2020 continues to bring the crazy

Published 11-12-2020

So... how ‘bout that election night.... and morning?

In my over 25 years of watching American elections, and studying data, trends and voter behavior for just as long, never in my life have I seen anything like what has unfolded in the last week.

And I’m not just talking about the vote reporting and tallying.

Media early calls, the most egregious of those Fox News’s call of Arizona, were very reminiscent of calls made in the 2000 election, and newspapers touting Dewey beat Truman.

We all know how those turned out.

I don’t know how this absolute cluster of a disaster that we are calling an election is going to turn out. I do know the process needs to play out completely, and anyone in the media or elected office saying differently is wrong.

The process of an election is subject to rules and laws set at the federal and state levels. The certification of an election, the official tally of votes cast, is not the same thing as corporate media types reading tea leaves and using hidden voter analysis to call a race.

While America has benefitted from not that close of elections and consent decrees that did not allow Republicans to challenge election results in certain states, it’s only fitting that 2020 brings an added level of insanity that only Presidential elections devolve to.

Every state has different rules for how their members of the Electoral College will vote. I voted for our slate of electors in Tennessee during the Republican Primary, and their votes are tied to state election results.

These rules and laws are different by state.

But federal law, specifically the Constitution, lays out the process for electing a president, and none of it has anything to do with a popular vote, unless you’re talking about the election to seat a state legislature.

Ultimately, and constitutionally, the election results are not official until certification, and a President is not elected until the Electoral College meets every four years, and Congress accepts their results. This year’s vote is scheduled for December 14, 2020. Until then, it’s the Wild, Wild West. And every state has their own procedures for canvassing, checking and certifying their election. Along with their own deadlines.

And ultimately, in a federal election, the Constitution supersedes all other law.

Helpfully, this is why we were treated to endless stories four years ago about faithless electors, and a handful of states passing laws to award their electors to whomever wins the popular vote. Quite curious though, thinking back, about why Democrats were so against the claims of vote fraud raised by Jill Stein in 2016. I understand why the Trump team didn’t want to kick the hornet’s nest, but hindsight is always clearer.

And there were those pesky Russians.

Claims of fraud are prevalent in every election. And not just claims, but actual proven fraud. Dead voters, unverified registrations, “found” ballots, deadline extensions via judicial rulings that clearly go against the intent of the legislatures are just a few of the ways our vote is weakened. Newer methods of fraud, including ballot harvesting, are new adaptations of the same shell game that Democrat cities have been running for years.

My joke last week, about Philadelphia finding ballots in car trunks wasn’t too off the mark. I just didn’t think big enough.

Mail in ballot fraud is a huge issue, as the Carter-Baker Commission found back in the early 2000s. Our own State Department has helpful metrics to help judge if foreign elections are fair. It involves statistical analysis of votes (which follows mathematical rules and laws) and lists ways to tell if an election is clean.

Is it too much to ask, as the leader of the free world, that the United States follow the election guidelines we require of countries that receive federal funding?

Election experts have found as much as 7% fraud on average in any given election. In an election where upwards of 150,000,000 people voted, well, you can do the math, but that’s a lot of disenfranchised voters whose choices were nullified by way of illegal votes.

Razor thin margins, late vote counting (as is being done in Pennsylvania contrary to state law), same day registrations, dirty voting rolls and lack of ID and signature checking are just some of the problems we made worse with COVID-19 changes to push for mail in balloting.

Voting systems controlled by a few private companies, with hidden source codes and zero accountability to those who use them are another source of the problem.

Did you know that the servers that house our ballot results and ongoing counts are located overseas? And not to get too not the weeds with this, but groups that have gone back to audit digital vote counting in 2018 have found error logs and audit trails (necessary for recreating what happened within the software as counts were ongoing) can be manually overwritten and erased remotely?

The further you dig, the worse the stink gets.

Glitches happen, as anyone who’s used a computer for any length of time knows. “Glitches” that only change vote totals in one direction aren’t glitches. That’s just not how any of this stuff works.

You know what would put all of this to bed though? President Trump conceding. That’s one call I can feel safe in making. He won’t... until the courts have had a say, and the legal votes have been tallied. Which is why everyone in power has rushed to try to force President Trump’s hand... hard, to the point of recruiting Never Trump and no spine Republicans to speak out against the “division and uncertainty” Trump is causing.

Excuse me while I laugh out loud. Hysterically.

Hillary’s endless parade of appearances spouting Russian collusion would like to have a word.

It’s very telling that those in the media, who haven’t yet understood Trump’s motives to run for President in the first place - or the motives of those that voted for him - think that media noise is enough to stop Trump from waging a proverbial war on the Left’s most powerful institution, the media.

Have you been paying attention the last four years, at all? The man can not give up, it’s not in his DNA. Nor will he, until his legal right to challenge results are exhausted.

As would be the right of Vice President Biden, were the roles reversed. One I would have no problem allowing or favoring. DNC super lawyer Marc Elias, who has spearheaded all DNC election litigation before the Nov. 3 election, would be parked in front of the Supreme Court if that was the case, after having his team of thousands of lawyers cue up lawsuit after lawsuit in states they wished to challenge.

None of this is going to be over for awhile. Canvassing, audits and affidavits are going to be in the news a lot over the next couple weeks. And any American who values their vote should welcome it.