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Bob, the key statement is “If 10,000 votes were switched from Trump to Biden”. What if 10k were switched from Biden to Trump (more likely given Georgia’s history)? What if this is just a bunch of bs like everything else that hasn’t stood up to scrutiny and has been thrown out of court by Trump appointed judges in many cases?
I’ll explain what happened: Someone saw something, didn’t understand what was actually happening, and now we have yet another conspiracy.
We’re talking about election overseen by Republican officials who undoubtedly voted for Trump. Hell, Raffensperger was a MAGA Tumper before Trump was even the front runner in 2016. You don’t think they would be all over this if there was a hint of actual impropriety? It would be like Governor Newsom or Bernie Sanders looking the other way if there was some clear fraud that favored Republicans in their state. It wouldn’t happen.
From the Washington Post:
Fulton County Elections Director Richard Barron refuted those claims on Friday, saying in a public meeting that no observers were ever told to leave the facility.
According to Barron, staff members who had been opening and flattening ballots for scanning started leaving the facility as their duties concluded.
Other election workers started to pack up, Sterling told The Associated Press in an interview. They put prepared ballots back in boxes and away under a table “to close out for the night.” Members of the media and Republican observers began to leave the building too.
Then, the supervisor onsite got a call from Barron, who instructed the team to continue scanning the ballots that had already been prepared. They pulled the same boxes of ballots back out, and resumed scanning, Sterling said.
“These aren’t magical ballots,” Sterling told the AP. “They didn’t show up out of some other room.”
After a short period when observers weren’t present, an independent state election board monitor arrived to oversee the scanning at 11:52 p.m., Barron said. A state investigator arrived at 12:15 a.m. Both individuals remained at the facility until the count concluded for the night, he said.
The Georgia secretary of state’s office said it was aware of the late-night counting, and confirmed that both its investigator and an independent monitor observed scanning “until it was halted for the night.”
The office said it had launched an investigation into why partisan poll observers left before scanning ended.
The president’s team is “intentionally misleading the public about what happened at State Farm Arena on election night,” Gabriel Sterling tweeted Friday. “They had the whole video too and ignored the truth.”
NO MALARKEY
RJ,
Here’s another point of view. [I feel bad for Francis Watson, mentioned below. No doubt she is about to get a ton of death threats and harassment.] Some excerpts:
The officials said the ballots seen in the video were in regular ballot containers — not suitcases — and they had been removed from their envelopes and processed while news media and election observers for the Republican Party and Trump campaign were present. The media and party observers were never told to leave because counting was over for the night, but they apparently followed workers who left once their job of opening envelopes was completed, the chief investigator for the secretary of state told Lead Stories. The observers were free to return at anytime, she said. Georgia law allows observers, but does not require them to be there for ballots to be counted, she said.
Frances Watson, chief investigator for the Georgia secretary of state, told Lead Stories during a phone call on December 3, 2020, that the ballots were in standard containers, and the work during the time in question had nothing to do with pulling ballots from under a table. She said:
There wasn’t a bin that had ballots in it under that table. It was an empty bin and the ballots from it were actually out on the table when the media were still there, and then it was placed back into the box when the media were still there and placed next to the table.
A state election board monitor, who asked for his name not to be used due to safety concerns, told Lead Stories on the phone on December 3, 2020, that he was present at the vote counting location beginning at 11:52 p.m., after leaving briefly at earlier in the evening. He then stayed until about 12:45 p.m., when the work that night was completed.
The deputy chief investigator for the secretary of state’s office was present beginning at 12:15 a.m. November 4, he said.
The election monitor also told Lead Stories that between 8 p.m. on November 3, 2020, and 12:43 a.m. on November 4, 2020, the scanners had scanned about 10,000 ballots.
According to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, Biden received 2,474,507 votes, while Trump received 2,461,837 — a winning margin of 12,670 votes for Biden. In other words, the votes counted during this period would not have changed the results of this election even if they all were switched from Trump to Biden.
Sterling said when he looked at the results, “there was nothing abnormal in the distribution of votes.”
NO MALARKEY
Hi Rocky,
I’m not sure where you’re getting your facts. You might provide some sources. Anyway…
As I’m sure you know, turnout, demographics, etc. change from election to election. It depends who’s on the ballot, how the economy is doing, and many other variables. For every statistic that looks odd to you there may be a good reason.
Let’s take Milwaukee (I assume that’s the city you meant). In 2016 black voters in Milwaukee were historically not enthusiastic about Clinton. In 2020 the most reasonable explanation is that the numbers reverted to the mean. And, by the way, black votes overall in Milwaukee were down from 2016. So it seems unlikely they somehow swung the entire state to Trump.
Let’s look at Philadelphia: Trump actually gained votes there and increased his margin vs. 2016 by a couple percentage points.
Let’s look at Pennsylvania. They voted for the Democrat in six straight elections until 2016. Before the last election you have to go back to 1992 to find a Republican win. The last election was the anomaly, not this one. Exactly the same pattern for Michigan — six straight Democratic wins. Wisconsin has been even more solidly blue — until 2016 it voted for the Democrat in every election since Reagan in 1984. The more likely explanation than some phantom voter fraud is that people in those states tend to vote for Democrats and that 2016 was the anomaly.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say the anomalies in 2020, if there were any, are somehow proof of voter fraud, but the anomalies in 2016 just prove that Trump was popular.
If you’re interested in an actual analysis of why Republicans outperformed in Senate and House races, see here:
In reality, Democrats performed about the same in all three races, but the structures through which those results were filtered — the Electoral College, the Senate seats that happened to be up and a House map biased toward Republicans — produced different results.
“Trump was everywhere”. If you’re implying Biden didn’t campaign compared to Tump, I already debunked that. Regardless, this election was a referendum on Trump. Yes, I don’t know many people who were enthusiastic about voting for Biden, but everyone I know was enthusiastic about voting against Trump. They literally didn’t care who was on the ballot. I’ll give you an analogy: just because Duke can fill a stadium and gets high ratings on ESPN doesn’t mean America loves Duke. All the cheerleading of Dickie V. doesn’t make Duke “Americas team” anymore than Trump filling some stadiums makes him some kind of fan favorite. There are far more people that dislike Duke and Trump. They just don’t have rallies about it — though they did party in the streets across the nation when it was finally clear Biden would win enough electoral votes.
NO MALARKEY
RJ, I never implied “the Mormons did it”. You are conflating or confusing two of my posts.
NO MALARKEY
Arizona was a well known swing state long before November, with most signs pointing to a Biden win. Biden also outspent Trump by twice as much during the campaign knowing it was ripe for the picking. Biden also spent more money in Phoenix than in any other market during the final six weeks.
As for the 2012 comparison Dick Morris makes, remember who was on the Republican ticket back then: Mitt Romney. Arizona had (and has) a large Mormon population. In 2008 they represented about 4% of the state, but 11% of the vote. I can’t find the stats for 2012, but I guarantee it was significantly higher with Romney on the ticket. In other words, they accounted for a very outsized proportion of the vote.
Meanwhile you have prominent Mormons like Romney and Jeff Flake (from Arizona) opposing Trump. In 2016 Mormons rejected Trump in unprecedented numbers. And one poll showed it was almost exactly the same in 2020. On top of that you had prominent Republican Cindy McCain (Arizona) also urging voters to reject Trump.
On top of all that, since 2012 Phoenix has been one of the fastest growing cities in country, largely from young tech types who tend to vote Democratic. So it was really no surprise that Phoenix and Maricopa county had a large change in voter demographics.
If you had been paying attention even long before the polls opened Maricopa county was often discussed as one of the biggest demographic shifts in the country away from Republicans and particularly from Trump.
Honestly, this wasn’t a surprise. It wasn’t ballot stuffing. Dick Morris can throw out some stats without any context and claim whatever he wants. But this was not some crazy thing out of left field that could only be “explained” by ballot stuffing. That’s just bunk.
NO MALARKEY
I’m going to go out on a limb (sarcasm) and suggest that in the next four years we will not have open borders, gun confiscations, or closer ties with China.
NO MALARKEY
Hi RJ,
No, Jeff Flake did not cause Trump’s loss. Please don’t twist what I said. I said people like him were the tip of an iceberg. It belied a much larger phenomenon that is unprecedented in any election in my lifetime. I’ve never heard of so many people who were well known figures and/or leaders of their party refusing to vote for their party’s candidate. For every Jeff Flake, McCain, Bush, Steele, John Kasich, etc. there were no doubt untold numbers of conservatives you’ve never heard of who refused to vote for Trump.
Here’s the link you asked for.
I have not ready every post on this board (I work crazy long hours and have many other responsibilities), so you’ll have to point me to the link you’re referring to. I did read many of Rocky’s posts and many of the links in his posts. But the “Morris” analysis doesn’t ring a bell. I tried googling it and only found an analysis that didn’t suggest fraud, so I assume it’s not the one you’re alluding to.Never mind. I found it and responded to Dick Morris’ “analysis”.I remember Rocky posted something about Wisconsin that I read but didn’t have time to respond to. It was something about a record turn-out of 90% (Rocky apparently rounded up; the actual claim was 89%). I did look into that and it was not surprisingly false. Wisconsin allows anyone over 18 to just show up and vote (same day registration). So historically they have counted voter turnout based on eligible voters. The election this year was high — for reasons I stated above, among others — but not the highest in recent history. It was basically in line with recent numbers and lower than the turnout just four elections ago:
2020 — 72.3%
2016 — 67.3%
2012 — 70.4%
2008 — 69.2%
2004 — 72.9%There were also claims making the rounds that the numbers in this election violated Benfords law. Not sure if Rocky posted on that, but that has been debunked as well.
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NO MALARKEY
Trump did lose. I understand there were some “shy Trump voters”, but I think you underestimate the amount of conservatives who genuinely really can’t stand Trump: the so-called “deep state” type Republicans, never Trumpers, so-called RINOs, etc. There were an unprecedented number of such people. They voted down-ticket for Republicans, and thus Congressional and other races still had a strong Republican showing. But there were an unprecedented number of conservatives who refused to support Trump.
The ones we know about are just the tip of the iceberg: people like Lex, Carly Fiorina, Jeff Flake, Charlie Baker, John Bolton, Michael Steele, John Kasich, George Will, the Bush family, the McCain family, probably Romney, The Lincoln Project, etc. I have never seen anything like it.
And remember, Trump’s approval rating never got above the mid 40’s and was much lower most of the time. Trump literally has a cult following, so there are a lot of people who will fill up his rallies, drive pick-up trucks around with flags, wear MAGA hats, etc. They make a lot of noise, but that doesn’t mean Trump is a popular President.
Conversely, there was a lot of talk about “sleepy Joe”. I have a Trump loving friend who liked to compare Trump’s rallies to Biden’s and implied that was evidence that Biden couldn’t possibly win. But I assure you that there was a HUGE amount of energy and excitement on the Democratic side to defeat Trump. Even many of the Bernie supporters held their nose and voted for Biden.
Just look at the celebrations across the country on the Saturday after the election. There were unprecedented spontaneous partying in the streets in cities everywhere. This wasn’t some staged or planned thing like the Million MAGA March. These are the people in my circles. Their excitement and relief was real. It was all they talked about for years — voting out Trump. They didn’t care who was on the ticket. “Any functional adult” was a popular slogan. These people got out the vote like never before. They were lining up weeks before the election for early voting with lines stretching far and wide in unprecedented numbers.
I’m not surprised Trump lost. I’m only surprised it wasn’t a larger margin.
NO MALARKEY
cardcrimson, I’m not so sure about the fraud claim regarding Covid. I understand the incentive and the reason for suspicion. But here’s a counter argument.
My takeaway is that there may be some grifting on the margins, but probably not a massive inflation of statistics.
NO MALARKEY
It made the rounds on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. Here are just a few of many examples:
The Twitter example has hundreds of thousands of views. According to AFR, one version of the video had more than a million views. Did Trump himself retweet it? I don’t think so. But it’s exactly the kind of thing that has gone viral in right wing circles. Just one of the examples above shows hundreds of “shares”. The Facebook example is to a group with 5,000 members. I could go down endless rabbit holes following all the retweets and shares.
NO MALARKEY
Nope. I was against all the Middle East wars, among others, when you were still defending Bush.
I do not want open borders any more than you are ok with 650+ kids being orphaned at the border by the Trump administration’s separation policy.
I don’t want slavery reparations. I don’t know any mainstream liberal, Democrat, progressive, who does. I’m sure you can find a few examples, though.
I don’t necessarily want higher taxes. But I believe in paying for what you spend. In that sense I’m a tax and spend Democrat, as opposed to what I call the spend-and-spend conservatives. I have no doubt that about 30 seconds after Biden is sworn in (if that actually happens) conservatives will suddenly remember that deficits are a problem.
I don’t think one-party rule is healthy. That’s one reason why I was not in favor of Republicans controlling most of the governorships, the Senate, the White House, the Supreme Court, most of the lower court appointments, most state legislatures, and the Presidency. But I’m willing to guess that you voted for Republicans to expand their control over all these branches of government, and more.
I don’t support loss of individual freedom. Of course the devil is in the details. You are probably against certain freedoms I believe in and I’m against some that I suspect you’re in favor of (e.g., I don’t support the right to carry around fully-automatic weapons or hand-grenades, for that matter).
I have been against the CCP for decades. I lived in Taiwan and have been concerned about the rise of China long before Trump started manufacturing his MAGA hats and other paraphernalia there. To the extent that Trump has tried to be tough on China, though, I support what he’s done — though I think the results are far less successful than he’d have you believe. But good on him for trying.
Outsourcing of jobs is not a big issue of mine ne way or another. I think there should be limits on things like H1B visas, for example. I would only note that the free trade policies from the 90’s were originally championed by conservatives. When Clinton signed them it was viewed as him tacking to the right — away from the left.
I am opposed to voter fraud, like anyone else. If illegals are voting then we should lock them up. But if you check out the Heritage Foundation’s study on voter fraud you’ll find that actual cases are de minimis out of literally billions of votes cast in the last two or three decades in state, federal, and local elections across the country. And I’m willing to bet about half of those were done by Republicans.
On the other hand we do know that Republicans have gone to heroic efforts to throw out perfectly valid votes. The latest example was when the GOP tried to throw out 127,000 votes cast in Harris, Texas (heavily Democratic).
I do support centralized healthcare as a safety net — not as the only option. Among developed countries that is not a controversial idea, except in the USA. It doesn’t mean I’m a communist or a Marxist or even a socialist. I simply think you shouldn’t be at risk of going bankrupt if you get a serious illness (in most countries the very premise of Breaking Bad wouldn’t even make sense). I find it bizarre that my healthcare is dependent on my employer to such a degree. Does that make me a radical?
Three or more sexual designations? I really couldn’t care less about that issue to the extent it’s semantic. To your point about freedom, though, I do support gay rights and the freedom of people to identify has non-binary (though the excessive genders has bordered on ridiculous occasionally), and other freedoms that conservatives often frown upon.
Rocky, I know you can afford to live in Marin or wherever you like. I can too – though I do suspect you are richer than me. Good for you.
NO MALARKEY
Some history on Montgomery.
Here’s a good summary on his latest claims.
In summary, conspiracy theories by a guy with a dubious history.
NO MALARKEY
There are any number of articles debunking this. Take your pick.
Here’s what Dominion itself has to say.
From the Dept of Homeland Security
NO MALARKEY
Trump’s chances at this point are virtually 100%. The fix is in. Republican’s and Trump have been touting the “fraud” narrative for years now. And now the disinformation campaign has gained traction with enough credulous people for it to matter. It will now seem “reasonable” to enough people when votes are cast in doubt and overturned in key states.
Republicans control the state legislatures in all the swing states. So the game will be to just contest every ballot in some key states that could swing the election, slow the counting down, and file endless lawsuits. Then after several weeks, shortly before the electoral votes will need to be cast, the state legislatures in a couple of key swing states will declare that they are “forced” to step in and resolve the chaos they created. They will of course then vote to give President Joffrey the electoral votes from their state.
It may not play out precisely like that. Since Republicans also control the courts they may just be able to throw out enough votes, as well, before it comes to that.
Trump is a mortal lock. He won’t win legitimately, but he will be sworn in on January 20th.
NO MALARKEY
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