Some Observations on the 2020 US Election that Definitely Don’t Prove Election Fraud
Because there definitely was no election fraud, obviously.
This meme will make sense by the end
As the media has made abundantly clear, there was no election fraud in the 2020 US election. Such claims are debunked, baseless, unfounded and numerous other damning adjectives — in fact, to believe such lunacy simply makes you a deranged conspiracy theorist who presumably believes that Donald Trump is saving the world from a bunch of satanic baby-eating reptilian-human hybrids.
Nonetheless, there are some interesting anomalies that one can look back on and ponder over, now that the election has been conclusively decided with a record total vote tally in favour of the career politician who is proving to be just as racist, war-mongering and status-quo-affirming as his 40 year history in politics suggested he would be… and who fell up a set of stairs three times (not related to election fraud I know, but immensely humorous nonetheless). Just don’t think these anomalies are evidence of election fraud, because — as we have just established — there was no election fraud.
Follow the money
Where better to start than by following the money — specifically the bookmakers and their odds on election night.
Forget the fact that Biden was favourite: because of course he was. Every spectacularly wrong poll (almost as spectacularly wrong as 2016) in the lead up to the election gave them no other option, even if such a comfortable Biden win never passed the smell test of mine and many others BS-attuned sniffers.
You can read my full bitter and jaded post-election night rant here, which I admit doesn’t stand-up as well as I would like 6 months or so later. TBH, none of my MAGA election takes do, but I regret nothing — because at least they stand as a testament to what I believe was the true reality of how this election unfolded: most notably the shameless cover up that was already underway to scrub the actual events of election night from the collective consciousness and to make out as if a Biden win was a formality.
Because this is what actually happened: the confidence and surety in a comfortable Sleepy Joe victory evaporated within an hour of results coming in, as the Orange Menace took seemingly unassailable leads in virtually every swing state:
How unassailable? Enough for the bookies to shorten The Don’s odds from $3 to even money to $1.40 within the space of around half an hour (I think it ended up dipping to $1.30). This happened, indisputably, as did the collective bed-wetting of the progressive establishment media as they saw a repeat of 2016 flash before their eyes.
What happened? Those 4am ballot dumps of course, summarised perfectly in what must be one of the top 5 political memes of 2020:
Now, there are two ways to look at these overnight events. The first is the conventional one: well, of course mail-in ballots were always going to go to Biden! They were coming from urban centres, which always turn Blue — even more so this time given those likely to vote by means other than in person during a pandemic were highly likely to be Democrat voters (no judgement, just epidemiological reality). Plus, we were even warned very clearly by very smart election experts who may have been a just a little bit wrong about this and the last election that this is exactly how things would play out! Look, even Bernie told us this would happen, and of course we can trust Bernie!
Of course, for those of us who have been afflicted with Conspiracy Brain, it looks entirely different. Every event leading up to election night was in fact designed to manifest this manufactured reality into existence: the skewed polls, the vociferous defence of mail-in voting against claims of its susceptibility to fraud, even those predictive programming warnings of the Red Mirage, where early swings to Trump would inevitably be countered and neutralised by mail-in ballots that turned heavily Blue. In other words: if you knew you were probably going to need massive dumps of fake ballots in the middle of the night to win, then of course you would create the exact type of narrative that obscures this fact.
As with most divisive issues: choose your own version of reality to believe (the correct reality of course being the first one, as we have already established).
A dude who didn’t even vote for Trump wrote a book saying the election was rigged
But enough about me and my attempts to justify my regrettable gambling decisions (if you want more, you might find this effort amusing in hindsight). There are more substantive voices calling out the incredibly suspicious events on and after election night.
Many of the best arguments for fraud in the 2020 election have been catalogued in a recently released book by a chap named Patrick Byrne, called The Deep Rig. Patty has obviously done his homework here — a well known Libertarian and founder of online retailer Overstock, he was in fact researching election fraud in the lead up to November 3, leaving him perfectly placed to identify voting irregularities in real time. Unfortunately, he lets himself down by concluding that these irregularities provide proof that the election was in fact rigged, given we know it wasn’t.
Those crazy Trump voters! What, he didn’t actually vote for Trump? That’s ok, presumably he believes blood drinking elites rule the world regardless.
Before we dig in to some of these mistaken arguments in more detail, it is worth just lingering on the author’s personal feelings about Trump — just to reiterate that his book is about election fraud, not about making Trump President again. Byrne’s main aim in writing this book — and opening himself up to the inevitably fierce blowback that any previously-neutral MAGA convert faces — was to ensure safe and secure elections can be held in the future: something that he notes mainstream media outlets were openly advocating for, up until the point that they switched to attack position against any claims that the 2020 election may have been compromised.
Byrne has always voted Libertarian for President, and has in fact never voted for a Republican or Democrat. He did work with Trump in the aftermath of the election, however expresses significant criticism in how Trump and his legal team pursued the election fraud issue. Notwithstanding that criticism, it is worth giving this quote is worth giving in full, to give you an idea of the kind of esteem Trump is held in by these people:
“In the course of that meeting there came a moment I felt something much different for Donald Trump than I had expected to feel, something that made me want to put an arm around the man and give him a long squeeze of reassurance. What was it I felt? I’m still not sure: Commiseration for a tired man? A kind of love? Or just deep sympathy, that I could see he understood he was failing on the most colossal of scales, he was losing, but he could not put the pieces together? Yet it was child’s play to defeat. I wanted to scold him and weep for him at the same time. Yet I hadn't even voted for him.”
This is the key perplexing takeaway from Byrne’s book: the election fraud was in fact (allegedly) so obvious that it beggars belief that Trump’s legal team were so unsuccessful in prosecuting their case in the courts (for what it is worth, I have my own thoughts about the reasons for this ineptitude, but they are a bit too conspiratorial for a political piece).
Sharpie Gate
Before we get too deep into the Deep Rig, let’s start with something fun.
An interesting example of the extent and creativity of the (alleged) fraudulent methods employed in the election was the “Sharpie Switcheroo” (I prefer Sharpie Gate).
As well as this widely shared video, numerous affidavits from voters — not to mention a seemingly incriminating supervisor’s email — attest to election officials forcibly removing normal ball point pens from voters flailing grasps and replacing them with Sharpies. The conspiracy then goes that Sharpie markings will often leave a ballot unreadable by a voting machine, thus requiring it to be ‘adjudicated’. Due to weaknesses in the voting software, any individual with administration privileges could then switch the entirety of a cued stack of adjudicated ballots to the candidate of their choice.
Now: many other election officials were quick to immediately clarify that Sharpie markings will still be read the same as ball point pens, and as such the incident was widely and conclusively ‘debunked’ within days of election night. However, the fact remains that election officials were aware of concerns about these markings (see above email), and on election day seemingly inexplicably demanded voters to use one rather than the other (a good reminder of how ‘fact checking’ can distract from the actual issue at heart).
On the surface, Sharpie Gate seems hilariously irrelevant. To even suggest that something as basic-bitch-dishonest as changing the type of ballot marking instrument into one less likely to be recorded by a machine that goes ping could actually shape the course of a Presidential Election seems patently absurd.
Well, firstly: given how enormously hilarious to American pride that would be, and how utterly it would shatter any illusion of the US being anything but a Banana Republic, I’m more than happy to believe. But given that, in reality, Sharpie Gate was just a storm in a teacup, let us try and find a deeper meaning in this madness.
What if, by focusing on the apparent frivolity of this Sharpie skullduggery, we are missing the point. What if we can see Sharpie Gate as the canary in the coal mine of election fraud: if Democrats were so irrationally panicked as to even attempt these kind of shenanigans, as it appears they were, then it points to a broader mindset of irrational panic about the direction the election might have been headed.
Perhaps it also speaks at some fundamental level to the state of the Democrats. That this former proud progressive party had developed a culture that would actually encourage this behaviour, and to think that they would get away with it — basically because whatever it takes to defeat, once and for all, Orange Man Bad.
Foreign Interference — Cyber Ninjas!
Now we get to perhaps the most significant and divisive issue that lies at the heart of (mistaken) claims that the election was stolen: foreign interference.
It is worth starting with the media, who in the lead-up to the election were often-breathlessly reporting on the possibility of interference from foreign entities, albeit mainly as a continuation of the ongoing Russia paranoia. So, to be clear, this issue only became controversial once such interference was alleged to have favoured Democrats (or, more accurately, that it was Orange Man making the allegations).
Much of the evidence for said interference is decidedly nerdy in origin, and emerged from Byrne’s work with what he called ‘white hat hackers’ (or, even better, ‘Cyber-Ninjas’): cyber-forensics experts capable of cracking open and analysing hard drives to produce evidence that is then permissible in court. In working with these proud geeks, he was made aware of obvious vulnerabilities in election software and equipment: something — at the risk of repeating myself — mainstream media outlets were happy to point out up until November 4th.
Before the US election, these hackers warned Byrne to watch out for shady tactics used in foreign elections marred by allegations of fraud: windows of time — usually late at night — where vote counting was shut down, only for large and controversial swings to come in favouring one candidate. If such events were to occur in this election, it was a sure sign that The Deep Rig was in play. Sure enough, as noted above: on election night, voting was halted in six ‘anchor cities’ in key swing states. The media did an impressive job of erasing this particular phenomenon from history, aside from a few notable exceptions, but it most certainly occurred (I will never forget the unified outrage in MAGA world as it dawned on them that the fix was officially in).
Now, it should be said first that not all of the alleged shady shiz that occurred in these periods was foreign in origin — some was decidedly localised and quite impressive in its daring. Atlanta was a particular fascinating example. In one location, a vote count stoppage of several hours was blamed on a burst water pipe that was later found to be fake, during which time hundreds of thousands of votes were still tallied. Elsewhere, security camera footage showed workers pulling suitcases of ballots out from under tables after other workers and GOP poll watchers were told to go home.
But as well as these humble homegrown efforts by over-enthusiastic Democrat foot soldiers, it appears that something far more sinister and systematic was also occurring. The Cyber-Ninjas that Byrne was working with were soon producing analyses of the vote counts during these stoppage windows, revealing the astonishingly brazen nature of the (alleged) fraud being attempted. They found sets of precincts simultaneously reporting 18/1 vote tallies to Biden, which would suddenly switch to normal after 90 minutes, upon which time another set of precincts would begin tallying votes in the exact same weighted tallies. Video analyses of these anomalies can be found for both Georgia and Pennsylvania.
If it were to indeed exist, just how widespread was such vote hacking — specifically these much publicised claims against Dominion voting machines? Well, frankly, who the fuck knows by this point — the election fraud debate has become a partisan and divisive cesspool filled with misinformation from both sides. But Byrne and his colleagues — most notably and fantastically the pillow salesman Mike Lindell — sure seem confident.
Panic in Arizona
The diligent work of our Cyber Ninja friends provides an excellent segway into the most recent piece of non-evidence for election fraud: Panic in Arizona.
Were you aware that there is a forensic audit currently occurring in Maricopa County, the most populous urban district in the Blue (for now) swing state of Arizona? If you were, you were probably told that it was “Bonkers”, “Unhinged” and — according to the incredibly unfortunately named Maricopa County election supervisor Bill Gates (seriously) — “tearing at the foundations of democracy”.
If you instead ask those undertaking it: the audit is in fact the most comprehensive and thorough election audit ever attempted in the United States. Unlike other audits already undertaken, it is not simply a hand recount of all ballots, but includes other measures aimed at specifically identifying the use of fraudulent voting tactics. This includes an audit of electronic voting systems used to count and tally the ballots, as well as cross-checking of voter registration lists. Finally, it is to be conducted by a team of forensic auditors called (of course) Cyber Ninjas Inc.
With the audit still ongoing, there is little point speculating at this point. Nonetheless, the panic from the establishment — which MAGA is unashamedly delighting in — certainly seems real.
The Numbers
In the end, if you are going to prove election fraud, it must come through some statistically serious, nerd-porn number crunching. Maths can’t lie, as far as I know (although apparently it can be racist). Any evidence that emerges out of Arizona, or any other state now embarking on their own MAGA-inspired audit process, must show statistical anomalies that hold up in a legal setting.
Many have already tried, to varying degrees of success and public attention. Indeed, as the official numbers began to settle after November 3, there emerged many ambitious bean-counters ready to step up, do their thing and earn a place in MAGA folklore.
Perhaps the most notable of these was Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai. While the good doctor’s mathematical analyses are claimed to show clear evidence of fraud, it should be noted that they have come under heavy counter-analysis. As such, and given his notoriety in conspiracy circles already, we probably have better sources to look to.
Another one is Seth Keshel, an ex-Army intelligence captain who lays out his extensive analysis in this widely shared 20 minute video. Another is Yale-trained Mathematician Professor Steven Miller, who outlined in a sworn affidavit his claims of anomalies in up to 100,000 absentee ballots in Pennsylvania. Another is Economist John Lott, who flagged almost 300,000 suspicious votes across the 6 key swing states.
Now, we can go on here. But I don’t want to, and you probably don’t want to. Apologies if you were indeed hoping for me to present a rigorous and legally sound statistical case for election fraud in every single swing state, although that seems like an unfair expectation given the people who are getting paid to do that still haven’t done it.
What I will point you to is this website: hereistheevidence.com (kudos to them for the foresight of securing that domain name). While some or even many are likely BS, there are such a ridiculous number of numerical discrepancies listed there that it does leave one feeling slightly overwhelmed and discouraged — not least in the very premise that electoral processes are anything like the self-regulating system of fairness and transparency that we have been lead to believe.
This, then, leads to somewhat of a state of cognitive dissonance: given we have also been assured in no uncertain terms that this was the most secure election in US history.
Joe Biden: the most popular Presidential Candidate in History?
But if we are talking about numbers, it is best to leave the fine print out of it. Because there is one quite extraordinary statistical anomaly — one hiding in plain sight, that the media and political establishment has done their best to manifest into normality — when we look at the official and undisputed overall nation-wide results.
As with most complex things, it can be best summarised in a meme. Shown below are some of the most glaring red flags found in these official results. Surely it is, at a minimum, somewhat curious that Trump lost while also winning: all bar one of the traditional ‘bellwether’ areas; the three key swing states that usually decide elections; a greater share of House seats; and more votes than he did in 2016.
The comparison between Biden and Obama is where things get harder to fathom: for example, the brain-twisting fact that Biden won just over half of the counties that Obama did, yet somehow beat him by approximately 12 million votes overall!
But if you ask me, the only number we really need to look at it is the biggest one of them all: that total vote count.
In perhaps my personal favourite article on the US election, I outlined what I think is the most outrageous conspiracy that emerged from this debacle: the fact that Joe Biden received the most votes of any Presidential candidate in history. The fact that this exists as an objective reality, and yet there are still people who think there was nothing shady about this election, remains quite difficult for me to get my head around. I’m still quite proud of this take:
“Apparently, a lot of people believe that the aforementioned Joe Biden, a career politician with as much baggage as anyone in DC, who is clearly experiencing at least the early stages of dementia, and who had more Trump supporters turn up to some of his rallies than his own supporters, could have received the highest primary vote count of a US Presidential candidate in history, in the middle of a pandemic, when distrust in politics has never been higher. That, believe it or not, he legally surpassed by several millions votes and counting the wave of bipartisan support for Obama in 2008 — people persuaded by calls of Hope and Change from the charming, young, articulate, black man with folksy swagger to give politics one more shot.”
One of the golden rules of navigating the conspiracy world is that it is less about what you believe, but more about understanding what other people believe. And in this case: it doesn’t matter what you or me on any other onlooker thinks about Trump, it matters what the majority of American voters think about him. And anyone who still believes that this majority would vote for a candidate like Biden over one who has made his brand by tapping into every cliched patriotic, American exceptionalism archetype — at the same time as making white people feel good about themselves and their desire to be rich — may be in for a rude shock soon.
The power of TDS should not be under-estimated for sure: but surely it doesn’t exist to this extent.
FORTIFIED
Please excuse me. I lost my temperament there slightly. I almost started to sound like a conspiracy theorist.
Because, while a suspicious mind — always looking for darkness and nefariousness in the world as projection of their own darker inner void — might take stock of this evidence and suggest that the election was, in fact, rigged… there is another, far more agreeable option. As Time Magazine explained best:
“… the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.”
Fortifying, you hear? Case closed. Tulsi 2024!