The editors of the Wall Street Journal have found what is to my eye a pretty good summary of the 2020 presidential election:
If curious Republicans want to know what really happened in 2020, this is the best summation to date. Released Dec. 7, it was written by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), a policy shop with conservative bona fides that supported many of Mr. Trump’s policies. A Wisconsin judge this month said ballot dropboxes are illegal under state law, in a challenge brought by WILL.
Its report on 2020 wallops state officials for bending election rules amid the pandemic. That mistake put ballots into legal doubt, due to no fault of the voter, while fueling skepticism. Yet the stolen-election theory doesn’t hold up. President Biden won Wisconsin by 20,682, and mass fraud “would likely have resulted in some discernible anomaly,†WILL says. “In all likelihood, more eligible voters cast ballots for Joe Biden than Donald Trump. â€
concluding:
“We do not believe the election was ‘stolen,’†WILL says. “But it was not adequately secure.â€
and for the editors the moral of the story is:
The overall lesson is to run elections by the book.
That does raise the question what is “adequately secure”? It smacks of “no true Scotsman”. When only a minority of Americans have faith in American democracy, a narrow majority of Americans think that Joe Biden legitimately won the election, and 20% of Americans think a lot of fraud occurred in their own states in 2020, it suggests there’s quite a long way to go.
Interesting how the election script is slowly creeping from “It was a perfect election,†to a conservative leaning group in Wi admitting to “some discernible anomaly,â€although not enough to change the outcome of the WI election.
I don’t buy it. There continue to be changes in Wi that transformed usually stable numbers into ones that make no sense. For example, the normal “indefinitely confined†group number, allowing people in nursing homes etc. to submit absentee ballots, went from a minor number to one that exploded over 200,000. Then there was Facebook’s unorthodox contributions strategically placing ballot drop boxes mainly in democrat precincts, compounded by the broken chain of custody issues associated with those extra ballot drop boxes.
Finally, party affiliation of a public interest group doesn’t necessarily anoint them with having no prejudice. The last president was considered an outlier by both the left and right establishment. Shrugging off the “good old boy†commandment, underlined quietly in the “standard of care†followed by most politicians, made Trump an undesirable in big league politics. You might note that the push back to the legitimacy of the 2020 election is not coming from the political hierarchy, but rather from “the peopleâ€. —- the working, middle class masses representing all genders, ethnicities and party affiliations.
“Yet the stolen-election theory doesn’t hold up. President Biden won Wisconsin by 20,682, and mass fraud “would likely have resulted in some discernible anomaly,†WILL says.”
This is nonsense. One does not have to look far for numerous examples of lottery-odds type statistical anomalies. Jan cited just one. We are basically being asked to believe that a guy who couldn’t get more than a handful of people to a “rally” was the beneficiary of a a huge groundswell of support that gave him a record number of votes.
I have seen only three types of appeals to exculpatory analyses. Courts that refused to take cases due to standing, not merit. Re-feading ballots through counting machines which are a measure of the machine’s repeatability, not ballot integrity. And investigations of garden variety fraud like voting twice, long known to be relatively small issues. But investigate the source and actual validity of the ballots dumped into receptacles or emptied from suit cases, er, I mean “cast.” It has been fought tooth and nail every time. That’s what is called being over the target.
The bottom line is that it won’t be investigated because a) the establishment doesn’t want it investigated and b) what do you do with the result? Its too late. But you can already see the next election fraud scheme being cooked up. 2022 will be “illegitimate” if the election rules are not changed to make it easy to rig. Uh, I mean, made “fair.”
BTW – how is that undeniable “truth” that Trump was colluding with the Russians holding up these days? Yeah, undeniable truth.
Dave Schuler: 20% of Americans think a lot of fraud occurred in their own states in 2020
You can fool some of the people all of the time. In this case, the lie undermines the foundation of democracy.
Jan: allowing people in nursing homes etc. to submit absentee ballots, went from a minor number to one that exploded over 200,000
There was a pandemic, and people in nursing homes voted by absentee ballot. So?
Jan: Facebook’s unorthodox contributions strategically placing ballot drop boxes mainly in democrat precincts
Facebook didn’t place the drop boxes, but election officials.
Jan: compounded by the broken chain of custody issues associated with those extra ballot drop boxes.
We’d like to see some evidence of this.
Drew: One does not have to look far for numerous examples of lottery-odds type statistical anomalies.
We’d like to see some evidence of this.
Drew: We are basically being asked to believe that a guy who couldn’t get more than a handful of people to a “rally†was the beneficiary of a a huge groundswell of support that gave him a record number of votes.
Biden primarily campaigned virtually. Meanwhile, there was a pandemic, so holding large rallies was irresponsible.
Drew: Courts that refused to take cases due to standing, not merit.
A number of courts did look at the merits, but no evidence of extensive fraud was ever provided to the courts.
I would never go to a rally for any political. I do vote.
“One does not have to look far for numerous examples of lottery-odds type statistical anomalies.”
Ordinarily I think you understand math, but you d have the selective ability to forget. Presidential elections are uncommon events so have only had about 60 of them. When your number of prior events is so small and many of them are irrelevant to how we vote now, the odds are that you will have outliers. If you do it is worth looking at them, which has been done. Nothing was found.
Steve