As we
wander down the road towards the casting of ballots by the electoral college
and the eventual inauguration on January 20th I’ve had
a few people ask why I haven’t been posting updates on my previous articles
concerning the election. Most of these
have focussed on the fact that the events outlined in the earliest of these
warnings (and that is essentially what they were – “warnings” about the
expected post-election Trump strategy) seem to be coming to pass. “I saw something on Facebook (or “in the
news” or “online”) the other day that matched up with what you said was behind
all this – what do you think is going to happen now?”.
Two things
– first, what I “thought was behind all this” was pretty evident from quite early in
the election process. About a month before
the actual election there were a number of posts that started to crop up in
various on-line forums (including Facebook and Twitter) in which people
expounded upon the fact that the United States was “not a democracy” but “was a
Republic” and therefore the use of State legislatures as the vehicle to appoint
Presidential electors (while ignoring the actual results of the election) was
entirely proper; indeed, they seemed to claim it should be seen as a way of
protecting people’s “property” rights.
This was,
of course, complete horseshit. (Sorry
for the technical term). I posted a long article debunking this claim and
warning that this should be seen for what it really was – a means of “grooming”
people to accept an outrageous attack on the democratic process and somehow see
it as normal. That was published on the
13th of October, well in advance of the election – you can find it
here: https://sheamonu-granfalloons.blogspot.com/2020/10/lies-damn-lies-and-memes.html?fbclid=IwAR38fYJF7rZF-Bs5TeGMcogM6z2Q-Uq0g_6vuCCiV_w3LqfZD0rsUEP3rFw
Therefore, the second part of the question is that it should come as no surprise that this scenario is exactly what we are now
seeing pop up as a desperation ploy amongst the Trumpinistas. Here, for one example, is a post that is
making the rounds on Facebook:
“They
can call these claims baseless all they want but the fact of the matter is this
election is not over. It’s probably not going to be decided by the electoral
college either.
Despite the lies the media is feeding you, the evidence of fraud is overwhelming and widespread. It’s to the point where it’s beyond reasonable doubt and state legislatures are probably going to use their authority to determine the electors. This also might be decided in the house too.”
Sigh. You’re now seeing this nonsense everywhere,
hearing it spouted from the Oval Office, watching it form the basis of every
Rudy Guiliani “news conference/hearing” (always held outside of an actual
courtroom in order to avoid the problem surrounding the actual “rules of
evidence”). “The evidence of fraud is
overwhelming” might be the single most outrageous statement associated with
this election cycle, for one simple reason – THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF FRAUD
CONCERNING THE RESULT OF THE ELECTION. This stems from a fundamental
misunderstanding of what constitutes the alleged “crime”, what counts as
“evidence” and the actual probative value of that evidence.
Let’s take
a deep breath here and review those misunderstandings. “Evidence” is made up of an entire collection
of elements. There can be “physical”
evidence (like the finding of a body – that’s pretty physical). There can be circumstantial evidence (like
finding that body with a bullet hole in its head – that can be quite indicative
of a given “circumstance”). There can be
“testimonial” evidence – where a person says a certain thing, like “I woke up after
hearing a loud noise and when I finally opened the door a while later I saw
there was a body on my doorstep”. There
can be electronic or scientific evidence, both subsets of physical evidence (e.g.
the body was tested and found to have died between 2:30 and 4:00 AM in the
morning). There is “historic” evidence,
which is a subset of “circumstantial” evidence (e.g. - upon finding out the
identity of the body it was determined that it was a past boyfriend of the
person upon whose doorstep it was found).
All of
these sorts of things are “evidence” – but they become important in a criminal
sense only when they point to the existence, or non-existence, of a particular crime. If you were to read the above examples
of various types of evidence you might be ready to determine that they are
indicative of the crime of murder. There
is evidence of a homicide (the killing of a human being) in the form of a body. There is evidence of “unnatural” means of
death (a bullet hole), of causation near the locus of the body (loud noise), indications
of time of death and of motive (ex-boyfriend).
There is no evidence yet of who did the killing. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that this
evidence should lead to further investigation of what happened on that
doorstep.
However,
what if someone is investigating the resident of the house across the street
for tax evasion? Does this evidence have
any bearing on that investigation?
Nope.
On its face
this evidence has nothing to do with that potential crime. On the facts presented it is entirely
separate. Keep that in mind for later.
I can already
hear a few amateur detectives out there saying “What if the dead guy had
threatened to turn State’s evidence on the neighbors?” Okay wise guy – what you are doing now is
called “assuming facts not in evidence”.
Keep that in mind for later as well.
Remember –
evidence is capable of being viewed three ways when it comes to crime. It can be determinative of the existence of a
crime (if it is fully determinative it will be said to be “conclusive”
evidence). It can be determinative of the non-existence of a crime (when it is
said to “exonerate” someone or be “dispositive” of the allegations). It can also be of no effect whatsoever – when
it is said to be “irrelevant”, “extraneous” or “insignificant”.
Let’s
examine the facts set out above and add one more element to it. Let’s say that in addition to the things
we’ve set out here there is one additional piece of evidence – the existence of
a surveillance video which shows the ex-boyfriend drunkenly approaching the
door at 2:45 AM, while absent-mindedly juggling a gun from hand to hand. We then watch as he drops the gun, we see a
flash and he slumps to the ground holding his head.
Now we can
take all of that evidence that seemed to point to a crime and reclassify it,
can’t we?
So, when
you look at the allegations surrounding this year’s election let’s go through
the same sort of analysis. First, what,
if any, crime is being alleged here?
That’s
pretty clear – Donald Trump and his minions have, time and time again, claimed
that there was a massive, coordinated conspiratorial effort to manipulate the
election and commit fraud with regard to the overall result. So, the charges involved would be “Election Fraud”, “Conspiracy” and, given the scale of the allegations “Treason”. For two of those potential charges there has
not been even an attempt at presenting something that purports to be “evidence”.
For all the claims of “conspiracy” and “treason” nothing representing an
allegation of any such crime has been included in any filing. There’s good reason for that – no evidence of
any such crime exists.
With regard
to the charge of “election fraud” – here is where the media, in its haste to
appear “even handed” has somewhat dropped the ball. Time and again you will hear anchors and
reporters state that there has been “no substantive evidence” of election fraud
uncovered. Similarly, William Barr, in
his statement concerning the election was “careful” to say something like
“there has been no evidence of any fraud that would alter the result of the
election”. Here, as another example, is
the way that the New York Times put it:
PHILADELPHIA — Election officials
in dozens of states representing both political parties said that there was no
evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the
presidential race, amounting to a forceful rebuke of President Trump’s portrait
of a fraudulent election.
See the
words “in the outcome”? That’s the sort
of thing I’m talking about here, All of
these statements, however well intentioned, are examples of “weasel words”, statements
that attempt to protect the speaker from the consequences of what they are really
trying to say. So, in order to slay that
weasel, here is what they are really trying to say:
There is no
evidence – none – zero - of the crime of election fraud.
Of course,
there is some evidence, and by that I mean the barest, the smallest, highly suspect
amount, of evidence of minor voting irregularities, mismarked ballots, possible
(but unlikely) improper action by certain tabulators. Most of these are
evidenced only by the barest of circumstantial inferences, such as vague, often
contradictory, testimony (usually in the form of equally vague affidavits).
None of these allegations amount to the crime of election fraud – remember,
that is where the goal is to flip the result of a contest within a State, the ENTIRE
election, not just a few votes. Some
rogue poll worker or some random error that might influence a few hundred votes
is not sufficient to show anything near that type of criminal enterprise. If (and it’s still a big IF) any individual had undertaken those
sorts of smaller activities then they could be charged individually – but there
is no inference that the election, or the campaigns for any candidate
coordinated this effort and, above all, there is no call to reverse the overall
result of the election. In point of fact
– there is even less call now than there ever could have been in the hours and
days after the results were posted.
Despite all of the effort, all of the review, all of the scrutiny – (or,
perhaps, BECAUSE of it) it has never been clearer that the results of the
election in all jurisdictions were legitimate and should now be regarded as
final. That’s why the head of
cyber-security (a Trump appointee) was willing to lose his job defending that
conclusion – he knew it to be true.
Allow me to
demonstrate why that’s the case.
GEORGIA
Let’s take a
detailed look at Georgia first. Georgia
has, over the last week or so, (especially following Donald Trump’s appearance
on the 5th of December and the Loeffler/Warnock debate), become a
focus of allegations over “voter fraud”.
There is no doubt that the election was close there – but why does it
continue to be the subject of allegations of “fraud”?
The reason really
has nothing to do with actual fraud and much to do with the nature of the
Republican party. Georgia is (or was)
solidly Republican – it has a Republican legislature, Republican governor,
Republican Secretary of State. For good
or bad the machinery of Georgian government has been led and run by Republican
operatives for well over 30 years.
Georgia has 2 Republican senators (at least for now) and a majority
delegation of House members who are Republican.
Georgia has supplied a Republican Speaker of the House in recent history
(Newt Gingrich) and has as entrenched a group of GOP bureaucrats in place as
any contested “swing” state. If anyplace
is going to “go rogue” and overturn an election result – you would probably
expect it to be this one.
Now – in
order to do that the Republican officials in the state would have to ignore the
actual result of the election – and a concerted effort was made to give cause
for doing that. But here is the thing:
It failed.
You might
recall that Georgia, following the conclusion of the initial tabulation of
votes, undertook a recount/audit of the ballots BY HAND. In other words, the review of the results
took place outside of the realm of electronic machines, software, the deep
state, Hugo Chavez – any of the threats cited by those promulgating theories of
election fraud. When the votes were
counted automatically – Joe Biden won by about 11,000 votes. Then – when the votes were counted by hand
and all of the biases eliminated…
Yeah, Joe
Biden won by about 11,000 votes.
You would
think that would just about end things – but you would, as we all know, be
wrong. Trump doubled down on his
allegations and his campaign demanded ANOTHER recount – this time using the
automatic processes to re-check the results that had just been re-checked by
hand. The request was duly honored, the
votes were counted again – but this time the result shocked everyone as an
unprecedented turnaround took place that left all concerned amazed…
Nah, just
kidding, Joe Biden won by about 11,000 votes.
What you
have to remember here is that results are not important in this exercise –
process is. By filing innumerable
lawsuits (regardless of whether they were lost), by holding “hearings” that
were not really official events (that’s why they didn’t take place in
government buildings) and by asking for recounts that can only reinforce the
original verdict (everyone knew that recounts only have a ghost of a chance of
working if they involve contests that are within a couple hundred votes) – the
Trump campaign was “keeping the process going”.
The object isn’t to win in court – it’s to BE in court. It isn’t to uncover wrongdoing in a hearing –
it’s to say that “hearings are being held” (why else would anyone ever put
Melissa Carrone in front of a camera).
The object isn’t to prevail in a re-count – it’s to infer that there are
still things to be re-counted.
In Georgia,
with its deep Republican infrastructure, the Trump campaign was certain it had
the perfect venue for these shenanigans.
All of these activities were underway – so President Trump called
Governor Brian Kemp and asked him to declare that the election was incapable of
being certified because there were simply too many “unresolved” questions. He wanted him to ignore the results, throw
the election to the State legislature and have them choose Georgia’s
electors. Trump expected they would toe
the party line, choose his electors – and that would be the first breach in the
dam. He could then point to this as a
precedent when approaching other States, like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan
and Arizona and demanding they do the same thing. Georgia was expected to be low hanging
fruit. Except for one thing.
Georgia’s
Republican officials were not about to play ball. Kemp simply refused to do this and cited the
fact that all the processes were actually complete – the counts were done, the
hearings held, the court cases lost. The Secretary of State, Republican Brad
Raffensperger (who Trump endorsed) stood behind the results as legitimate
(because they were). There remains,
above all else, one inconvenient truth about Georgia’s Presidential election.
Joe Biden
won by about 11,000 votes.
Look, I
could get even more snarky and point out how Donald Trump’s reaction to being
told “No” by Georgia’s Republican officialdom resembles nothing so much as a
three-year old’s meltdown in the candy aisle of a supermarket – but let’s not
go there (yet). Because Trump didn’t
just walk away from this denial – he ratcheted up the heat. Thinking that if he could find some area that
had not yet been fully closed out he might yet salvage his strategy the
President demanded that Kemp order that the signatures on all absentee ballots
be audited to insure that they matched the signature on the corresponding
envelopes.
Now, Kemp
is rightly praised for not buckling to the President’s initial demands, but he
deserves a bit of a kicking for what he did with this one. Rather than simply deny this as being outside
the scope of his powers he basically said “Yes, I’d love to do that – but gosh
darn it’s not my call – that’s up to the Secretary of State to do”. This
effectively pointed the Trump bus directly at poor Mr. Raffensperger, while
Kemp unceremoniously tossed him directly underneath it.
Raffensperger,
however, was having none of this nonsense and refused to be run over. You see, those signatures had already been
exhaustively checked when the votes arrived.
After three recounts of actual ballots calling poll workers back in yet
again to re-check work they had already done would have been cruel and unusual
punishment. It also would have changed
nothing. These poor workers were
likely to already be facing potential divorce from their spouses, were going
unrecognized by their own kids and probably had been bitten by their dogs when
they were finally able to try and enter their own homes. Making them do this again would have resulted
in nothing other than this:
Joe Biden
winning Georgia by about 11,000 votes.
This, of
course, doesn’t matter to Trump – what matters to him is that you are still
able to say that someone, somewhere, is doing something, somewhere that relates
to the election. He could then go back
to Kemp and demand (again) that due to the fact that “time’s a wastin’” the
chore of choosing electors should go to the State legislature and not some
fringe group like, for example, the voters of Georgia.
Not gonna
happen. That’s what is most galling to
Trump – for if you can’t get that result in Georgia, where he beat Hillary
Clinton relatively handily (by more than 5%) in 2016, where all the top
brass are Republican – then you can’t really hope to get any other State to
flip. Furthermore, if you can’t demand
that those same top Republican officials simply do what you tell them to – then
your control over the Republican party could be slipping. That’s why I said Georgia isn’t as much about
fraud as it is about the evolving nature of the Republican party. Nowhere is the slippage of Trump’s control
more visible than in this State – and that worries him to no end.
So, Georgia
is a special case – it was expected to follow the Trump party line, didn’t, and
has the added spectacle of two Senate run-offs to follow. Donald Trump thought Georgia was probably his
best shot – and it turned in to a blank.
But that’s
about Trump – what about the actual voters who have concerns about the vote
itself and are less caught up in the in fighting that has been so much on
display amongst the Republican leadership.
Why are there people who feel so strongly about the possibility of
fraud?
ILLEGITIMATE
QUESTIONS – AND LEGITIMATE ANSWERS
That takes
care of the special case of Georgia – but what about the other Trump allegations of
“massive voter fraud”?
That’s been
pretty much answered as well – the “massive fraud” does not exist and the allegations
made have never risen above the merest “suggestions” of wrongdoing. Here’s the sorts of things alleged: Someone
saw a “suitcase” of votes pulled from under a table (contradicted by other
independent observers in the same venue); poll workers were observed “marking”
ballots for Joe Biden (again, contradicted and actually impossible to pull off
in real time); a “memory stick” was used to convert a count (would not be
possible to do this to the software in question, plus would be easily
overturned upon an audit – which found no evidence of any manipulation).
These
allegations are based upon the testimonial evidence of affidavits - in other
words – eyewitness testimony. Any
investigator or litigator will tell you that witness testimony is the weakest
form of evidence. Even circumstantial
evidence is less susceptible of error than someone who is telling you what they
think they saw. Judges know this, which
explains why, for example, one judge in Michigan very clearly identified the newly famous Melissa Carrone’s
evidence as “not credible” when it was presented in court. That didn’t matter to Rudy Guiliani, who
immediately placed Carrone in an extra-judicial “witness” seat where she
proceeded to make a fool of herself.
When presented (by a Republican representative) with the fact that her
allegations did not equate with the actual numbers present in the election poll
book – she simply raised an eyebrow and asked him “What did you guys do – take it and do something
crazy with it?”. Just like that the
massive election conspiracy had signed up another member.
Again – if
you are asking why the Trump campaign would put such a ridiculous witness on
the stand – you are asking the wrong question.
The real question would be “Regardless of the quality of the witnesses –
did this allow the Trump campaign to HAVE a stand upon which to put them”? The
answer to that question is, simply, “yes”.
That is why Carrone’s mere existence is seen as a positive by the Trump
operatives orchestrating this effort.
They know that Carrone is not credible – they know she looks like an
idiot, they know she makes the hearing appear even more of a travesty, they
know she makes THEM look like idiots – but they don’t care. What they care about is keeping this thing
alive in the hope that the public, bombarded with wave after wave of
meaningless drivel will eventually (perhaps out of fatigue) come to believe
that there is something of substance there.
In this manner they resemble, in many ways, the investment fund managers
who attempted to pile loads of sub-prime mortgages into collectives and then
told everyone that all those shitty little risky debts could be wrapped
together into one super-safe highly believable, triple AAA rated vehicle for
your retirement fund.
And we all
know how that ended up.
By the way
– this effort has been going on for a long time. You may not know it – but your tax dollars
fund a website for the current administration.
It’s called “whitehouse.gov” and it is typically used to host articles
about the furniture in the Presidential mansion or biographies of past presidents. Here, for example, is Barack Obama’s entry: https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/barack-obama/
On this same lovely site the Trump administration is currently hosting a different type of
page – a report it commissioned from the Heritage Foundation which purports to
detail the extensive “long and unfortunate” history of “election fraud” in the
United States. If you believe this
website then Donald Trump’s claims that the United States is now acting like a “third
world country” are definitely false.
It’s more like third world countries have been acting like us.
The site, found here, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/pacei-voterfraudcases.pdf is obviously attempting to buttress the administration’s arguments that America is particularly subject to election rigging. (By the way – you will remember that this is exactly the opposite of what the administration was arguing when allegations of Russian interference in the last election arose). The Heritage Foundation report claims to reveal 1,071 “instances of voter fraud”. It’s all right there in the report, they say – and boy – is it ever. I wouldn’t sentence anyone to read this thing – and other than wonder why the United States government is paying to host a website that claims America is grossly corrupt – you probably won’t want to do that yourself. However, I will randomly give you a flavor of the type of thing you’ll find there. (UPDATE: It should come as no surprise that the White House no longer hosts this report. It now can be found here, off a government hosted site, where it belongs: https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search )
You will
see, in the section on “Colorado” a description of the case of Toni Lee
Newbill. Newbill was convicted, in 2017, of the following:
“…pleaded guilty to voting twice using her deceased father’s name to do so, once in the 2013 general election and again in the Republican primary of 2016. Newbill was sentenced to 18 months of unsupervised probation and 30 hours of community service, and was ordered to pay a $500 fine and additional court fees.”
Hialeah Gardens Mayor Gilda Oliveros was convicted of six charges that ranged from voter fraud to asking two of her former employees to murder her then-husband so she could cash in on a $45,000 life insurance policy. She was sentenced to 4.8 years in state prison, but was released on a $100,000 bond to appeal her sentence.
Somehow, I
think the murder-for-hire scheme might be a bit more serious than the voter
fraud counts listed here, and, to be completely fair this one is under appeal -
but there are other Florida cases where the concept of “voter fraud” is
stretched even further:
Greg “Charlie” Burke was found guilty of voter fraud in the third degree, a felony, for living and voting in one county while holding an elected post in another. He was sentenced to two years’ probation.
It’s a bit
tough on Greg Charlie to put him on this list – he was essentially convicted of
voting where he lived. I really think
the problem here is that he was committing employment fraud – but, hey, maybe
it’s just semantics.
Certain States have cases that seem to almost live up to their stereotypes. Take this one from the Land o’ Lakes:
Carolyn Land knowingly voted while ineligible in St. Paul, Minnesota. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 100 days of local confinement (99 were stayed), one year of probation, and a $50 fine
To clarify, this meant Carolyn had to stay at home one day and pay fifty bucks. That’s a “Minnesota nice”
sentence if I ever saw one.
Other cases
involve people who commit fraud in order to show they can commit fraud. That’s a bit like punching yourself in the
face to show you can punch yourself in the face. Nonetheless – here’s a case from New Mexico:
Eugene Victor wanted to prove a point about the potential for fraud in New Mexico elections by committing fraud himself. Mr. Victor cast a ballot in his son’s name and later turned himself in to the authorities. He pleaded no contest to a fourth-degree felony charge of false voting and is serving 18 months’ probation.
When Trump
puts Melissa Barrone on the stand to tell about “poll books”, or claims that
“ballots were found in a river” (there were 9 ballots total that this story
seems to apply to, and they weren’t fraudulently discarded), or regales us about those “suitcases”,
or the counters who were “punching ballots” – these claims aren’t just untrue or inaccurate
– they are also insubstantial. Single
counters, a few discarded ballots, some counts that didn’t take place under the
direct scrutiny of ballot checkers – this is not evidence of “ELECTION
fraud”. In some cases they might
constitute mistake, in others (maybe) individual transgressions – but nothing
rises to the level that would indicate these activities were coordinated in a
manner that justifies overturning the result of an entire election. To do so would be like taking the election in
which the unfortunate Ms. Land ended up paying the fifty dollar fine and
staying indoors for a day and dis-enfranchising every other voter who took
part. Do you think that happened? Do you think that when Greg “Charlie” Burke
incorrectly voted where he lived they cancelled the whole damn election? That is why I asked you to keep in mind what
the actual crime being alleged here is – and why the evidence being presented
doesn’t even remotely apply to the actual crime alleged. This is like the evidence of a dead body
being used to implicate the neighbor accused of tax fraud. The two things really do not have anything to
do with each other. The Trump campaign is laying a trail of numerous
insubstantial allegations and trying to conflate it into something it is not. They
aren’t even trying to say “where there’s smoke there’s fire” – instead it’s
more like “where there’s a wisp of fog, there’s fire”. Here’s the thing:
No, there
isn’t.
There was
one other thing I asked you to keep in mind.
It was the idea of “assuming facts not in evidence”. There are plenty of people out there who are
saying “but with all those affidavits, all those allegations, all those
Guiliani hearings, all the filings – even if they are being defeated – doesn’t
it add up to there having to be election fraud somewhere”?
No, it
doesn’t.
It is
incredibly easy to manufacture claims – just like it is easy to post an
enormous report on a government website – but the mere existence of a large
number of assumptions does not make the resulting narrative more realistic – it
makes it less. Case in point – O.J.
Simpson constructed a defense around an alleged conspiracy amongst police, lab
technicians, medical examiners, expert witnesses, crime scene analysts, the
media, random neighbors and assorted service providers that was seemingly so
expertly crafted that, despite it having to be constructed on the fly and
without prior knowledge of the parties involved, no one ever broke ranks or
made a misstep. That effort succeeded. Still - I have one
question for you:
Do you think O.J. was framed?
For you to
believe that the 2020 Presidential election was conspiratorially manipulated
you would have to believe that O.J.’s conspiracy was easy. This would be that times ten. No, that’s way too small – times a
thousand. You’d have to believe that
despite the fact that any single chink in the armor could sink the whole
enterprise – the gang that Donald Trump claims is led by a mentally deficient
leader pulled it off flawlessly, with the active involvement of Republican
operatives who were cunning enough to gain Donald Trump’s endorsement or
appointment before any of this even happened.
C’mon man.
ILLEGITIMATE
QUESTIONS – WRONG TOPIC
Then there
is the Texas suit. After being shot down
over 50 times in court the Trump lackeys turned to Texas Attorney General Ken
Paxton who sued four OTHER states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Michigan)
claiming that they changed their election practices in response to the Corona
virus pandemic in manners that “weakened ballot integrity”.
Let’s put
aside the fact that many other States took actions to address the
pandemic. Let’s put aside the fact that
they did this because, well, that’s what governments are supposed to do when
faced with a crisis. Let’s even put
aside the fact that one of the States not named in the lawsuit that took such
steps was Paxton’s own State of Texas.
(Yup – Texas did exactly what they are suing other States for doing).
Let’s put aside the fact that the lawsuit appears to be engineered by someone
whose main claim to fame is that they spearheaded an attempt to have Kamala Harris
declared ineligible for the office of Vice President because of the timing of
her parents’ citizenship. (Evidently it is now not enough that you are
born a citizen of the United States – now your parents’ birth must be
sufficiently pure. If they keep moving
back they’ll get me yet. You too, I
imagine).
Nope, let’s
not look at any of that, or the fact that it's probably going to piss off the
States in question that Texas is trying to tell them how they should
operate their own elections. In fact – it seems to have already done so. Here is one elected official’s reaction to
Texas trying to arrogantly scold other States on how to go about their business:
"Number
one, why would a state, even such a great state as Texas, have a say so on how
other states administer their elections? We have a diffused and dispersed
system and even though we might not like it, they may think it's unfair, those
are decided at the state and local level and not at the national level. So,
it's an interesting theory, but I'm not convinced.”
For an
elected official to tell another politician that their theory is “interesting”
is like one of the judges on “American Idol” telling a contestant that their
voice “sure is different”. So, which of the office holders in a defendant State
kicked back at Texas’ attempt to interfere with their election? Was it one of those Michigan liberals? Maybe Stacey Abrams in Georgia? Maybe it was
one of those RINO’s in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania.
Oh wait –
my bad. It wasn’t one of those guys at all.
It was some guy named Cornyn.
John
Cornyn.
He’s a
Senator.
From…
Wait for
it…
Texas.
Oh well,
I’m writing this on Thursday morning and I’m guessing that this lawsuit is
going to make a lot of noise and then when it gets in front of, you know, an
actual court – it will do what all the other law suits have done – get marked
in the Trump loss column.
Look – I’m
not going to write a legal brief citing all the cases that contradict this (and
all the other efforts) to overturn the election. This isn’t a court filing and
the lawyers for the various States are doing a good enough job with their 99.9%
success rate as it is. Instead I’ll cite to the wide world of sports. These lawsuits remind me of two of the most
annoying sports analogies that I could possibly cite.
First –
Messr’s (or should I say “messers”) Guiliani and Trump are showing their true
Yankee fandom with this constant complaining.
They remind me of how the Yankee supporters would react through all of
their years of winning – until they finally had to deal with the reality of
losing. For years the Yankees got every
break – sort of like the spoiled upbringing of a certain President. Remember Jeffrey Maier?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVNlvnsQ828
After that
we were told “Hey – these sorts of things even out over time. Sometimes you get the breaks, sometimes the
breaks get you”.
Then
remember the 1999 ALCS. The Red Sox had
to win one of the non-Pedro Martinez games to give him multiple shots at the
Yanks (and, believe me, he was their daddy back then). In game one the Sox had a great chance when the
Yankees' stone handed second baseman Chuck Knoblauch dropped a toss at second
base. Except the umpire ruled he had
caught it, which was a bit strange with the ball actually having been booted
somewhere out towards left field. Then –
in Game 4 – they did it again. Once more
Knoblauch was involved as he whiffed on a tag at second but got the benefit of
a blown call. That one really has to be seen
to be believed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk6KQ-YaNjk
Once again,
we were informed that this is just the way of the world and we should stop
complaining. Our luck would surely come in time.
Then in
2003 the Yankees were being pushed by the Red Sox to a Game 7 – this contest is
most often remembered for Grady Little leaving Pedro Martinez in too long and
Aaron Boone eventually hitting a walk off homer. What is often forgotten is that the only
reason the Yankees were even in extra innings is because Jason Giambi had hit
two home runs earlier in the game. It later turned out that Giambi was juiced
to the gills on steroids during the game – no way he hits those dingers if he
wasn’t cheating. Little lost his job
because of that game – but, we’re told – “Hey – he didn’t get caught until
after the final out – this still counts – and don’t worry – these things have a
way of evening out”.
Then, as we
all know, things finally turned around in 2004 when the Red Sox made their
historic comeback from 3 games down.
Nothing symbolized the changing fortunes more than Game 6, the “bloody
sock” game in which Alex Rodriguez originally got away with cheating by swiping
the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove.
The umpires, this time, conferred with each other and decided there was
no way to pretend this one didn’t happen – and A-Fraud (marking the only time
the term “fraud” has been used properly in this article) was called out. This
marked the second time in the game that the Yankees had failed to get away with
a bad call (a previous home run had originally been called incorrectly) and as
you might expect, the Yankee stadium crowd, who had long been telling the rest
of the world that “these things even out”, reacted magnanimously and with great
restraint when these sorts of breaks started happening to THEM.
Well, maybe
not so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1uF15eQSEQ
After all
of the bottles, trash and other missiles were removed from the field and the
contest resumed the Red Sox went on to win the game and the series. After reflection we can be sure that Yankee
fans have returned to reality – …
Maybe not
so much – here’s some more recent commentary on the incident from a Yankee fan
site:
So... Alex's only reaction at this point is to
put up his hand. Right? Think about it. Just like we flinch when someone bumps
into us.
But with the umpires reviewing the replay from
all angles they see Alex blatantly reaching to Bronson Arroyo's arm. So, of course
it looks intentional. Could it also be
that this took place because of both players having bad blood earlier in the
year that where Alex was hit by a pitch and a scuffle with Jason Varitek and
clearing the benches one Saturday afternoon?
OK – so I guess
they’re still not over it – they should just calm down. These things have a way of evening out, you
know?
By the way
– does everyone know who Donald Trump and Rudy Guiliani’s favorite baseball
team is?
Are you
surprised?
That’s the
first sports analogy – the second is one of the most traumatic experiences a
nine-year old could ever experience. The
Yankee example is someone winning, winning, winning – and then throwing a nutty
when they lose. This next one is how you
can lose, lose, lose and still beg your way in to winning. This is a true example of being beaten and
cheating your way to a win despite the result being clear. I’m speaking, of course, of the 1972 Olympic
gold medal basketball game, where the Soviet team basically knocked out an
American player (Doug Collins), saw him recover to make two foul shots anyway,
then were gifted three chances until eventually they “won” the game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oIMdwuLe_o
So, I’d ask
those rooting for the success of the Texas law suit – do you want to be Yankee
fans? Do you want to be the 1972
Soviets? Because that’s the best
non-legal analogy to what’s going on here.
The bulk of the Texas suit is just a re-hash of the same old “someone
says they saw someone who was changing votes” nonsense already de-bunked above
and by other courts. Those we’ve
discussed. The rest of the suit is made
up of either grotesque legal overreach or some legitimate questions that have
perfectly reasonable answers.
The legal
overreach is what galls the citizens of the defendant State’s. For one example take the arguments that have
been raised concerning Pennsylvania’s “Act 77”.
This was a bipartisan law passed in 2019 (before COVID) that expanded
the use of absentee ballots in that State.
Elections were held pursuant to the law before the Presidential election
in November – no one challenged the constitutionality of the process then. Of course, when that same process resulted in
a Trump loss lawyers were crawling out of the woodwork to challenge poor old
Act 77. They ran smack dab in to a
concept called “laches” – which is a legal way of saying “where the hell were
you guys before”?
Pennsylvania’s
courts used this concept to throw the claims out and fully considered the
issues at play. You would think that
Pennsylvania’s courts would be the best place to decide the meaning or
timeliness surrounding (again, a bipartisan) Pennsylvania law. Not so, says Texas – we should be the ones to
decide whether Pennsylvania is acting properly – we say “no” and now we want to
be able to bring a case to the Supreme Court to stop the votes of people in
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Gettysburg, Harrisburg, Allentown and every other
village and farm in the Keystone State from being counted.
Even though
that matter has been decided.
Even though
it really is none of our business.
Even though
we are trying to go back for a second, or third, or fourth bite at the apple –
just like the Soviets in 1972.
One other
thing – the question raised concerning the manner in which Pennsylvania (or the
other States) conducts its elections does not even mention the one word that is
supposed to be at the bottom of ALL of the actions being taken by the Trump
team. There is no “fraud” involved here
– it’s just one State trying to bully another State in to disenfranchising its
voters. No one says that the bipartisan act of the Pennsylvania legislature
passed over a year prior to the election is part of this vast “conspiracy” that
is being alleged. Instead, it is proof
of the fact that this is not about fraud, or conspiracy or wrongdoing – it’s
about keeping the courts tied up so that maybe, just maybe, someone will break
and allow this farce to achieve its goal of sending the decision to the very
politicians who Trump is supposed to disdain so much. That is an illegitimate
use of the court system. But is
everything discussed illegitimate?
LEGITIMATE
QUESTIONS – AND LEGITIMATE ANSWERS
Is there
anything raised by the lawsuits that merits a closer look? Well, after all of that, be assured that I
will not make the mistake of most Democrats over the past few decades and
immediately dismiss ALL Republican concerns as arising from uneducated
rubes. That is exactly the kind of arrogance
that prevents right leaning voters from ever even considering marking a ballot
with a “D” next to a candidate’s name.
It must be acknowledged that often the election process seems a mystery
to whatever side happens to be losing.
Even if you are a Democrat. It wasn’t too long ago that THIS was the
cover story for Harper’s magazine:
You can’t
call questions that arise after a Democratic loss “legitimate, hard-hitting
journalism” just because they appear in a high-toned slick periodical in one
instance - and then when the same questions arise amongst voters on the other
side refer to it as “yahooism”. If you
truly want to lay claim to legitimacy you have to answer those type questions forthrightly
rather than laugh them off and consign them to an SNL skit.
And let’s
be clear – the questions raised by the Trump campaign, Rudy Guiliani, Sidney
Powell, Ken Paxton and most of the people filling out affidavits are NOT
legitimate. They are manipulative. But when someone seriously asks “How could
Trump be ahead in all these States when I went to bed, and behind in all of
them when I woke up?” that’s a REAL question.
It’s not the same as saying “Hugo Chavez set us up years before he died”
or “there were ballots floating down the river”.
For Donald
Trump WAS ahead in Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania through much
of the evening on election night and even in to Wednesday morning. He did fall prey to several large “dumps” of
votes when urban areas reported. There
was the appearance that this vote “turned” rather quickly. Could that be normal?
That’s a
good question, and it deserves a good answer – but be assured that the bottom
line is this – yes, that was entirely normal.
When I
point to my college degree it says that I received it in Political
Science. This is one of those degrees
that you get when you don’t want your diploma to say; “Went to college for four
years and really doesn’t know what he wants to do”.
Truth be
told – I did know what I wanted to do. I
wanted to be a political scientist.
After scanning the paper for three years and never seeing a single ad
for “political scientist” – I went to law school. But I never lost my taste for politics. You
want proof – here’s a picture of one of my bookshelf’s:
That’s a
review of every Presidential election from 1960 through 2016. Sometimes more than one. Plus, there are some
other, random, election books thrown in, such as the one detailing the 1986
race for the Massachusetts’ 8th congressional district. I’m probably the only person in Ireland possessing
a comprehensive review of the ultimately futile candidacy of Tommy
Vallely. And that doesn’t even account
for all the general history books I have or my shelf of exclusively Nixon
related material:
You’ve heard of “mad scientists”? I’m pretty sure I qualify as a “mad political scientist”. I have a degree and everything. (I am quite aware of the fact, reinforced by my own kids, that the more accurate way of describing me would be “nerd”.)
That said –
I do know my electoral history, and I know what to look for when counting
votes. There is one book I have, written
by perhaps the best historian of our age, that spells out in detail how to
actually manipulate a result. It’s
called “Means of Ascent” by Robert Caro and it exhaustively recounts the
1948 Texas Senate election that Lyndon Johnson won by all of 87 votes (leading
to his nickname of “Landslide Lyndon”).
That election was, unquestionably, stolen. There really aren’t any other examples of
similar post WWII frauds.
When there
is actual fraud in play you would typically find certain signature “tells” arising. Voting in alphabetical order, ballots being
cast in the sequential order of addresses, precincts that have always voted one
way suddenly shifting the other way in a statistically unrealistic manner –
those sorts of things.
So, did any
of that happen this year? The question
has given rise to a great deal of dispute.
Trump himself scoffs at the change in vote totals from “the Obama elections”.
The Texas suit contains an entire section which purports to say that the odds
are a “quadrillion to one” against the vote changing from Trump to Biden as the
count progressed through the night. Is
any of this true?
No, no it
is not true. It’s a good question – but
the answer is that the statistical results of the election stand up to
scrutiny. The numbers are right.
Let’s go
through the major areas of dispute one by one.
The
“Quadrillion to One” Fallacy
First that
“quadrillion to one” statement. Here’s a general rule – there are really very
few things that are actually a “quadrillion to one” for or against. The people who wrote that brief would have
been much better off saying that the odds were “150 to one” against. That’s a real number – nothing is ever a
quadrillion to one against other than perhaps a few events in cosmology, like
the existence of the universe in its current state. (And by the way – we exist, so that
happened). You know who else contradicts the “quadrillion to one” theory?
Donald J.
Trump.
In a tweet
he forwarded AFTER the Texas lawsuit was filed he says that the “bookies” had
his odds for winning at “99%”. I take him at his word.
You know
what 99% is?
100 to 1.
100 to 1 is
pretty unlikely but let me tell you who else had the same odds of winning - 99.3% as a matter of fact. The Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI. Note that I did not call them the “Super Bowl
LI Champion Atlanta Falcons”.
Now, Joe
Biden is no Tom Brady, but then again his odds of winning were never as long as
100 to 1. In fact, the way the results
went actually confirmed the odds of Biden winning. Everyone seems to overlook that all of the
polls issued prior to the contest indicated this was going to be a Biden
election. It was actually the Trump
performance that went against the odds.
But what
about the “reversal of fortune” that took place after midnight? Trump was ahead – then he seemingly fell behind
in a heartbeat.
Elections
always look like this. There are logical
reasons for why this year looked the way it did – some factors are unique to
2020 (COVID related measures). Others
are historic (changing demographics in certain States) and more are, quite frankly,
purely political (voter engagement). But
all of them, when considered together, are logical, rational and well within
expected parameters. Look at them that
way and what initially seems mysterious or suspicious starts to make
sense. Here’s a review of some of the
more salient points:
How can a
statistical analyst like the one used by the Trump campaign in the Texas suit
come up with a statement like “a quadrillion to one”? By misapplying the numbers involved. Charles
Ciccetti, the so called “expert” who came up with this result is schooled in
the field of “utility economics”. He is
sometimes used as an expert to testify in things like merger cases involving
businesses but has little to no expertise in election dynamics. As a result the analysis he did to come up with
the “quadrillion to one” figure is seriously flawed when it comes to the area
of science – specifically POLITICAL science.
Go figure – for once in about, oh I don’t know – a quadrillion years –
somebody really should have advertised for a political scientist! What Ciccetti did was to simply take the election
returns as measured by the count at a certain point in time and extrapolated
the result as if BY CHANCE people would continue to vote along that same
curve. In such a scenario the ongoing vote
would have to be treated as a dice roll or coin flip and viewing the numbers that
way would require you to roll “seven” 40,000 out of 50,000 times, or come up heads
80% of the time over a huge sample size – when we all “know” the odds should
return a 50/50 result.
But
elections aren’t chance events – the voters in a given county don’t vote
according to the whims of chance – they vote according to their political
affiliations – and those affiliations within a given precinct, district or
county tend to reinforce each other. Moreover
those preferences can be strengthened, altered, modified and developed over a
period of time. Given a close election,
such as we have here, the change of even a few percentage points in a given
demographic can change results completely and will not follow a statistical
curve in the way a random dice roll or coin flip ever would. As one (conservative) website put it:
“I would
remind Dr. Cicchetti—and, more importantly, Texas AG Paxton—that we
periodically conduct "elections" precisely because voter preferences
may change over time, and some people who voted for the Democratic candidate in
one election might choose the Republican in the next, or vice versa. Were this
not the case, I suppose we'd still have a Federalist as Chief Executive.”
Viewed that
way the odds of the election’s results turning out the way it did are not a
“quadrillion to one” – or even unlikely. They are, in truth, expected. Here’s an example. In Georgia the fact that Fulton County voted 73%
for Joe Biden is cited as “unrealistic”.
Who ends up with that kind of a result?
Biden beating Trump 380,212 to 137,247?
C’mon.
Except –
that result is completely in line with the way counties tend to vote in Georgia
– and not just for Biden. In Walker
County Trump won 79% of the vote (23,173) to Biden’s 20% (5,770). That’s just the way counties vote in
Georgia. In the counties that lie “in
between” these extremely partisan strongholds the margins go down. For example, Gwinnett County, located between
blue Fulton and red outposts like Jackson – went for Biden 58% to 40%. The voting patterns in all States followed
this pattern. There are no “outliers” or
anomalies that would give rise to substantive suspicion. Test it out yourself – I’ve gone through the
Georgia numbers in detail – you can find them here:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/georgia-president-results
The numbers
and their patterns add up. There are no “blue islands” (or “red islands”, for
that matter) that indicate an anomalous result.
The election was sound.
The Illusion
of the “Trump Dump”
So – what
about the timing – why did the Trump numbers go down so drastically and so
quickly?
First –
let’s look at the history concerning that.
Do votes tend to come in and be reported via that type of “dump”? Yes, they do.
If you look at prior elections, particularly close elections, votes are
reported in fits and starts through the night.
“The upstate returns aren’t in yet” is a cliché that you’ll hear in old
films – but it reflects reality – votes tend to come from regions in clumps –
and as we see from the above the clumps tend to reflect consistency in results
when coming from a given region.
So why were
the Biden results coming in later? The
most accurate answer to this is that they weren’t – at least not in unexpected
ways. For 2020 particularly the counts in various areas were delayed due to the
order in which they were reviewed – and this year, for a number of States, the
absentee ballots were reviewed AFTER the in-person votes. Those absentee ballots tended to be Biden
votes, as he encouraged his voters to make use of the additional opportunities
given to post their ballots and Democratic voters tended to be more worried
about going to the polls given the COVID threat. (I mean – does anybody seriously doubt that
to be the case?) While States did give additional opportunities to vote by mail
there was also a tendency, particularly in those States where there were a
number of Democratic strongholds - but the legislatures were controlled by
Republicans – to put in place measures that required in-person ballots to be
counted before mail-ins. We’ll get into
the reasons for that in a bit (they are, for the most part, legitimate) but
note that this is what happened in all of the swing states named in the Texas
law suit.
In States
where this wasn’t the case – Ohio for example – consider what happened. The opposite of the “red mirage”
occurred. If you recall – in Ohio there
was an early surge in Democratic tallies – the mail-in votes had been sorted
and were ready to be counted right away.
For naïve Biden supporters it seemed for a time that “Buckeyes for
Biden” was going to be a winning slogan.
Then the in-person count started, and the returns from outside Cleveland
rolled in. The slogan was quickly
retired.
The change
in results from in-person to mail in tallies was not unexpected or
statistically inconsistent in any State.
It was in line with the predictions, in line with the demographics that
comparable results from other States would predict and wasn’t out of line with
what happened in other elections.
As to why
there were actions taken to “hold back” the mail in results – those were
actually spearheaded by REPUBLICAN legislatures and office holders. In fairness – it’s pretty easy to understand
why. The concern arises from another
historic event – this one happened during the 1980 election between Jimmy
Carter and Ronald Reagan. During that
election, by about 8:00 Eastern time, it was apparent that Reagan had won
easily. The networks had called all the
East Coast states for Reagan - so Carter did the thing that has historically
been done by a gracious loser – he conceded.
The problem
with this was that polls were still open in the Western states, where there
were still Democratic candidates who needed turnout in order to win. They were livid with Carter for going on TV
early – and swore that the reason they ended up losing was that once word got
out that the Presidential race was over their voters just decided to stay home.
This
“Carter effect” continues to inform the actions of candidates, particularly
incumbent candidates, when setting up how elections are reported and votes are
tallied. For example, great pressure has
been brought to bear against networks and other broadcasters to never call a
State or general election based upon incomplete tallies or exit polls. Even where the result is no mystery at all
you will never hear a network call an election for a given candidate before the
polls in that State officially close.
The other
thing no down ballot candidate wants to have to deal with is the early
reporting of results. You know those two
towns in New Hampshire that report their results just after midnight on election
day? They are about the only places
anywhere that get to do that. This year,
with a huge number of mail-in ballots accumulating in the election offices
prior to the day of the actual election the various legislatures were faced
with a real problem (one that I sympathize with, by the way). It seems reasonable to at least organize
those ballots and get them ready to count before the time that the polls
close. Hell, why not even count them
ahead of time and if the polls close at 8:00 PM then at 8:01 you could release
your first tally. In some cases, Ohio for instance, that’s pretty close to what
was done. Other States, like Arizona,
where there is a long history of mail-in voting, did pretty much the same
thing.
The problem
is this – if you tally those votes, or if you even organize them into batches
from various voting precincts, there is a really good chance those figures are
going to leak beforehand. You then could
potentially end up with a “Carter effect” – where the press reports “a record
number of mail-in ballots received and they appear to give Joe Biden an
enormous early advantage”. To be honest –
this type of story ended up appearing in a number of publications this
year. If I were a Republican State
representative running a close campaign against a Democratic challenger I
probably would be a bit nervous that my supporters might take this as a sign
that the election was pretty much over and stay home. Of course, there could be
an opposite effect, but I know from experience that campaign managers do not
plan their strategies using a “best case” scenario. If they do, they don’t remain campaign
managers for very long.
So, there
were a number of States that did all they could to place the counting (and
organizing) of mail-in ballots at the back of the process. This minimized any possible “Carter effect” –
but it also resulted in stockpiling huge numbers of votes for Biden for later reporting. So, as we saw in Pennsylvania, the late
counts of population centers tended to result in the early advantage for Trump being
whittled away relentlessly. Viewed this
way the loss of the early Trump lead did not result from a “miraculous” change
in voting patterns – but from predictable alterations in the type of votes that
were being counted. And the reason they
were being counted that way didn’t arise from any kind of Democratic “plot” –
but from an understandable approach taken at the behest of Republican legislatures.
The change
in the voting patterns and the increased number of votes garnered by Biden over
Obama are also entirely understandable.
First of all – we are eight years removed from the last Obama race – the
population has grown and there are more people voting. Secondly – when Obama and Clinton ran there
was a widespread media fallacy at play which referred to a “blue wall”. The “blue wall” was supposed to mean that the
Democrats had a virtually unchallengeable run to victory in States like Minnesota,
Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and the entire East Coast. This served to depress voter mobilization
efforts in those States and diverted organizing to other, supposedly “battleground”
States. We all remember that Hillary
Clinton, in one of many stupid moves made throughout her campaign, didn’t even bother
to visit Michigan for the two months prior to the election.
Then 2016
happened. All of the States I mentioned
there, with the exception of Minnesota, which barely stayed blue, went for
Donald Trump. The “blue wall” was
exposed as a myth. It was also a call to
arms for Democrats to begin mobilizing the vast numbers of voters that they had
(foolishly) taken for granted. The
entire four years leading up to 2020 was taken up in voter registration drives
in an entire swathe of the country’s most populous States.
That’s just
politics as usual – and we all know that this wasn’t a year or election that just
involved “politics as usual”. Let me put
it this way – I have a bit of outside perspective here – I live away from the
U.S., (and vote remotely) so when I go back and see the way the country looks –
just visually looks – certain things tend to jump out. One year I went back in July and it seemed
everyone was driving PT Cruisers. My initial
impression was “damn, that’s the ugliest car I ever saw”. About a year later I went back again. There seemed to be a lot fewer PT Cruisers
around. I thought “Well, everybody must’ve
realized just how damn ugly those things were”. If you lived in the States that
change might have seemed to happen gradually and would go by relatively
unnoticed. Put a gap in between and it
jumps out.
Here’s what
I observed coming back a couple of times a year over the last four years. The country usually goes through periods
(every Presidential cycle) where you’ll start to see lawn signs and politics
will “ramp up”. Then in “off years” you’ll
see a few local election signs around – but generally things will slow way
down. Over the last four years that has sort of been turned on its head. In 2018, a “mid-term” year – there were still
scores of Trump signs set out all over the New Hampshire towns that I vacation
in. There were multiples of bumper
stickers and yard signs being seen in numbers that would never have been seen
before – on both sides of the political spectrum. Many of them didn’t even reference a
candidate. Think about the sheer number
of “Black Lives Matter” signs that were to be seen this summer – many of them
probably appearing on lawns that never would have had a sign out front in the
past. It seemed that virtually every conversation
over the past four years eventually turned, in some way, to politics.
The fact is
that the country has been building towards a record turnout in this election
since the days, nay, the hours, after the end of the last one. One thing Donald Trump has done is motivate
voters – both for (but especially) against him.
It is not “bizarre” that both candidates set records for total votes
received on both the winning and losing side of the ledger – far from it. This outpouring of involvement is EXACTLY
what was to be expected. And be honest with
yourself – whether you are on the winning or losing side – you kind of knew
that, didn’t you?
What’s
Next?
There are
two ways to look at this – “what is likely to happen next?” and “what should we
hope happens next?”
What is
likely to happen next is that the Texas law suit will be dismissed by the
Supreme Court (there is some question as to whether they will do this summarily
or after a “hearing”), and then the vote of the electors will be finalized next
week. It is then likely that the focus of the Trump effort will turn to the
Congress, who are supposed to convene a session to count the votes and certify
the election in early January. That
session is presided over by the sitting Vice President – and is usually perfunctory
in nature.
The best
known example of this took place in 2001 when Al Gore presided over the session
that resulted in him losing the election by a single electoral vote,
270-268. There was, of course, much
controversy that year – but that controversy never made it to the
Congress. This is because in order to
have any debate concerning the result a motion needs to be made by at least one
member of the House of Representatives and joined by at least one member of the
Senate. Gore actively discouraged any
Senator from joining with a Representative to challenge the result – and although
there were motions made from the House side to review the election not a single
Senator, of either party, broke ranks to join them.
It is
likely that this is not what will happen in January. There are numerous signs that at least one
Republican Senator will join with the motion that is sure to come from many
Republican Representatives. There will be a debate concerning the 2020 election,
there will be a vote on whether to accept and certify the results of the electors
that will be more than perfunctory.
This is
likely to happen. It is also likely that the debate will result in the election
being upheld. Joe Biden WILL be sworn in
on the 20th of January.
Let’s be
clear here. I believe that the vast
majority of the lawsuits filed in connection with the election are specious,
illegitimate nonsense that should have led to the lawyers filing such drivel
(multiple times) and including such speculative foolishness in court pleadings
being sanctioned. There was no place in court for the kind of things that have
been seen. The courts are not theaters
or centers for debate – claims must have merit and when they do not they should
be treated as the kind of trash they are – and thrown out the way they have been.
But
Congress is a place for debate – and for the kind of back and forth that has
been discussed in this article. I hope
to God that the elected officials who conduct that debate do so on the basis of
the facts, the real facts and real evidence (instead of “assuming facts not in
evidence”) and the concerns raised are legitimate (like those cited above
concerning the statistical analysis of the vote) and, when it’s all over
everyone is satisfied and votes to uphold the result.
I really do
hope that happens.
But I do not
expect it to. I think there will be crass political manuevering on display
throughout, I believe Ted Cruz will walk through hellfire in order to position
himself as the next logical standard bearer of the Trump banner. I believe Mitch McConnell will pour gasoline
on that hellfire in order to insure that Joe Biden’s Presidency is deemed illegitimate
from the day he sets foot in the Oval Office.
I believe that there are a huge number of Republican foot soldiers that
will fall right into line in order to facilitate that result, even if they know
in their hearts that it is the wrong thing to do.
That, unfortunately,
is what I think will happen. There will be a huge, cacophony of noise erupting
from the Congress in the first week of January, designed to harm the country in
the name of partisan politics.
So, what SHOULD
we do when that noise arises?
Ignore it.
Ignore it.
Ignore it.
For both
those on the right and the left who are sick of crass politicians creating a
poisoned atmosphere (whether that belief is metaphorical or physical) – this is
your chance to unilaterally set aside that activity. We have more important things to do.
You’ll
recall that way back at the start of this article I noted how the events of the
last few weeks had been presaged by the appearance of a certain type of post on
the internet. The ones that said “we’re a Republic, not a democracy”?
There is
now another sort of post appearing – these are the ones that say “Look – it’s
clear we are two different countries – why don’t we just call it off and let
the States that wish to secede into “USA Blue” and “USA Red”?
I strongly
suspect that there is a strong foreign influence behind those type of posts –
they are just the sort of things that a Russia or China would wish to
disseminate. They are just SOOOOO deceptively
alluring, so seemingly reasonable, play so well into the times in which we live.
Do not be
seduced. Being citizens of the United
States means that we were handed a legacy by prior generations. They didn’t split up over territorial
expansion, the gold standard, labor relations, two World Wars, depression,
recession, unequal distribution of wealth, border disputes – hell, even slavery
couldn’t accomplish it. We’ve disagreed
forever – but never about the idea that the fifty stars on the flag appear in a
single field. Let’s not screw that up
now.
Back in
August I wrote a set of rules, which had three pillars – Civility, Perspective
and Purpose. Right now we need “perspective”
more than ever, as our supposed “leaders” lose theirs. This is one of the things I said about
perspective as the campaign for the general election was gearing up:
“I have never lost a friend or shut someone out
because they differ with me politically and I never intend to. I grew up with plenty of people who have
political views that are the opposite of my own. Liked them then, like them now, intend to
still like them after November. If I
don’t like someone I hope it’s because of a better reason than a different
approach to tax policy or the reduction of carbon emissions. The people who you thought you knew – did NOT
suddenly change overnight. There used to
be a time when people argued like hell about politics, then ordered another
beer and argued like hell about sports.
Then they ordered another round and argued like hell about whether
pineapple was an appropriate topping for pizza.
After that they told a joke about three brothers walking into a bar
carrying a talking rabbit, had another beer, jumped into their cars and drove
home. We need to get back to that, other than now we should be calling a taxi
to get home.”
We have a
job to do – and it doesn’t involve endlessly re-hashing an election that wasn’t
really all that close when you get down to it.
It involves getting back to the idea of what the word “United” means in “United
States”. It involves rejecting any asinine
attacks on whether our elections are valid, our system effective, our union worth
preserving. It involves “preserving, protecting and defending” – even in the
face of a result you don’t like, a response to that result that you don’t
understand or a proposed “solution” that is actually a “dissolution”.
Things may
seem bad now, or maybe they seem good. But
it is too soon to know. There’s an old story that goes like this:
A man was
out walking his prize horse when it bolted and ran off. “What horrible luck” said his neighbor.
“We shall
see” said the man.
A few days
later the horse returned – and brought with him an entire flock of wild horses
that the man would now be able to breed, at great profit. “You lucky so and so” said his neighbor.
“We shall
see” said the man.
A few weeks
later, while attempting to break in one of the wild horses, the man’s only son
was thrown and crashed awkwardly to the ground, breaking his leg and likely hobbling
himself for life. “What terrible turn of
events” said his neighbor.
“We shall
see” said the man.
After a
period of time a group of bandits came to the region and rounded up all the young
men to bring them away as servants. They
took one look at the son limping around and decided not to take him because of
his disability. “What good fortune” said
the neighbor.
Guess what
the man said.
