The rejected vote count is what matters

By Jonathan Cohen, AM THINKER

The challenge to the 2020 presidential election is not based on unlawful voting but on ineligible ballots. There is a narrative put out by the Democratic party and their media allies that to contest the election, the Trump campaign must produce enough evidence of fraudulent voters to make up the difference in the vote count. That has very little to do with the bulk of the challenges.

States have a variety of laws to deal with absentee ballots that are put in place to ensure the integrity of the process. These laws are there because it is a lot easier to cheat with mail in voting. Everyone knows this, though for the last six months there has been a serious effort to deny it.

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The Democrat party has long promoted mail-in voting, as they believe their supporters are less likely to vote in person than their opponents’ voters. The pandemic presented a unique opportunity to massively increase the number of mail-in ballots and urged their followers to vote by mail. As Election Day 2020 neared, the Democrats realized there was a hitch, namely, regulations needed to certify mail-in ballots can be strict and many are rejected. This led them to turn around and start urging their voters to vote in person.

By the time they spotted the problem, millions of voters had submitted mail-in ballots either by mailing them in or leaving them off at drop boxes. A report from ABC 6 in Philadelphia from October 22,  2020 gives data on ballot rejections from previous elections that include rejection rates from Philadelphia County 4.3%, Chester County 7.6%, Montgomery County 8% and Delaware County 8.4%. The same report outlines the cumbersome steps needed to be taken in order to validate a mail in ballot.

Applying these percentages to the current election totals would suggest thousands of such ineligible ballots in these four counties alone. What’s more, since the bulk of mail in voting this year is coming from people who have never before done so, the likelihood of disqualifying errors is considerably higher. Add to that the fact that the Biden campaign did no in-person canvassing, no direct assistance to make sure their voters correctly followed the procedures, and it is clear that the push for mail-in ballots had the potential to cause them more harm than good.

This raises two important questions:

  1. How many mail-in Biden ballots were rejected?
  2. Among rejected mail-in ballots, what percentage were Trump ballots?

If the percentage of rejected Biden ballots is, say, less than 1% of the total counted Biden ballots, that would suggest that thousands of ineligible Biden votes were fed through the system. On the other hand, of the total mail-in Republican and Democrat returned ballots, 26.3% were Republican and 73.7% were Democrat. If the number of rejected Republican ballots is about the same as the number of rejected Democrat ballots, that would suggest that the vote processors were favoring Democrats.

The statements of Pennsylvania’s election officials are not reassuring. They have stated throughout the process that they intended to count all votes. At no time did they make any distinction between eligible and ineligible ballots. More generally, Democrats around the country have made it very clear that they intend to count all votes. The procedures for handling defective ballots differs from state to state. Some states do have procedures for contacting voters to let them “cure” their ballots so they can be counted. No such rules apply in Pennsylvania which has very strict regulations and election officials are specifically barred from doing this.

A popular narrative has been floating around the media that President Trump has accused the Democrats of voter fraud. That would be something that would be almost impossible to prove in large enough numbers to overturn the election in any of the close races. What is being challenged is the eligibility of the ballots. Here, the President has considerable grounds for a challenge. The argument is a statistical one. If the number of rejected Biden mail-in ballots as a percentage of all Biden mail-in ballots in this election is far smaller than the percentage of rejected ballots in past elections, an argument can be made that it is very likely that enough ineligible ballots have been counted to swing the election in several battleground states from Trump to Biden.

If the stats turn out to be suspicious, then the behavior of the election boards in barring Republican poll watchers meaningful access to polling places puts the integrity of the vote count in further doubt. These issues will be adjudicated before the courts. The American people deserve a transparent hearing on the evidence in order to assure that whatever the outcome, the election results can be trusted.

November 9, 2020 | 2 Comments »

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  1. @ Adam Dalgliesh:
    Hi, Adam.

    I agree with you, that we have adequate technology at our disposal, to ensure a fair election. One big problem, however, is that the “private ballot” will be, and probably is, up for sale to the highest corrupt bidder.

    You said, “the FBI could…”

    That is the tip of the iceberg of the problem: The FBI is not answerable to the President, nor by a long shot in the service of the American people. The director seems to be cooperative with his boss where and when he absolutely needs to be; but has probably long ago done homage to Deep Sate.

    This is nothing less than a coup, an international globalist coup. The Supreme Court may come through and rescue the Constitution and our electoral system this time around; they have the law on their side; but with the globalists able to censor virutally all free speech, including that of the US President, this is in danger even now (not to mention the future).

    The President has the majority of the American people, the veterans, and nearly all the National Guard and police on his side; but the other side has every dragon in Washington, Redmond, Palo Alto and Davos behind it. Even worse, their intent is not to control the US; their intent is to destroy it; and nothing will destroy it more quickly than discord and chaos.

  2. Actually, using modern AI technologies that are already widely used by private companies as well as by government agencies for other purposes, such as examining possible counterfeit bills in circulation), the FBI could identify nearly fruaudulent ballots throughout the country in at most a few weeks. The problem would be getting the FBI and the Justice Dept to conduct such an investigation, and then persuading the courts not to block it
    or delay it for a long time. These might prove unsurmountable obstacles.