How the Democrats got the voting rules changed
Could the following process have been successfully stopped by GOP challenges prior to the 2020 election? I don’t see how that could have been done in states in which the office of Secretary of State was held by a Democrat.
Years ago I was unaware of the important of that SOS role in elections. I believe it was during the lengthy drawn-out legal wrangling in Florida following the 2000 election that it came to my attention. I think it’s still an underappreciated fact. But you will see from the following excerpt from a Powerline post by attorney John Hinderaker how important the Secretary of State post was in the lawfare by which the Democrats accomplished the voting rule switcheroo in Minnesota and several other states in time for the 2020 election [I have bolded some passages and added some of my observations in brackets]:
In a number of states, including my home state of Minnesota, the Democrats pursued a coordinated strategy of collusive litigation to eliminate electoral safeguards. In Minnesota – and the same thing occurred in a number of other states–the Democratic Party recruited plaintiffs to sue the Democratic Secretary of State, asking that the statutory requirement of witness signatures on mail-in ballots be eliminated. The requirement of a witness signature is, as a practical matter, the only speed bump on the way to fraud in mail-in voting [I don’t think it’s the only speed bump, but it’s certainly a major one]…
Of course Secretaries of State have no power to change election laws, hence the need for collusive litigation, which is one of the most sinister forms of corruption in today’s world. In Minnesota and other states, the Democratic Secretaries of State immediately “settled” the lawsuits brought “against” them by their fellow Democrats. The “settlements” simply agreed to what the Democrats wanted – no safeguards to prevent fraud in mail-in voting.
The Democrats knew how corrupt, and therefore likely to fail, this tactic was, so in my state they made sure they had two bites at the apple. They recruited two sets of plaintiffs, one in federal court and another in state court, thereby dodging res judicata if they lost the first case. The key to collusive litigation is that the “settlement” conspired at by the supposedly adverse parties is ratified by a court. In Minnesota, the federal court refused to approve the Democrats’ fraudulent “settlement,” finding no showing to justify it. But a loyal state court judge went along with the Democrats’ charade. As a result, mail-in ballots in Minnesota, as in a number of other states following similarly corrupt litigation, bore no witness signatures, in plain violation of state law. The door to fraud was wide open, as the Democrats intended. One of the problems in assessing the 2020 election is that the same lax procedures that enable fraud in the first place also make it more or less impossible to prove after the fact. Sixty-nine million mail-in votes were cast; how many were fakes, and which ones? There is really no way to tell. Once those votes have been counted (sometimes in the absence of Republican poll-watchers, illegally excluded by Democrats from the rooms where counting was going on), there is no way to identify which ones were illegal and pull them out of the vote totals.
So at this point, neither I nor anyone else knows whether the Democrats stole the 2020 election, and we may never know…
That wasn’t the only method by which various rule changes occurred, but it was a major one. In addition, settlements such as this were not solely limited to Democratic Secretaries of State. For example, there’s been a lot of discussion of whether the legal settlement entered into by Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, which has been the center of so much argument, featured similar relaxations of the mail-in signature rules. The legal document for Georgia is at that link, and signature matching remains, but to discover what the agreement really signified in terms of rule changes, one must be aware of what the rules were before the agreement.
Here’s an analysis of those changes, and you can see how cleverly it was done:
The settlement introduced “ballot curing” to Georgia law. Ballot curing, as Davidson describes it [in this Federalist article], is when voters whose mail-in ballots are rejected for some reason— the signature on the ballot doesn’t match the one on file, the ballot is missing certain voter information, etc.— are notified and given a chance to correct or “cure” their absentee ballot. “Under the settlement, state election officials agreed to contact voters whose ballots were rejected within three business days. If an absentee ballot is rejected in the 11 days before Election Day, officials agreed to contact the voter in the next business day,” Davidson writes.
But here’s where it gets worse. Because more than 8,000 absentee ballots were rejected in Georgia’s 2018 general election, this provision in the settlement got the most media play. Yet the most important one is a crucial change to the rules for accepting absentee ballots in the first place. Consider Davidson’s findings:
“Previously, the signature on the absentee ballot had to match the signature on eNet, a computer database that maintains Georgia’s voter registration and absentee ballot information. If the signature on the ballot didn’t match, it was thrown out.
“In a cleverly worded section of the settlement, Georgia election officials agreed to a subtle but profound change. Instead of having to match the signature on file with eNet, the absentee ballot signature only had to match the signature on the absentee ballot application. The key word in the settlement was ‘“any.’ That is, an absentee ballot can only be rejected if it doesn’t match “any” of the signatures on file— either in eNet or the signature on the absentee ballot application.”
Incredibly, Davidson concludes, an absentee ballot can only be rejected if, A) it doesn’t match any other signature, and B) “a majority of the registrars, deputy registrars, or absentee ballot clerks reviewing the signature agree that the signature does not match any of the voter’s signatures on file in eNet or on the absentee ballot application.”
Think about what that change means. If someone fraudulently filed an absentee ballot application, for example, that same person could then sign the absentee ballot itself. And since the two signatures would match, the ballot would be accepted. This is obviously a huge flaw – and one that Raffensperger okayed. And the Georgia Republican Party was kept in the dark about it until much later.
So yes, claims by Raffensperger that Georgia still checked signatures are absolutely true. But whether they are checked effectively is a completely different question, and I think on the face of it they are not. Raffensperger’s agreement to this is at least part of the reason so many Republicans are so very angry at Raffensperger, who is considered a turncoat. And in the post-election brouhaha in Georgia, Raffensperger was – among other things – in CYA mode, because if the Georgia election results were fraudulent his settlement role could easily be blamed. So he had a very personal interest in protecting the validity of the results and rejecting any Republican challenge.
At one point in all of this I had the idea of checking how it worked in every single state that featured any changes of the rules prior to the 2020 election, and seeing how it was accomplished. But I quickly became overwhelmed by the task. I assume someone will write a book about it, but that book will of course be much too late to change anything for 2020-2021. That’s the beauty of election fraud – those asserting it run up against the enormity of the difficulty of proving it in the requisite time required, or of proving it at all in cases in which we simply lack the evidence because the ballots have been separated from the envelopes that contained them.
There is an extra problem, as well, which is that these issues and this history is nitpicky and boring to most people. Nor is it properly covered by the MSM, of course. And so it is inclined to go under the radar, although it is vitally important to understand exactly what is happening and to prevent it from happening again and/or to correct the problem. It is also necessary to understand when members of the GOP acquiesced and why – for example, the details of what made Raffensperger enter into that settlement in the first place – and when they tried to stop it but were essentially powerless because of processes like those described by Hinderaker in Minnesota.
It could be argued that in Minnesota it really didn’t matter. After all, isn’t Minnesota a blue state? Recall, though, that Hillary Clinton only won Minnesota by 1.5% in 2016, and there was talk prior to the 2020 vote that Minnesota just might flip into the Trump column this time. In actuality it wasn’t even close; Biden beat Trump by over 7%. But most of that win centered on Minneapolis and its suburbs, a Democratic stronghold that would have been the place most of the fraud occurred if in fact fraud did occur. And because of the signature rule changes outlined by Hinderaker, it is likely that such fraud would not have been discoverable.
I don’t think we’ll ever know what happened regarding election fraud in 2020. We will probably be arguing about it for decades, though. Unless this situation is corrected – and I don’t see how that can happen, except in red states – it will continue and allegations of fraud will continue. And if the Democrats pass a federal law mandating these rules relaxations in national elections (for president, House, Senate), increased possibilities for voting fraud and/or the perception of voting fraud will be institutionalized in all states.
Well, it has been my opinion all along that any state result in which election procedures were modified without the Legislature’s approval was invalid. I do not believe that a consent degree by any official negates that requirement. I suppose that I am mistaken, because surely the GOP would have contested the results in the states that made such changes on those grounds. The necessity to prove fraud being moot, if the election was conducted fraudulently.
I wish Trump had made this less about himself and instead focused on the fact that this was the sloppiest election he can remember. He could have also pointed out that European countries don’t allow all the early mail-in ballots with no accurate registration list. My husband has to go to vote on election day, and he has to have a valid voter ID.
Trump should have challenged the people to push local election boards and local and state governments to clean up their own processes, and compare them to European ones. And he could have told blacks that their votes are being suppressed when people like Stacey Abrams are trying to cancel their voices.
This really is a situation where people realize they are empowered to run their elections in a fair way.
Without going into too much detail, I’d say we’re in the endgame stage of our American culture and civilization. The situation is rather grim, to say the least.
Consider Venezuela and what happened when courts there rolled over and played dead while ballots were stuffed and elections rigged. Of course, the shape of the stuffing and rigging were different, but no less effective: somehow, Chavez and his party always come out on top.
Will Republicans win again? Not unless they start cheating, too. And when both sides start cheating, a polity and a body politics can’t survive such wide-scale fraud and deception. And yes, evil.
Folks, we’re in deep trouble. It’s not going to get any better.
They tried this in NC. Dems sued the State Board of Elections, which is Democrat-majority, and got a “settlement.” The state GOP sued to overturn the settlement, and won an injunction.
expat,
I seem to recall that Trump did point out that European countries don’t allow all the early mail-in ballots with no accurate registration list. I don’t recall exactly where I read of that. I’m confident the MSM ignored it.
Michael Towns,
“I’d say we’re in the endgame stage of our American culture and civilization. – Consider Venezuela and what happened when courts there rolled over and played dead while ballots were stuffed and elections rigged.
Agree we’re at the beginning of the left’s endgame. There is a difference however between Venezuela and the US. Reportedly, one of the very first things Chavez did was confiscate Venezuelan’s guns. That ‘dog won’t hunt’ here.
Simply this: once a ballot is separated from the voter, or from the special envelope, and through the counter, no judge will order it pulled. It can’t be identified.
Having been an election judge for 30 years, I watched Minnesota’s election laws loosened and loosened, mostly to allow people to register at the polling place with less requirements. The changes were often subtle: proof of residence could be a tax bill, then a utility bill or phone bill, then simply a cell phone bill. Minor change each time; just a bit less secure each time.
Absentee ballots were recognized at being most easily messed with. That’s why a voter had to swear before a sworn witness to get one. Inconvenience was not a valid reason. Absentee ballots were processed in the precinct on election day, easily done because a precinct typically had 30 or fewer.
Wholesale mail voting changes all of that. Now, with hundreds of ballots per precinct, postal workers become a hazard. Ballot harvesting happens, especially in the heavily Somali districts. Clan leaders make sure elderly Somalis apply, and then show up to take the ballot when it arrives. Because the city set up unmonitored drop boxes, anyone can show up at 2:00 a.m. and add 200 at a time. No controls. No signature matching.
This also happened on Indian reservations. After decades of turnouts at 60 percent or less, they’re reporting 104 percent (can be higher because of election day registrations). That means 400 harvested ballots, per precinct. It adds up quickly.
But even if you find ten Somalis who will testify to this, or ten reservation workers, nothing happens, because that’s not enough to change the election. It is, if you add up all the precincts, but it’s impossible to get that many witnesses, and the judge won’t allow challengers to scrutinize the poll books.
Once the ballot is in the box, it’s over. The only way to fix this is to make sure the ballots are secure before the election. Democrats have teams of lawyers well versed in each state’s election laws. They are paid to attend seminars before the elections so that they’re up on the latest changes.
Republicans have high-profile lawyers who don’t know the law, but have good press conferences. Thus, Republicans always lose election lawsuits.
John HInderacker and his friends could make a big difference by attracting a donor to fund such teams for the GOP. Get them trained; study the tactics of Marc Elias. And watch, watch the secretaries of state.
Yes “the Democrats have an advantage for committing voting fraud: the existence of large very-blue cities in many red and swing states”
I think we all realize that Dems swing MI, PA, WI and GA by cheating in Detroit, Philadelphia, Madison and Atlanta. It’s a pattern now.
We need some tough hombres who vaporize votes where counties have not been transparent. Do it once or twice and the shenanigans will stop.
This cycle I observed at my local Registrar office. Signature verification is a joke. MAYBE they’ll catch blanks and the proverbial “X” but it takes no time at all for eyes and mind to glaze over. Plus the law says to err on the side of allowing the vote. I love mail voting and having my papers strewn over the table while I mark my choices but I think you should be required to at least turn in your ballot with an ID.
Actual absentee voting should have a high bar
Geoffrey,
He probably did say it, but not loud enough. He needed to back it up with a comparison study that could be talked about on Fox and maybe in the NY Post. He could have given handouts at his rallies and had staff do op eds in newspapers across the country. He could have had conservative bloggers talk about it. He distracted from his own message.
Every single action by the Democrats regarding the election had the unavoidable result of decreasing voting security.
Whether that was intentional or not, well, I’ll just point out that when all the pricing mistakes favor the store, they’re not mistakes.
Oldflyer: “I suppose that I am mistaken, because surely the GOP would have contested the results in the states that made such changes on those grounds.”
I may be wrong, but it was my impression that the action brought to SCOTUS by Texas and seventeen other states was based on the fact that election laws had been changed by AGs, SoSs, and judges; which goes against the Constitutional requirements that election laws must be made by the state legislatures. Texas and the seventeen other states were rejected as having no standing because the vote rigging in WI, MI, PA, and GA had resulted in no harm to Texas and the seventeen states.
The injured party was actually the Trump campaign. Why they didn’t file a similar action with SCOTUS I don’t know.
My belief is that states with Republican legislatures and governors, such as Georgia, Texas, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri; that also have large Democrat controlled cities, should pass laws making it very difficult for the city-based machines to cheat. That’s apparently what Governor DeSantis did in Florida. The Democrat run Dade County and the Tampa area were unable to tip the Florida election. The GOP should make this a major effort and publicize it. Republican legislatures in WI, MI, and PA should also try to pass such legislation and try to get the governor to sign it.
Then there’s Spengler’s (David Goldman) solution:
“Every Trump elector or Republican candidate who lost due to suspected fraud can sue the relevant Democratic Party apparatchiks in civil court. These lawsuits allow interrogation of the miscreants under oath. If we can’t put them in jail for vote fraud, we can get them on perjury. And we can wreak merry havoc on the Democratic Party organizations, and make mid-level officials pay the price for the nefarious schemes of their superiors. The rank-and-file fraudsters and the local party machines are the soft underbelly of the Democratic Party. That’s where it is vulnerable to a sustained and relentless attack.
This will require patience and the participation of tens of thousands of volunteers, as well as a good deal of money (although it might eventually pay for itself through the collection of civil damages). Civil suits have been litigated successfully against vote fraud for years. Thousands of such suits would ruin the Democrats.”
https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2021/01/11/heres-how-we-flatten-the-democratic-party-during-the-next-four-years-n133257
Something’s go to be done, that’s for sure.
A large part of the problem is the state law / federal law distinction. State officials, such as judges and SoS’s, can make decisions and frame those decisions as matters of state law or the state constitution. Once this happens, the prospects for federal review are very limited.
Take PA, where a majority of the state Supreme Court are partisan Democrats. The PA Supreme Court and Democrat SoS engaged in significant mischief in 2020, including ignoring the law on the books and instructing county officials to simply ignore the law. This created a considerable mess, where D controlled counties applied almost no integrity checks to mail in ballots while R controlled counties followed the law. PA had a state Senate race where a D controlled county counted several hundred mail-in ballots that were not dated as the law requires. These ballots were the margin of victory for the D candidate, of course. The PA Supreme Court (in a 4-3 decision) held that the un-dated ballots didn’t comply with the PA statute, but that the statutory requirement was “discretionary” rather than mandatory, and therefore the ballots could be counted this year, making the D candidate the winner. The Federal Court held (correctly, unfortunately) that the discretionary/mandatory analysis of the PA Supreme Court was a matter of state law on which the Federal courts have to defer to the State Supreme Court. The headline read “Trump appointed federal judge rejects yet another Republican election fraud claim.”
The root problem was the PA Supreme Court, which, as is its habit, tied itself in knots to come up with a legal theory that allowed it to rule (4-3) for the partisan Democrat position. Once they couch their decision as an interpretation of state law, though, they are almost always the last word.
The is an incredibly difficult problem legally and mostly politically. Trump completely failed to fix it, and arguably allowed it to get worse. Bis actions since the election are making the problem harder to solve.
Kate:
There may have been a number of states such as NC in which the GOP challenge of the technique was successful. It depends on the court system in each state and whether the final court of appeal is left-leaning or not.
One of the main problems I see with all of this is that even most GOP voters are unaware of the different court cases and their disposition. It’s difficult to consolidate this information and as far as I know it hasn’t been done. I think it needs to be done, and I hope people planning the GOP’s next move have done it. But the voters on the right need to be made aware, too. I’ve seen SO many commenters on the right who are blaming what happened on the GOP’s lack of fight and turning on the GOP. They don’t even know that the GOP did fight in many circumstances. If the voters on the right turn on the GOP (as I think many did in the Georgia runoffs) the left wins.
JJ – I concur with your statements having been in the Detroit TCF on Wednesday November 5th fiasco. The good news is that here in Michigan they are preparing actions to restore proper electoral controls. I attended a meeting where we are preparing the groundwork to regain the initiative.
Regarding lawyers being effective court room litigators Robert Barnes agrees and he talks of forming a network of populist lawyers. Hopefully there can be a team.
This is the first I have heard of Goldman’s idea. I like it and it can be used independent of the Republican party. Boy I would love to have people explain the discrepancies of the ballot count and poll books in TCF.
But ultimately it comes down to political will. If our state legislatures had the force of will like Ron DeSantis and put their foot down then the point is moot. Trump taught the voters to fight. Now we have to put spine in the elected officials who cower inside their barb wire enclosures.
Bauxite:
How convenient – Trump is to blame. Shocked, coming from you.
Johnny (boy) Roberts let it slide when the case was before him. Is that Trump’s fault too? Do tell.
“If the voters on the right turn on the GOP (as I think many did in the Georgia runoffs) the left wins.” neo
That would apply, if the leadership of the GOP was serious about electoral honesty. This election made inarguably clear that the great majority of that leadership could care less about fraudulent elections that don’t directly affect them.
Which means that politically, the left has already won… permanently.
Bauxite,
News flash! Neither the democrats nor the majority of the RINO leadership of the GOP have any intention of ‘solving’ electoral fraud.
I am Sparticus,
Cowardly elected officials have no spine to be stiffened. Actually they’re not cowards per se, they’re pigs wallowing in the public trough.
Geoffrey Britain:
At the moment, I’m going to assume you’re talking about McConnell when you refer to the RINO leadership. He may or may not remain leader, and at any rate there are others such as Cruz who might be quite interested.
But this will be a legal fight and will take place at the state level, I think, rather than the national. State legislatures and state courts are the way it will happen if it is to happen. McConnell is not in charge of that.
The savants at ABC say:
It is very much an uphill battle, but it’s a battle at the state level right now. States differ, of course, in how RINO-esque their state GOP leaders are.
@ Kate:“They tried this in NC. Dems sued the State Board of Elections, which is Democrat-majority, and got a ‘settlement.’ The state GOP sued to overturn the settlement, and won an injunction.”
In my adopted state of New Mexico, the (Democratic) secretary of state and county clerks tried to get the state Supreme Court to declare that all ballots should be mail-in, and that the ballots mailed to voters should be unsolicited. True the Vote, an organization headquartered in neighboring Texas, sued to stop this scheme, and won.
@ expat: “I wish Trump had made this less about himself and instead focused on the fact that this was the sloppiest election he can remember.”
Me, too. I’ll go further. This postelection contest was arguably the most important fight in Donald Trump’s entire career. I know that the US Supreme Court punted on Pennsylvania before the election, and that the US Supreme Court refused to hear the Texas lawsuit, and that various state and federal courts dismissed a variety of lawsuits on technical grounds, and that President Trump’s first set of lawyers were harassed and intimidated into abandoning him. All of that hurt. Nevertheless, and apart from those setbacks, Trump handled the postelection contest with great incompetence, a situation that was not helped by his impulsive nature (and let’s not forget that he recently had COVID and treatment with steroids, with perhaps unknown complications affecting his ability to think coherently). Of course none of this is to deny that the Democrats are lying, cheating thugs.
The Left attracts the Comrade Filing Cabinet types who excel at electoral shenanigans.
The electoral system cannot be fixed unless some Nazi Scientists on their secret moon base can genetically engineer a race of Right Wing Scriveners and Busybodies.
Nazi Moon Base Dr Evil Geneticists don’t exist, ergo will need to dispense with the electoral system or dispense with several classes of people who take pleasure in perverting said system. Or just seize power magically and institute such a Reign of Terror that said busybody scriveners who are not the bravest types immediately change sides and work for ‘Us’ (Yes, Tonto, I know).
Now I must admit to having skimmed entire chapters of my Trivium Crib Book might be missing out on the odd step in my chain of syllogisms, yo… but can you not all see that the Progs will *always* be the way they are and do what they do… there’s simply no downside for them. Our People lack that kind of malign pettifogging patience and can’t / won’t beaver away for decades white-anting institutions. It’s simply not how we roll.
It is good to understand how it has been done… but does anyone seriously suggest that we’d stand the remotest chance by fighting them with their own methods? They own all the choke points of the institutions.
Rectification will have to be physical.
I Am Spartacus, I applaud your involvement in local political activities. I was very active in the TEA Party movement during the time it was active. Did protests, calling banks, door belling, and wrote regularly to my representatives. I’m too old for that now, except writing to various reps. It often feels like you’re trying to nail Jello to the wall, but it’s much better than sitting around wringing your hands. Keep going!
The ability to organize is much better today than it was back at the start of Obama’s terms. The fact that Trump was able to attract such yuuuge crowds of supporters is just one example of how people are getting better organized and informed. There will soon be new platforms where free speech will be allowed. I expect Parler to be back soon, but there will be new entries as well – not dependent on the Google, Apple, Amazon, etc. servers. I’m reading that the data mining business model will soon be outmoded as a new Internet structure rolls out. A structure that will allow users to keep their data private. The FAANG stocks are not going to be what they have been. Big tech is going to have some stiff competition. Stay tuned.
I am an old man, my main goal in life is getting older so I am not really smart when it comes to fixing this stuff. My hope now is that those who has stolen the election and power feel the same back lash as those who were the participants in the French Revolution. I think perhaps these folks will start to appreciate how much power they have and start turning on each other when they realize the other side has stepped back to let them act our like little children.
@OldTexan:
Let’s hope so.
There’s always a backlash. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don’t:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Vend%C3%A9e
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infernal_columns
General Santa Anna had nothing on the Vendée.
neo,
No, I am not speaking solely of McConnell. Other than Cruz and Hawley, I can’t recall any of the other 10 Republican Senators who initially said they would join in objecting, speaking out forcefully against the fraud. I did see that one of the ten, a Senator from Oklahoma cravenly apologized in the aftermath. I imagine he is not alone among that 10 fair weather ‘objectors’. So before the protests, at least 38 of the Republican Senators joined the democrats in betraying their Oath of Office and rendering the U.S. Constitution into a dead letter.
As for the State legislatures, I imagine a few will move to reform and strengthen their electoral procedures. But I see no reason to assume that, in general the State legislatures are less corrupt than Congress. Aren’t State legislatures the field from which Congressmen are most frequently drawn?
Finally, the swing States are the fulcrum upon which Presidential elections are leveraged. Two more ‘States’ and four more permanent democrat Senators shall lessen the impact of those swing States but I see no reason to imagine that the corruption in those swing States will be restrained enough not to continue to sway national elections to our new one-party Federal State.
It pains me greatly to conclude that Zaphod has the right of it; “Rectification will have to be physical.” Or… we shall go the way of Europe and the fundamental transformation into a ‘soft’ police state.
The writings on the wall; censorship, hate speech laws, indoctrination down to kindergarten, elimination of the great majority of small businesses and $2000.00 a month “survival checks” aka Universal Basic Income, leading to a disarmed, government funded dependent class and an obscenely wealthy oligarchic class beneficently ruling over all through their Federal ‘proxies’.
Geoffrey Britain:
Perhaps I’ve not made myself clear. I’m not at all optimistic about the chances of turning this around.
And I very much think that this idea of physical “rectification” is misguided and will lead to failure and even more turmoil. This country is divided in half, with approximately half the country disagreeing vehemently with the other half. And those halves don’t follow a geographic halving, either, unlike the Civil War. This is a rural/urban divide, and an interior/coastal divide. In addition, the left holds nearly all the reins of power and can crack down at will. That includes the Army leadership, and the FBI and all the rest. Not only that, but the left would not hesitate to use the same tactics to disarm the populace that have been used in the past in some other countries.
So secession would not work, and any physical rebellion would be quashed, and I doubt such a movement would be so very large to begin with. If it were large, it would also destroy the country. I don’t see it as any kind of answer at all, except a terrible one.
I actually think that one of the things going on now – and I wish I could remember the term for it, because I think there IS a term for it in leftist thought – is the desire on the part of the left to provoke physical retaliation on the part of the right that is doomed to failure, so that the mostly peace-loving populace decides that the right really is composed of extremist thugs and that further crackdowns are necessary.
A very interesting breakdown of the legal issues around collusive litigation, as realized in this particular context. I found the logic easy to follow.
No, Neo-
No neat geographical divisions? THAT didn’t stop Columbia’s La Violencia from happening (1948-58).
Like for us, this was an urban/rural divided civil war, again with media taking one side only.
And this is the historical model we’re likely to follow, according to journal “Long Wars” last summer.
David Kilcullen writes:
https://howlinginfinite.com/2020/06/10/land-of-the-fearful-home-of-the-heavily-armed/
Following on Philip Sells praise of legal clarity, let me state the bleeding obvious: why isn’t vote theft and voter stealing recognised as as great a threat to Equality under the law (and maintenance of federal guarantee of Republican government for states), just as the Equal Protection under laws (a civil war Amendment) is to racial intimidation?
The only difference I can see is a n enforced regime of laws and decisions favouring privilege to certain minority races. And against everyone else, apparently.
Isn’t this violative principle obviously generalised? For important supporting reasons?
But no. Charade’s and The Big Lie Rules and we have a potted plant as President who favourably impresses only one-fifth of America. We are Obama’s Banana Republic.
As Russian born comic Yakov Smearnoff used to say: “What a way to run a Country!”
PS the Obama years saw this collusive settlement practiced widely in various arms of rage federal government, most abusively to fund Green groups.
Expect the super charged Obamunist version that transferred hundreds of millions and even billions of tax payer monies to the people’s Enemies on a much greater overhauled scale this time.
We are a dead nation.
neo,
I agree that at least a faction on the left is absolutely looking to provoke a confrontation that they can use to cut off ammo supplies.
Yes, they do appear to hold nearly all the cards.
Yes, even if a physical “rectification” were successful, it would likely destroy the country, possibly beyond repair.
It would leave America greatly weakened. The ChiComs are licking their chops in anticipation that however it goes they win. They either get a new ‘partner’ or watch their only real opponent self-destruct.
Of course in all but appearance, the country is already destroyed. It just hasn’t yet reached the point where denial is no longer sustainable.
So what’s the alternative? Hope for the best? Pretend that we’ll still have a say in our governance? While essentially accepting disenfranchisement? Live in constant fear of a ‘transformed’ police force? Count on it, “Covid papers please” is coming.
Accept psychological, cultural and even economic enslavement?
Cancel culture is alive and well and has just gotten started.
Half of America is ready to embrace it, until of course it’s too late.
Some will accept indoctrination and silencing, figuratively licking the boots of their new masters and make ‘the best’ of it.
Some will refuse and if they lose all, at least they’ll retain their soul.
You’re either willing to, if necessary, die for liberty or you’re already a slave. They just haven’t put the collars on us yet.
Of those unwilling to give that last full measure of devotion, may their chains rest lightly upon their backs.
The die is cast and save the youngest, every American must make their choice. I’ve made mine but will wait to see the shape of the field before acting. Effectiveness over passion.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and the Left will get smart and raise the temperature in the pot slowly enough that we can all pretend that the country isn’t slowly going over the cliff.
I’d really rather be fly fishing on a good stream.
But I’m sure as hell not counting on being able to speak my mind freely for much longer. At least not without serious consequence.
Perhaps one way to intuit that you live in a decadent late stage of civilizational collapse is when all possible action to reverse the trend is discouraged because: “You don’t understand the nuances”, “It leads to the Ovens”, “Oh, you want to make the Trains Run on Time, do you?”, “You’re just playing into their hands.”
I could go on.
And yet the Chinese rolled out 38,000km of High Speed Rail in 15 years.
Yes, they are inscrutably hive-minded Orientals born and bred to social conformity and totalitarianism.. yadda yadda.
But those benighted Celestials don’t have to Ride the Dog on potholed roads over rickety bridges with the Diversity and the folks who should be in mental hospitals for their and our good… or be groped by the TSA.
We in the West are victims of a kind of bizarre Sunk Cost Fallacy. We’re supposed to allow ourselves to be trussed up and fed slowly into the wood chippers because to Act Out would be to risk all.
If we go down, we deserve it.
In the long run, the ProgBorg must lose. You can’t fight Reality forever and win.
You can’t pretend that women can lead Seal Teams better than men and that a room full of black ladies doing cultural appropriation with Lagrangians will get you to Mars, or that knocking down dams and closing down power stations makes you stronger or that regularly getting involved in foreign wars and then systematically betraying your allies is smart. Not forever, you can’t But they can probably get away with it for our lifetimes and more… if we let them.
So I guess the question is why should we bend the knee and bare the neck? Does anyone here respect Gandhi the more for his advice to the Jews to put on a good show and grin and bear it?
This, undoubtedly, the single most depressing and realistic single blog thread since November 3rd that I’ve read.
HAPPY SUNDAY!
This post illustrates the fact that the Left are past masters at using Lawfare to achieve their goals. Conservatives need to improve their effectiveness in this area if we want to have any hope of saving our Republic. The relative scarcity of Conservative law professors does not help our cause.
Justice for Ashli Babbitt!
“And yet the Chinese rolled out 38,000km of High Speed Rail in 15 years.”
Why can’t we be more like them? Thomas Friedman of the NYT also praised the CCP.
The CCP provides us with all the oxycntyn needed for all the ODs desired. All the lethal dog food to kill your dumb-chums, All the defective PPE and CCP Virus test kits you will need. Ventilators to treat CCP Virus, we need ventilators! Intellectual property, patent rights, social credit scores? Yeah go, go, go CCP. They get things done!
More smoke from Hong Kong
Washington state is sometimes used as a model for voter integrity using mail-in ballots.
Actually, there is a huge flaw in the Washington state system. In our case, the core security guaranteeing that the ballots accepted as legitimate are actually legitimate is non-existent.
County employees check the ballot envelopes, comparing the signatures on the envelope to a signature on file, either the voter registration card or driver’s license (if they registered at the licensing department. The flaw is huge. No one from either political party is verifying that what they’re accepting as a valid signature is actually valid.
There is a live stream of the employees checking signatures, but there is no way you can actually see the signatures and whether or not they actually match.
Once the signature is accepted, the envelope is opened and the ballot is put on the “count pile”.
After that, you can count, and recount to your heart’s content and you’ll never get a different total.
And even if someone were to require an audit of the envelopes, there is no way to know who that person voted for if the signature should prove to be bogus. And the remedy is one that the Pennsylvania court- reject the whole lot.
Basically, for the 15 years or so we’ve been using mail-in voting, we’ve been relying on the integrity of those county employees. I certainly trust my county clerk’s employees, but I don’t trust those people in leftist counties. That’s the whole reason we have partisan watchers. So we can attest that everything is on the up and up.
This is a huge flaw. As far as I know, Democrats have been cheating since 2004. Well, we do know they cheated in 2004, but that’s a different story.
Here’s a video by King County showing how the process works. Notice any political partisans watching the process?
As a person in my county clerk’s office told me, “you have to trust our integrity”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKRZfJjv38k
Om:
Stop being an idiot, if you can.
1) Comparing anyone to Tom Friedman is a hanging offense.
2) I am not a China Shill. That should be obvious. What I am attempting to do is cast into high relief the late stage civilizational decay and PARALYSIS in the West. Having moved back and forth between East and West for half a lifetime, I am somewhat familiar with the way in which people who consider themselves to be well-read and cosmopolitan, but who have never done more than spend a week here or there utterly fail to grasp the mood and spirit of a different civilization.
FFS read David @#$@ing Goldman (used to write as Spengler) evil genius hedge fund guy and all-round polymath if you don’t believe me.
@BrianE:
Sounds like it would be ‘problematic’ running as a Smaller Local Government candidate in King County given who counts the votes.
Zaphod, for one so wise, to tout the accomplishments of the CCP begs the question whether you are succeeding in your goal. Assuming that Nero’s readers don’t know who “Spengler” is says something about you; I read his columns, they are insightful. Try it sometime.
Regarding paralysis of the west, “Springtime for Hit…..”
you know the song, it’s a comedy of sorts. 🙂
@Om:
If it’s bothering you that much, perhaps you might petition the estate of Sheldon Adelson to give you a ride in the Gulfstream to a place where you might feel more comfortable. You might not be as deserving as Jonathan Pollard, but they might be feeling generous.
Must we all go down to perdition so that you can feel ‘safe’? Not everyone has a bolt hole of last resort, you know. And how’s that safety been working out lately anyway?
I’m mystified as to why anyone needed/needs to talk about fraud/irregularities/etc taking place on election day AT ALL.
Is it not a fact that the Constitution of the United States vests ALL power for setting the election rules in the State legislatures? That the executive and the judicial branches have NO POWER to change what the legislative branch decrees?
If this is true (and please correct me, if I’m wrong), then nothing else is needed. ALL electoral votes from states where the legislatively-set rules for the election were changed/ignored/whatever – all those electoral votes are invalid and should not be counted.
Where is the flaw in this analysis, please……..
Zaphod:
You are quite the piece of work. Some much BS is such a small package, and so many preconceived notions. How about this “I fart in your general direction!” You say such outrageous things, but no real content. All shock no awe.
Any more smoke from Hong Kong? Don’t say anything your minders will object to.
Zaphod:
If you paid attention you would remember that Brian E lives in the vast wastelands of eastern WA, you know, one of the other parts of the state that aren’t near the Sound, aka not King, Pierce, Thurston, or Snohomish counties. Tool.
Zaphod; om:
Please stop with the personal stuff.
Michael Towns wrote on 1/16, to which I can only say, “Agree”:
Without going into too much detail, I’d say we’re in the endgame stage of our American culture and civilization. The situation is rather grim, to say the least.
Consider Venezuela and what happened when courts there rolled over and played dead while ballots were stuffed and elections rigged. Of course, the shape of the stuffing and rigging were different, but no less effective: somehow, Chavez and his party always come out on top.
Will Republicans win again? Not unless they start cheating, too. And when both sides start cheating, a polity and a body politics can’t survive such wide-scale fraud and deception. And yes, evil.
Folks, we’re in deep trouble. It’s not going to get any better.
Zaphod,
I think Washington state is an example of once you go blue and mail in ballots you’ll never go back.
Everytime you raise the issue of election integrity, their response is ‘show me the fraud’. Well, the way the system is set up, you can’t show the fraud, because the initial stage where the ballots are accepted as legitimate is unsecure.
The only possible solution is for red states to band together and start pushing back from federal overreach.
Washington state is NOT going to be one of those states. But we can make sure our state and federal representatives support the America First agenda.
I do think Newhouse will have a tough time being re-elected, but the power of incumbency is mighty, along with the free flowing dollars from outside the district.
@Cicero:
I believe the expression your namesake used at one pivotal moment during the Catiline Conspiracy was roughly “They Have Lived”.
Funny.. the Ancients had on occasion to express themselves euphemistically to avoid divine wrath.
We Moderns, however, can say anything we like without fear.
}}} So at this point, neither I nor anyone else knows whether the Democrats stole the 2020 election, and we may never know…
We KNOW.
Trust Me. We fucking ALL know.
>:-(
On Georgia – signature match rejection rate:
2020 – 1,322,529 absentee ballots – 0.15% signature based rejection rate
That is = 1983 votes
Compared to other recent votes:
2020 Primary – 0.28% rejection rate
2018 – 0.15% rejection rate
2016 – 0.24% rejection rate
Source: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3561858110596406&id=2102174426564789
And if we don’t trust what the GA SOS says (maybe he is boldly lying about this?), we can go here to download the absentee ballot list and in column U filter by “Invalid Signature” for each election…
https://elections.sos.ga.gov/Elections/voterabsenteefile.do
The rates as reported by the SOS seems to be in the same ballpark before and after the 2020 settlement (i.e. “rules change” discussed in above article).
Even taking the highest rejection rate of these, that would be 3703 votes.
Those extra 1719 votes (if we were to assume they were “fraudulently” accepted) is still a far cry from the 11779 margin Biden won by.
Had there been a **Dramatic** change in rejection rate based on signature match since the GA settlement in 2020 (which allows for signature “curing”) vs before, there MIGHT have been a case to make.
BTW, there are a small number of people for whom a signature may not match perfectly.
Didn’t make sense to me initially and sounded suspicious, but then digging into it, there are a variety of reasonable reasons why – age, physical conditions, medications, accidents, etc.. All the settlement does is give these people the opportunity (within a very limited window of time) the ability to prove who they are and confirm that it was their signature.
Had the numbers been dramatically different, I’d be on board – but, man, we gotta stop throwing around suspicions like they were conclusive of something nefarious.
Big Maq:
Consult the actual criteria necessary to reject a signature in GA (after the GA SOS agreed to settle a Dem lawsuit) and you would find that the process agreed to makes rejection of any signature highly improbable. Shazam y’all.
Any more concerns?
Thanks for sharing again, Big Maroon. 🙂