Every legal vote
The Democrats’ mantra is “count every vote,” and the Republicans say “count every legal vote.” That’s part of the difference between the two parties, isn’t it? The first with a “win at all costs” mentality, the second more concerned with process because it knows the entire country loses if process is tainted:
by “every vote counts,” the Left means each vote must be tallied regardless of whether the voter is lawfully qualified to vote, and regardless of whether the vote was cast within the properly enacted rules of the election. This is why Democrats fight tooth-and-nail against every proposal to require voter identification, to match signatures, to outlaw vote “harvesting,” etc. Just as the Left takes umbrage at the term “illegal alien” on the nonsensical ground that “no person is illegal” (as if there were not patent differences between legal immigration status and human dignity), they would have you accept, on a “social justice” rationale, that there can be no illegal votes in a “true democracy.”
To be sure, this is a political pose.
And I might add, a very productive one.
So, process is tainted, and I don’t just mean the voting process although I certainly do mean that and I want to stress that it’s central because voting is the people’s major non-violent means of redress and correction for all the other problems. The process has been tainted for quite some time in many ways, but as time goes on it becomes more and more clear. For me, the fist powerful and unequivocal realization of that came a while back, when the IRS discriminated against the right and nothing was ever done about it. Your turning point may have been earlier or it may have been later, or it may not have happened yet although I tend to doubt the latter.
There were many other incidents that occurred earlier and some later. Some of them may have seemed extremely minor to other people (like this early move of Obama’s and rank-and-file Democrats shrugging in response) and some were major, like the promises about the Durham investigation that did not materialize prior to the 2020 election.
The biggest problem is that the left’s attitude towards power is to gain it at any cost and keep it at any cost. And right now they have a lot of power, and their power spreads across most of the institutions of our society. But right now, for whatever reason, it does not include the state legislatures, which remain majority Republican in the majority of states, and that’s especially important in this year of reapportionment. If there’s any silver lining to the huge storm clouds I see right now, it’s that. But what to do with it, in the face of all the forces arrayed against the right?
Pennsylvania was a good example of how it worked. It has a Republican-controlled legislature that passed laws setting the rules in this year’s elections, with the seeming cooperation of the Democrats. And then the Democrats took it to the Democrat-controlled Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and won further extensions. In effect, the Pennsylvania court legislated from the bench and overruled the Republican legislature, and then SCOTUS punted 4-4, which allowed that ruling to stand for now.
“For now” included this election, of course, and once the deed is done it’s very difficult to call it back. The Court would be loathe to overturn what is perceived as the result of the 2020 election, a Biden win, and declare Trump winner when Biden has been labeled the winner by the entire media and at least half of the American public. That’s my prediction, anyway.
In addition, it’s hardly just Pennsylvania. One of the things the Democrats have going for them is their control of deep-blue large cities in swing states, and that’s the key to perpetuating fraud. If they’re willing to do it in most or all of the swing states, then it is exceptionally hard to counter because it will produce an overwhelming effect – and because once the votes are counted, how does one prove anything to the degree that the Court would require?
Correct me if I’m wrong – I’m no expert on election law, and I haven’t been able to locate a definitive source that can answer my questions – but once Republican poll watchers are sent away and the vote-counting is done in secret, and once a bunch of bogus votes are counted and/or bona fide ones tossed, how can it be proven? The envelopes with the postmarks and names are gone, aren’t they? And even if saved, they’re no longer matched with the votes they contained, right? And in particular in states where mass unsolicited mailings had occurred, I doubt for the most part that votes cast exceeded ballots mailed, so the total vote counts would be unlikely to prove fraud on a scale that exceeds Biden’s margin of victory in that state, right? Even whistleblowers – and what Democrat partisan is a whistleblower – are unlikely to be able to report fraud on the scale that would justify overturning an election. If the votes are counted in secret, it seems to me that it’s game over even if some sort of suspicious activity is proven in court, because it’s a case of “What’s the remedy?”.
I could go on in that vein, but you get the idea. As I said before, I don’t like being a downer, so I actually invite correction and more upbeat points of view in the comments.
In closing, here’s a roundup of very relevant articles:
This from the NY Post, a paper that has emerged as a champion lately.
This and this as well as this and this. From the latter:
Now we are asked to simply trust corrupt Democratic political machines in one-party cities to count the vote honestly. We will not. Instead, Republicans must aggressively investigate and prosecute any and all wrongdoing in the attempt to steal this election.,,
If Republicans let this happen without pushing to ensure all applicable laws were and are now being followed they can forget about winning contested states and therefore national elections. The new rule, the new “norm” for the Democrats, will forever be what they did last night: “If an election is close we stop all the counting for a while until we can figure out what’s going on.” But Republicans do not have to let it happen.
So don’t get me wrong – when I express pessimism I’m not saying we should give up.
Back in early September of this year, I wrote the following:
We are in a heap of trouble. The voting laws have been expanding in recent decades in a way that I believe erodes the voting process as well as trust in the voting process. Absentee ballots have extra safeguards built in, and I’m okay with them in limited circumstances. But early voting and mail-in voting and vote harvesting, as well as laws banning the requirement of IDs, are a travesty and increase fraud. Once people no longer trust the vote-tallying process – and I submit that we have reached that point – we’re in banana-republic-land.
This was allowed to happen in this country despite the fact that it didn’t have to happen. No other Western country has voting processes anything like ours, but ours are no accident.
“[B]ut once Republican poll watchers are sent away and the vote-counting is done in secret, and once a bunch of bogus votes are counted and/or bona fide ones tossed, how can it be proven?”
I believe you are correct. It can’t be. I see only one way out of this situation, and that’s to have the courts enforce the rules. No observers, no votes. Any ballots counted while observers are absent are null and void.
Yes, there would be an incredible amount of screaming about “stolen election” if the courts were actually to do this, but you know what? I bet they’d only have to do it–once.
Leaving aside all the evidence from numerous videos of curious behavior from the vote-counters in the contested states, as well as the numerous accounts of Republican poll-watchers being prevented from what is their legal right, not to mention the last-minute changes concerning the legitimacy of ballots in PA, one could still be almost entirely convinced of a blatant attempt at stealing the election from Trump on the sole basis of the numerical and statistical anomalies in the tabulation of votes in WI, MI, PA, and GA (the cessation of counting followed by the sudden discovery of massive numbers of votes for Harris-Biden, and the incremental disappearance of the margins for Trump first in one state, then in another, day by day, until, suddenly, he was losing everywhere). It is frighteningly clear that the Democrats took advantage of the fear and hysteria generated by the Wuhan virus to push, successfully, for massive numbers of mail-in ballots which could easily be manipulated to their advantage.
Like steroid problem in mlb during the 90s, you can’t compete in politics unless you cheat. Voter fraud is near impossible to prove and stop, and unless the rules are changed to introduce more oversight into the system it will continue to be impossible to stop. dilemma Here is rules can’t be changed unless republicans win elections , but we can’t win elections unless we cheat as well, should republicans fight fire with fire and engage in cheating in the same scale as the democrats so we can win elections and start making amends to election process that could end fraud once and for all?
I bet a lot of people are fed up with all this election BS that is everywhere on TV. I don’t know a thing about the various counties in Nevada or Arizona, and I’m sick of hearing all these pundits and commenters talking about them.
This might be a good time to get people upset about mail-in voting and contact their state and local politicians to let them know it must stop. People with IDs should get to request absentee ballots. Everyone else should go to the polls on election day. I bet even many blacks are tired of hearing that they are too dumb to have an ID. Stop talking down to them and show them you respect them.
Sums it up. I will be pleasantly shocked if the court(s) take any meaningful action. In fact I now wonder if the Trump’s SCOTUS nominees will have any effect, so long as the feckless Roberts presides.
One of the more irritating aspects of this mess is that the Coup conspirators will walk. Barr and Dunham slow played it too long. A Biden DOJ, and Federal Prosecutors appointed by him will let it die.
I say irritating; not to be confused with the more serious long term effects.
It is sad to see so many people in positions of trust, Senator Toomey for one, who admit that while there were ‘anomalies’ they were not enough to matter. The implication being that we should just expect a certain level of anomalies in our elections.
I commented via email to family and friends that: 1. If I had known that I would live in a banana republic, I would have chosen one with a lower cost of living; and 2. one positive about being old is that I may never see the concluding chapters of the ‘fundamental transformation of America’; and I see that as a blessing.
Republican response seems to be along the line, I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
How long have large urban cernters been corrupt? When was the last time they had a R mayor? The answer is one and the same. It took how long for Lindsey Graham to come to realisation that it is always the R judges that run into roadblocks on the way to SCOTUS? R need to take a page out of Obama’s book when he said, if they bring a knife, we bring a gun and say that out loud with proper attribution. The alternative is to go back to the comforts of the country club.
The court won’t do anything because we do not have Obama and Trump judges. Plus, they want to put this election to bed, they don’t want to deal with leftist chaos taken to 11.
The potential of the urban Democratic machines to deliver votes By Any Means Necessary is the center of the Party’s political and economic power. We have to go after that sanctuary at all costs. Of course the Democrats will scream and cry racism: let ’em. We have to present enough evidence to convince enough suburbanites that the race talk and voter suppression talk is a cover for a corruption that threatens them, too. So the cases need to be litigated to the best of our ability to get the facts into the public domain. This is the central front of the entire struggle.
The other fronts are the universities and the media. The universities are the sanctuary for the culture warriors and activists. They need to be defunded so they can’t provide jobs and patronage for the Left. The media needs to be defunded by boycotting and cord-cutting. It is already happening for the NBA, NFL, and even Hollywood.
Finally, Big Tech needs to be financially destroyed through regulation and taxes on internet advertising. The power to tax is the power to destroy. We can say we need the money for climate reparations. We need to take their money away.
Trump always understood that this is about money, and the Left’s appetite for money is unappeasable. Take the money away, and all this stuff comes to a halt. Right now, we are subsidizing all the things we hate.
The good news in a weird way is that all these bastions stand naked and exposed. We are laying siege to the citadel. We will be fighting on their ground.
For those of us who don’t want to be ruled by illegitimate neo-Marxist scolds, the choices have become limited.
We can grumble in sullen withdrawal. We can become pseudo-rational Quislings and live with the shame of it. Will a few guerrillas and assassins break out? Will many of us quietly support them? Too melodramatic?
Can we still realistically consider adhering to the role of loyal opposition? Isn’t that the kind of foolish anachronism that Democrats have ridiculed? Hasn’t it become suicidal to adhere to those kinds of norms? Now that the Democrats have destroyed so many democratic institutions, the consequences might not be pretty.
Let’s stop calling this an election.
“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
–George Orwell
Dave:
Even if Republicans wanted to cheat they can’t do it on the same level or anywhere near the same level, and the Democrats are well aware of that.
The simple reason is that Democrats control the big cities in swing states. They have plenty of experience and opportunity, and big cities are where fraud is much easier to commit on a large scale and to hide. Republicans control smaller cities and rural areas, spread out. Much more difficult even if they wanted to do it.
My great fears are being realized. Venezuela here we come.
I’m with Oldfyer, and will be gone long before the bottom of our national decline is reached. My kids and grandkids, educated in Gramsci- influenced schools whether public or private, secondary or college, have no realistic vision of what the future holds for them.
Folks like Oblio can advocate the necessary reforms, but none of that will happen without bullets.
MollyG,
That’s damn right. It’s not an election, it’s a coup.
Sydney Powell just appeared on Fox Business and spoke about software called Hammer and Scorecard that the US intelligence services have used in foreign countries to manipulate elections. She said they have evidence it was used here in the US.
Fractal, i got this. No problem.
Cicero said:
“Folks like Oblio can advocate the necessary reforms, but none of that will happen without bullets.”
It looks like we’re going Ballot box–>Jury box–> Cartridge box steps much faster than most thought likely.
Unfortunately, I feel the same as Oldflyer and Cicero. I’m glad I’m an old man and won’t have to suffer watching the decline of this nation for very long. I’m also grateful that I was able to grow and live during a time when there was still greatness in this country. I do feel sorry for my grandchildren who’ll live in a secondary country where drudgery and group adherence is the norm. But then, it is this thought that causes a whisper in me that it is my duty to them to fight the trend in whatever way I can, little as it may be.
Bull on all this defeatist talk. Yes this was stolen AT PRESENT because as Jindel said in 2013 “the Republicans are the Stupid Party”. Well that is changing. We are sweeping away the old guard members of the uni-state. Trump has taught us to fight and fight we will. He is not going away and in a sense he is free to pound away at issues like no one can. He plans on running in 2024 if he loses and he will have a solid party behind him. And running after the chaos and stagnation of a Harris presidency.
What do we have to do now. Fight every action in the courts. Demonstrate. Encourage each other. Bind each other’s wounds. Talk with love to the other side on why they think the way they do. When I was poll challenging in a deep Democrat area on Tuesday I posed questions they could not answer at that moment. Have web sites like this one to look at. In other words I got them thinking like our fair host. Remember change is a process.
Then find and support people that support the MAGA (not Trump) agenda. Campaign for them and vote for them. If you have the intestinal fortitude and desire, run for office after prayerfully considering it. The most important office in this mid-term election are the Secretaries of State. That is where the fraud is abetted. Any SoS that is supported by Soros Democracy Initiative must be defeated. We are paying that price by allowing them to win office. Fight like Special Ops against Soros ilk. Keep the pressure on. Get inside their OODA loop. (look it up if you don’t know what it is.)
Support and help TRUE THE VOTE and other organizations like it. Get the voting rolls right.
So set your face to a stony expression. Gird your loins for battle and act with cold anger. As the French said after the defeat of 1870, “never talk about it but never forget about it.”
This is our time, this is our moment. Don’t grow faint hearted but take solace in that like our forebearers we faced the opposition and won. Be of good cheer.
There is no promise of tomorrow for anyone, but statistically speaking, as a GenXer, I may have to deal with this for a while. Is there anywhere in the world that is a refuge? In the old days, people fled tyrannies and banana republics to come to the United States. Is there anywhere to run to?
Spart is right.
At least next time i warn of leftists stealing election, people will find dismissing ymar s prophecies as made up, got a little harder.
Most of us here know or recall how in 1960, Richard Nixon chose to not contest the Illinois and Texas votes for president[ial electors], “for the good of the country” as he explained it.
It was a *horrible* precedent to set. I wish he had contested Illinois and Texas, and set the precedent that electoral hanky panky will not be tolerated.
. . . not that today’s Democrats would give a hoot. But had the precedent been set, our republic (“if you can keep it”) *might* be in a little better shape today.
Ymarsakar:
This year, a lot of people on the blog were prophesying the same thing, actually. Many people expressed tremendous concern at the possibilities for fraud inherent in the newer voting rules. The quote from a post of mine in September that I put towards the end of the present post expresses my own feeling we had already crossed into banana republic territory.
I am Sparticus:
Good points, especially the one about the Secretaries of State. They must be defeated by less radical candidates. That can still be done in areas that aren’t 80%-plus blue yet.
“Count every vote” sounds more fair than “count every legal vote”. The latter though correct but too pedantic.
Repubs have to figure out a way to make Dems eat their words. Lee Atwater, where are you when we need you.
Sad but likely very true analysis. And a “recount” of votes that include legal and illegal ballots will count the illegals as well.
Can a judge really overturn the SoS?
Can a judge order the election be redone? That’s the only way I see of getting a “fair” election, with higher security, one day, paper ballots.
Biden will be elected because the election process in the USA supports fraud, when the deep state partisans are “allowed” to cheat.
Knowing the truth about a crime, and proving the truth about it are very different, and the proving part is particularly hard.
Every Fake President/ dictator on Earth can now look at the USA as an example of how to cheat at the election – as if “ballot box” stuffing hasn’t long been known.
Mail-in voting was easy. I liked how easy it was. They do almost everything for you, all you have to do is make a few checkmarks and send it back — they allowed fax. I’m a bit lazy, too, like most folks. I was against mail-in, and have often registered for my absentee ballot for Slovakia.
Spartacus is right about the need to take action. Both local organizing to support all of Trump’s lawsuits now, plus peaceful demonstrations.
Also, we should be preparing how to talk with Dem friends.
Are they happy Biden the crook won by cheating?
– “Can you prove they cheated?”
“It’s pretty clear by behavior and results – can you prove they didn’t cheat?”
– “You have to prove it”
“A good election process stops cheating automatically, like Brazil (see Greenwald), or America 20 years ago. Only legal votes should count. But the Dem cheaters only want a process like mail-in that allows them to cheat.”
Slovakia feels a lot like America in the 80s – there’s boxes in the school in different rooms with lists of registered voters. (I vote for EU type elections since I live here. KyndellG – Central Europe is pretty livable, working-middle class. Language is tough to learn, tho. But lots of English now, too.)
This election was a joke. A very sad joke. But yeah, with some silver linings.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/11/thoughts-on-where-we-stand-now.php
We are again seeing demands for photo IDs and in-person voting as panaceas for election fraud. Explaining that these are not solutions to the cheating actually happening has me worn out. Once a legitimate ballot is dropped in the voting box, delivered to the USPS, hand-carried to the Registrar of Voters, or fed directly into a vote counter we have nothing but trust our votes are tabulated exactly as we chose.
The entire election system is predicated on trusting that system and the people operating it. When the trust is found to be a lie, how do we move on as a viable nation? I don’t know that can. I am 66y/o now. My first vote was in 1972 as a Democrat for George McGovern. In 1968, I watched gavel to gavel coverage of both Party conventions, the rioting in Chicago, and the Black Power fist-raising salutes know the victory stand at the Mexico Olympics. I thought, as a naive youth, a better world and better people would emerge. I was wrong.
Astronauts still leave here for four days in space, but when they return, it’s the same old place. I’m tired of all the nonsense parading as common sense. This is my last election, last rodeo, last hurrah. I’m done.
Indigo Red:
They would love, just LOVE, for many on the right to become demoralized and drop out of the process. That’s part of the plan. Please don’t give them the satisfaction.
I agree about the 60s. I can’t say I ever felt it would lead to something better, though. Attendance at a single SDS meeting disabused me of that notion.
I agree, though, that something has to happen with voting reform. But the problem is that no Democrat-run state would be in favor of it.
“Some of them may have seemed extremely minor to other people (like this early move of Obama’s and rank-and-file Democrats shrugging in response)” – Neo
I started out with an open-mind about Obama; as with many people, including conservatives and Republicans, I was willing to vote for a black candidate just for the symbolism.
However, it became apparent very early on (to those who have eyes to see) that he was NOT going to be a good choice for conservatives, both by policy and by principles. Breaking his promise to take only public funding was an early indicator; soon, PowerLine was leading the way in revealing the illegal contributions, foreign especially, that his campaign facilitated.
The Democrats shrugged that off as well, and although there wasn’t any Twitter or dominant Facebook censoring the stories, as they do today, the MSM wouldn’t give them any attention and only a few alternative sources existed to educate the public.
If the Republican candidate had been anyone but John McCain, Obama would have had a much closer race than he did, but I think he still would have won because of the huge black turnout and the non-Democrat symbolism vote.
However, as with Nixon conceding in 1960 and thus “green-lighting” even more fraud, the failure of the “adults” in the Democrat party (there were still some in 2004) to at least pretend to disapprove of his funding irregularities — and the failure of Republicans to do anything to stop it through the courts or at least publicize it — also gave the go signal to even more rampant abuse (from “IRS vs Tea Party” all the way up to the RussiaGate coup).
I suspect that one reason the Democrats and Left are so adamant about destroying the family structure is that there are successively fewer voters who recognize toddler temper tantrums and who know the value of saying “no” to unacceptable behavior. What you reward, you get more of, with children and politicians.
Short summary of PowerLine post: The country is about to get what it “voted” for good and hard, and the Democrats won’t like the result.
As a side note, in re the cottage industry of analyzing what went wrong in 2016 and 2020 and noting the failure of the Democrats to “fix” their party so that they might actually appeal to more than a bare half of the electorate (because we know that every vote counted for Trump was one he actually did win): if you manufacture fraudulent votes, you lose sight of the actual size of your true base of support, and at some point start to believe your own propaganda; that’s not a good foundation for making rational decisions.
Second side note: why even make any attempt to appeal to “the other (evil!!) side” if they can just “print more votes” the same way they “print more money” as the deficit gets larger.
Fractal Rabbit on November 6, 2020 at 8:06 pm said:
…
It looks like we’re going Ballot box–>Jury box–> Cartridge box steps much faster than most thought likely.
* * *
Most of us really didn’t want to think about it at all.
However, noting which side supports 2A with fervor and firearms, and has most of the voters accustomed to using them:
We ain’t played Cowboys and Democrats yet.
KyndyllG on November 6, 2020 at 8:19 pm said:
…In the old days, people fled tyrannies and banana republics to come to the United States. Is there anywhere to run to?
* * *
Short answer: no.
There might be some countries in the world where you can “get by” in relative peace and freedom (the number is decreasing), but the decline of the US is going to take down a lot of other places. It would have been good if those who didn’t like the US had left, but there is nowhere for those who cherish our country to go.
https://redstate.com/diary/chase-watkins/2020/07/22/we-are-the-last-bastion-of-freedom-the-world-has-left-if-you-dont-like-it-leave-n248420
There was no fraud. CNN told me so.
https://redstate.com/alexparker/2020/11/06/kelly-reagan-brunner-texas-voter-fraud-acting-as-agent-ken-paxton-n276337
Well, it was registrations, not ballots, and the party of the perp wasn’t given, and it was in Texas, so even if she got all the ballots and voted them for Biden it wouldn’t have made a difference, but we cannot tolerate this kind of behavior at all.
More stories
https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2020/11/07/election-software-responsible-for-glitch-in-antrim-county-mi-used-in-every-swing-state-n276327
https://redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2020/11/06/the-newly-announced-100000-provisional-ballots-yet-to-be-counted-in-pennsylvania-put-that-state-back-up-for-grabs-n276250
The plural of anecdotes is data.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2020/11/06/usps-is-allegedly-retaliating-against-a-whistleblower-who-spoke-out-about-potenti-n2579648
Is it too late for me to get one of those “Resistance” t-shirts that were so popular not too long ago?
“It would have been good if those who didn’t like the US had left, but there is nowhere for those who cherish our country to go.”
The left’s relationship with the United States has always reminded me of that toxic significant other who “loves” you but wants to change everything about you. There are places in the world where they can have what they want; why not go to those places instead of destroy a place which doesn’t? Well, because destroying the country was always a feature, not a bug, for the left.
Now they beat us because we made them do it. Just listen to the excuses that the left makes for actual violence that they do, or at least condone. There’s literally no difference between them and an abuser. And worse, if we ever stand up and fight back, we are the bad guy.
While I would like to be brave and strong and save the world, this isn’t that kind of movie. The left is basically an infinite horde of orcs facing off against us conservatives – a dwindling and aging group of purists and pragmatics that can’t agree on a course of action much less work together to defeat an insurmountable army of mindless animals. The totalitarian statist nightmare that we see coming together now will be overthrown by some future generation, but I see mine as a generation too old to live to see that, old enough to know what has been lost, and too young to be able to say that at least we had a good run before everything went to sh^t.
Hilarious. They’re Pro-Choice, politically congruent (“=”).
That said, diversity of individuals, minority of one. Principles matter.
“The totalitarian statist nightmare that we see coming together now will be overthrown by some future generation, but I see mine as a generation too old to live to see that, old enough to know what has been lost, and too young to be able to say that at least we had a good run before everything went to sh^t.” – KyndyllG
Some of the younger generation is gearing up for the task.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2020/11/06/let-the-joker-go-wild/
}}} This from the NY Post, a paper that has emerged as a champion lately.
This is likely to change, as Fox has been changing (The Post is a Murdoch property).
The chief editor who has been running these relatively pro-Trump stories is leaving or has left.
:-/
Be afraid, be very afraid. The Left’s renewed takeover of media is almost complete.