesn’t show actual fraud. This is the problem that the lawsuits are having. A whole slew, I believe 10 were thrown out on Friday. All of them are being thrown out for lack of evidence. Not poor evidence, and not some evidence that doesn’t meet a threshhold, but absolutely no evidence that fraud was being committed or that any counts have been affected. Even the one that was won on Thursday was only about a handful of votes, they were not even counted yet, and had nothing to do with fraud, but a rule that was changed that the court ruled could not be done. Two law firms have now abandoned Trumps lawsuits, because they are increasingly getting cited for lack of ethics and potential contempt because they are knowingly bringing forth frivolous lawsuits with no evidence. Third, the problem with the statistical model you cited is that voting does not necessarily follow a determine set of guidelines that makes statistical modeling accurate. Behaviors and how those behaviors translate into voting can in many cases not follow statistical models. This is why everyone thought Trump was going to loose to Clinton in 2016.
Also, suppose that the situation was the opposite. Suppose that Biden was ahead by hundreds of thousands of votes in 5 remaining states on the night of the election, etc. Suppose all of those states just happened to stop counting on that night and then one by one all of them were “won” by Trump. I seriously doubt that you and others would be just saying, “Oh, well. Nothing to see here. Move on. Votes do not follow statistical models. Etc.”
[RajeshG]Wait, I thought the suspicious thing was that states kept counting the votes into the middle of the night. Now you are telling me they stopped. Can you tell me which states you are talking about that stopped and the times at which each of them stopped? Since you are so well informed, you must know that, since that is the point you are making.David, since you consider yourself to be so well-informed and others of us not to be, it would be good to get a key explanation from you. On the night of the election, all of the states that Biden has suspiciously “won” stopped counting when Trump was way ahead in those states. As we know, “miraculously” Biden has “won” everyone of them. Why did they all stop counting on that night?
Also, suppose that the situation was the opposite. Suppose that Biden was ahead by hundreds of thousands of votes in 5 remaining states on the night of the election, etc. Suppose all of those states just happened to stop counting on that night and then one by one all of them were “won” by Trump. I seriously doubt that you and others would be just saying, “Oh, well. Nothing to see here. Move on. Votes do not follow statistical models. Etc.”
[Kevin Miller]I do not have any independent information of my own to provide to you.Wait, I thought the suspicious thing was that states kept counting the votes into the middle of the night. Now you are telling me they stopped. Can you tell me which states you are talking about that stopped and the times at which each of them stopped? Since you are so well informed, you must know that, since that is the point you are making.
Apparently, there is much dispute about what actually happened in those states:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/nov/04/facebook-posts/battle…
Let the process of the court cases, etc. work itself out and time will tell.
[Kevin Miller]Wait, I thought the suspicious thing was that states kept counting the votes into the middle of the night. Now you are telling me they stopped. Can you tell me which states you are talking about that stopped and the times at which each of them stopped? Since you are so well informed, you must know that, since that is the point you are making.
One thing that’s very interesting here is that you’ve got one body of allegations—those involving the software, mail ballot regulations, and the like, which are mostly being swatted down in court. You’ve got another—that poll watchers were forced out in several places and that people were working until the wee hours—that really hasn’t been touched.
Now the trouble with the latter is that due to anonymous ballots, it’s going to be awfully hard to track down whatever number of votes were fraudulent. But again, the very fact that the law was broken to evict Republican poll watchers is enough, really, to indicate some indication of intent to commit fraud. So is the fact that large liberal cities were doing ballot counting into the wee hours—again, very few people do their best work at 3am, so it is to start a horrendous way of ensuring sound voting.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[Bert Perry] But again, the very fact that the law was broken to evict Republican poll watchers is enough, really, to indicate some indication of intent to commit fraud.In which cities were all of the Republican poll watchers evicted? I know of some cities where the Republicans watchers wanted to stand closer to the counters, but in which ones were they evicted?
Definitely not Detroit Michigan. In fact, Trump-appointed conservative judge Timothy Kelly threw out the case where the Republican pollsters cried foul and fraud.
“Sinister, fraudulent motives were ascribed to the process and the city of Detroit,” the judge wrote, but he found that this “interpretation of events is incorrect and not credible.”
Judge Kenny focused on a walk-through held at the TCF Center on Oct. 29, overseen by Christopher Thomas, who served in senior positions in the state’s bureau of elections for 40 years until 2017 and then came back to help Detroit run its election.
“None of the plaintiff challenge affiants attended the session,” Kenny wrote, referring to the individuals who registered complaints. Thomas worked with numerous other challengers to resolve questions, the judge noted.
This judgment aligned with the city’s own response to the suit, which said that “most of the objections raised in the submitted affidavits are grounded in an extraordinary failure to understand how elections function.”
As for the one city employee who made allegations of other city workers “coaching” voters in how to vote, Kenny noted that her complaints were “serious” but lacking in specifics. “It asserts behavior with no date, location, frequency, or names of employees,” he wrote.
And the judge said the social media postings of at least one person who made allegations, Patrick Colbeck, undermine “his credibility as a witness.” The city’s legal response included screenshots of some of Colbeck’s postings, which talked about a rigged election weeks before Election Day.
Other people in the suit made references to the QAnon conspiracy theory in their social media posts.”
https://news.yahoo.com/michigan-judge-trump-lawsuit-cheating-claims-elections-214059509.html
When I see articles like this, I really wonder if skeptical conservatives that believe there was widespread fraud have voluntarily locked themselves in a conservative-media bubble where they only hear their biased interpretation of events, rather than the actual truth itself. We definitely live in a post-truth culture and it’s not just the progressives/liberals that are peddling false narratives. As this election has shown, it is also political conservatives too.
[Kevin Miller]In which cities were all of the Republican poll watchers evicted? I know of some cities where the Republicans watchers wanted to stand closer to the counters, but in which ones were they evicted?
Let’s ask the question differently. In which of the cities where poll watcher evictions were noted—Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, etc..—were there adequate numbers of poll watchers admitted as prescribed by law. Having seen the counting rooms—large rooms with hundreds of people doing the counting—I have to suggest that “more than zero” is anything but an adequate implementation of the law, which requires equal access for both major parties’ poll watchers.
Really, if a city allows fewer poll watchers of one major party when poll watchers of that party are available. that’s reason for suspicion. The law says equal access.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
[Bert Perry]Let’s ask the question differently. In which of the cities where poll watcher evictions were noted—Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, etc..—were there adequate numbers of poll watchers admitted as prescribed by law.
Let me ask the question differently as well. Do we have the names of any of the individuals from Detroit, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh who were doing their jobs as poll watchers when they were asked by the election officials to leave the polling places? Have any of them specifically come forward to stand in front of a judge to make that claim?
Kevin, it’s my impression that people have come forward under their own names, yes. Here’s a source:
https://www.newsweek.com/michigan-election-affidavits-fraud-trump-15466…
Are all affidavits filed by poll workers? Of course not. But there’s enough complaint to justify a better response than “there was at least one poll watcher in our ten thousand square foot counting rooms.”
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Sidney Powell, a very prominent lawyer on the Trump team, is openly asserting that there was “a pausing of the vote counting”:
“They had this all planned, Maria,” Powell continued. “They had the algorithms. They had the paper ballots waiting to be inserted if and when needed. And notably, President Trump’s vote in the blue states went up enormously. That’s when they had to stop the vote count. They had to go in and replace votes for Biden and take away Trump votes.”I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. Never even heard of such a thing.
Time will tell if anything comes of what she and others are claiming about their having decisive proof of massive election fraud.
Regardless of the final outcome, we must have a righteous accounting of the votes in this election.
https://spectator.org/what-we-must-believe-to-believe-biden-won/?fbclid…
From this article:
In the end, to accept Joe Biden as our legitimate Chief Executive, we must believe the voters hammered the Democrats in congressional, state, and local elections, yet decided to elect the “leader” of their party president. We must believe that he dramatically underperformed among minority voters, yet received 10 million more votes than Barack Obama. We must believe that virtually all of the reliable election bellwethers were wrong. We must believe that all of the elections in the swing states were conducted honestly and that the Venezuelan software used to tabulate the votes was secure. All of this beggars belief. Joe Biden may be inaugurated in January, but he certainly wasn’t elected president.
[RajeshG]https://spectator.org/what-we-must-believe-to-believe-biden-won/?fbclid=…
From this article:
That’s not hard to believe. I voted Republican for congressional. state, and local offices, but I didn’t vote for Trump for president. It’s easy for me to believe that many other people did the same.In the end, to accept Joe Biden as our legitimate Chief Executive, we must believe the voters hammered the Democrats in congressional, state, and local elections, yet decided to elect the “leader” of their party president.
We must believe that he dramatically underperformed among minority voters, yet received 10 million more votes than Barack Obama.The fact that there were about 25 million more votes in this election than in 2012 makes this rather easy to believeWe must believe that virtually all of the reliable election bellwethers were wrong.I don’t think there were very many election bellwethers that were saying Trump would win.We must believe that all of the elections in the swing states were conducted honestly and that the Venezuelan software used to tabulate the votes was secure.I certainly believe that election officials take their jobs seriously and that there are multiple checks within the system to combat any software errors.All of this beggars belief. Joe Biden may be inaugurated in January, but he certainly wasn’t elected president.The votes of the American people say differently.
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