1) You point to a reduction in the percentage of absentee ballots rejected as "proof" that the election was OMGSTOLEN. But that's not a steal at all. The only thing that proves is that the new rules, which were agreed upon, were having the intended effects. Just because YOU don't like the results of that rule doesn't prove that any stealing occurred whatsoever.
Ten, I specifically did not do this. You're inferring stuff that wasn't discussed. Most importantly, there was no evidence at all that Raffensperger had any idea it was tantamount to shaving 4-6 points off the Republican totals. He just wanted it to go away. It would be fair to say he was out-lawyered if you want to go that way.
But the important point is while it had some effect on the election, there is no evidence it was in any sense "correct" to have done it. In a courtroom, that evidence could be presented a priori and fairness could be established. What would have been fair? We have no idea. Because it was a back room deal, not an arms-length negotiation.
It was inherently unfair resulting in a presumptive unfair result.
2) You claim that only one person had to sign off on this new rule, and that was due to political pressure from Stacy Abrams. If that's really the case, then Georgia should change the sign-off rules. Still no proof of a "steal." Yeah, maybe. I don't know how all that worked but at the end of the day, the Secretary of State had that authority. Raffensperger was the guy in charge of making the deal. And he screwed it up.
The result was unfair, but could easily have been fixed if there were laws in place to ensure fairness by saying, "Hey, this needs to be settled by arbitration" (for example) which allows a third party to be involved in negotiation of a fair arrangement. This is now done commonly in divorces and works well compared with courtroom trials, in my experience.
3) You don't present any proof that these ballots, which would have been rejected under the old rules, would have changed the results of the election. No, it wasn't relevant. But I do think a ~6 point swing in Georgia had a reasonable likelihood of changing the outcome, particularly if Elias' other swing state activities were subject to fair negotiation.
I think I covered the absurd 40 year consent decree in the previous post which brought Elias to his power. Just now, Republicans are starting to recover from that outrageous political act by a judge in 1980. Attorney Harmeet Dhillon has done a great job over the last several months and may walk into similar shoes going forward representing Republicans, and that may be something that creates fairer trials going forward.
So, that is a potential bright spot on the fairness front.
4) I don't see anything blatantly wrong with matching the ballot signature with any signature on file vs. the signature in the voter registration database. Unless you can prove to me that such a change can lead to widespread voter fraud, I don't see any evidence of a steal. Look, I don't think signatures ought to be involved at all. It is absurd that we have to rely on an archaic, problematic standard. Some day, maybe AI/ML when get us there, but software, signature matches are not there yet. Last I checked.
That being said, we do know that mismatches under the old arrangement (i.e., visual inspection by experienced workers in the Elections offices) yielded a 6.4% rejection rate. And after the modified rule, comparing with any signature on file in the office, the rejection rate dropped to 0.3%. So, you had a pretty massive reduction in rejections. I read in some place that after this change was made employees were less diligent about even requiring a lookup; but I don't know the facts on that.
But we do know the numbers changed, and we do know that Elias fought hard to make that change, and there were other states is which similar activities were undertaken.
In these elections with archaic procedures such as signature match, little things matter, and Elias has been able to zero in on some of those and capitalize on them. I'm sure your view is "Republicans should have done better" but reality is that Republicans were, on a nationwide basis, prevented by a ridiculous consent decree that fucked up American elections for 40 years. WE were cheated THERE, too.
If you think elections are "fair" or "fair enough", that's where you come down and I can't change it. I encourage you to pay attention to these things. These are not how the election was stolen in 2020. These are examples of the types of activities that were used in every swing state to gain a tactical advantage without considering the plight of the voters. The extent to which outcome was affected, I do not know.
I do know that the election turned on fewer than 50K votes spread over three states and you cannot afford to have cheating going on in this situation.
Unless you're in California, where it simply doesn't matter. You're gonna have a Gavin Newsom Lookalike for the rest of your life in that place. |
