We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

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Are incentives better than commands – when the goal is fraud?

In the old days, Mayor Daley commanded his goons to “vote early, vote often” and Lyndon B. Johnson ordered his fixers to write down the vote tally required.. Etc.

I think incentives work better than commands, in general. I also think that these days, when there’s a non-zero risk that even the thickest goon just might have a smartphone and a grudge, it is prudent, as well as effective, for some forms of voter fraud (not all) to avoid the overt top-down command-driven model. Teach a general political philosophy that values achieving the noble goal far above pedantically observing the rules of the process. Garnish with four years of proclaiming loudly that electing Trump president is fundamentally illegitimate (to a degree that obviously no irregularity on your side could match). Drizzle with half-a-year of normalising the burning down and looting of property to make burning or looting its owners’ votes seem trivial, while also having governors proclaim (and judges defend) rules that make doing so easy and safe.

Given the things Biden does say, I hesitate to assure you we will not find a recording of him saying “Vote months early, vote often”, but after doing the above, there was far less need for anyone to say that in so many words.

A guy with some experience investigating fraud thinks the same but (like me) he also thinks incentivised fraud has a downside.

Real errors go both ways. … errors going all one way means it is systematic across the entire organization. Different errors all going one way means that it isn’t one state, one software company, one voting method… this is everyone in the organization getting the message to move the stats one way. And they did it sloppy and across the board because although the message was sent and received, it wasn’t *organized* from the top. It was handled from the local level. It was impossible to be slick and smart, the front line knew what the top level wanted as a result and no one knew how much it would take so it became super obvious…

As statistics and examples of vote fraud accumulate – and are swiftly repeated and denied in haste from site to site on both sides by both the statistically literate and the anything but, by both the cautious and the furious – I advise investing a little thought in the underlying state(s) and model(s) that these details are intended to clarify.

I’ve given one example above – consider how much of this was incentivised, not centrally controlled. Governor Newsom could hardly tell the pair arrested for making more than 8000 fictitious voter registrations between July and October 2020 that the California Democrats only needed each activist to register a few tens or hundreds at most; incentivising enough while also restraining enough, while saying nothing overt outside one’s inner circle, is a difficult trick to pull off.

A second example is the fact that mail-in voting notoriously makes voter fraud much easier – and also, as a side-effect, makes it even easier than it already is to submit a single legitimate vote. For several reasons there was real increased turnout as well as fictional, and all of it showed up in the totals – which should be remembered when, for example, a statement about Biden underperforming Hillary or not in some context shows up far down some comment thread with any original ‘relative’ / ‘absolute’ qualifier long forgotten in the twenty repetitions the point took to get there.

A third is that when a Rasmussen poll reports 30% of Democrats saying it is likely the election was stolen from Trump, what you think that means will be affected by what you think about the (in)accuracy of polls in general – and whether you think that, like voting anomalies, polls overwhelmingly err in a pro-Democrat direction.

62 comments to Are incentives better than commands – when the goal is fraud?

  • Shlomo Maistre

    Good post Niall – I agree with it.

    I have investigated it a bit and I am unaware of any law in the United States that explicitly makes voter fraud illegal. Does anyone know of a law that explicitly makes voter fraud illegal? I know there are laws designed to make voter fraud less likely, but I don’t think there are any laws explicitly making voter fraud illegal in the US.

    My understanding is that the two main ways Trump legal team is going to be seeking to disqualify ballots is based on one of two things:
    1. Violations of Article 1 Section 4

    The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof…

    2. Violation of the Equal Protection Clause under the 14th Amendment

    There are a lot of types of voter fraud. As far as I know there is no law explicitly against voter fraud – can anyone tell me if I’m wrong and, if so, what law(s) specifically make voter fraud illegal and, additionally, who would have legal standing to file lawsuits to disqualify the fraudulent ballots?

    For example, if 2 million dead people voted for Democrats – even if that could be proven, what law is violated and who would have the legal standing to disqualify those ballots in reality?

  • bobby b

    A person, including an election official, who in any election for Federal office—

    (1) knowingly and willfully intimidates, threatens, or coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any person for —

    (A) registering to vote, or voting, or attempting to register or vote;

    (B) urging or aiding any person to register to vote, to vote, or to attempt to register or vote; or

    (C) exercising any right under this chapter; or

    (2) knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by —

    (A) the procurement or submission of voter registration applications that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held; or

    (B) the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held,

    shall be fined in accordance with title 18 (which fines shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury, miscellaneous receipts (pursuant to section 3302 of title 31), notwithstanding any other law), or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

    U.S. Code Title 52. VOTING AND ELECTIONS Subtitle II. Voting Assistance and Election Administration Chapter 205. NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION Section 20511. Criminal penalties

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/20511

  • Shlomo Maistre (November 22, 2020 at 10:26 pm), AFAICS (I am not a lawyer) the precedent mentioned in the first part of this post not only asserts the illegality of voter fraud but the legality of deducing it from statistical considerations.

  • Paul Marks

    Of course the election was rigged – massively so.

    But I do not believe that anything will be done.

    The philosophy of “Pragmatism” (John Dewey and co) teaches that there is no such thing as Objective truth – including no objective MORAL truth.

    So the ends-justify-the-means FBI (who are educated in the same universities as the MEDIA and the CORPORATE MANAGERS) will not do anything – any more than they did about the crimes of the Bidens.

    Philosophy matters – and the American, indeed international, establishment elite have been taught there is no Objective Truth and no Objective Moral Right and Moral Wrong.

    Why should they care about a rigged election? As long as the outcome of the election serves their interests they do care at all that it was rigged.

    And the media? The media will laugh and dance.

    Let us hope that I am WRONG – that there is still some honour left.

    We will know in a few days.

  • bobby b

    As for your second question:

    http://jailhouselaw.org/section-1983-lawsuits/

    USC Sec. 1983 is what governs who may sue for deprivations of constitutional rights “under color of law”. When you hear of “1983 claims”, that’s what is being discussed.

  • bobby b

    As a follow-up: Federal criminal charges are the most obvious route to follow in a fraudulent federal-office election. But:

    a. Such charges are brought by the US Attorney who runs each state’s office. These are executive-appointed positions. Political positions. How many US Attorneys are going to be interested today in pursuing and prosecuting election fraud that brought their new boss into office? and:

    b. Criminal voting fraud prosecutions don’t change votes. You can put everybody in prison, but the election stands. Your new boss is still your new boss. Biden is still President, and you are then replaced.

  • staghounds

    “…US Attorneys are going to be interested today in pursuing and prosecuting election fraud that brought their new boss into office?”

    Today’s U. S. Attorneys won’t get a new boss.

    U. S. Attorneys are generally all replaced immediately upon the inauguration of a new president- it’s a patronage position. The assistants are all civil service and stay on for whoever.

    Traditionally, the U.S.A.s resign upon the changeover, and the chief A.U.S.A. runs the office until the new U.S.A.- usually a local party loyalist- is appointed.

  • bobby b

    Remember the March Massacre in 2017? Trump asked for the resignations of 46 holdover USA’s. In March, three months into his term.

    Outrage! Unprecedented! Huge uproar! Playing partisan politics with the DOJ!

    In reality, some are replaced immediately, many are retained. What do you think of the chances for a USA to be retained if he’s criminally charging the new president’s campaign staff? Not a good time to be riling up the new boss.

  • Lee Moore

    Please use the expression “vote fraud” or “election fraud”. Not “voter fraud”.
    The latter implies that the fraudsters are ordinary voters somehow exercising their votes fraudulently. and frames the thing directly in the Democrat manner – that the sort of weirdos who complain about “voter fraud” are simply trying to suppress the votes of the honest masses
    Voter fraud is possible, eg voting in two places, or falsely registering as resident somewhere you dont live.
    But in the main, the sort of fraud that is actually going on is not “voter fraud” – it’s folk in side rooms altering ballots, or filling in extra ones, or feeding ballots through the machines multiple times,or manufacturing and mailing in fraudulent ballots, or deliberately counting ballots with mismatched signatures or adding up the totals wrong, or throwing inconvenient ballots in the trash etc.
    These things aren’t voter fraud. Theyre attempts by election officials or party operative or partisans to steal the election from ordinary voters.
    Avoid “voter fraud” please.

  • Bobby b (bobby b, November 22, 2020 at 11:16 pm), just to clarify my understanding:

    1) I was taking it rather for granted that the legal activities of Giuliani, Powell and others are aimed at preventing Biden reaching the Whitehouse rather than evicting him from it at some later date, just as I took it for granted in 2000 that the 37 post-election-days-worth of legal activities of Al Gore were aimed at preventing Bush’s entering the Whitehouse rather than later getting him out of it.

    2) That said, the reported phrasing of Donohue v. Board of Elections of State of New York, 435 F.Supp. 957 (E.D.N.Y. 1976) (from link in my comment above, but they merely summarse a longer discussion here) appears (to the layman’s eye) to state plainly the New York court’s belief that it could order a new election.

  • JohnK

    It seems to me that President Trump needs to get his case before the Supreme Court sooner rather than later. So far a fortnight seems to have gone by with no progress.

    Furthermore, it seems clear that the Democratic Party needs to be investigated under RICO, and wound up as a criminal racket if at all possible.

  • bobby b

    (Just did something wrong that caused a comment to disappear. If it reappears, please delete this near-duplicate. It’ll be obvious.)

    NK:

    I think the structure of my response to SM is causing confusion. I think we’re on the same page.

    I laid out the criminal charges available through federal election law in response to SM’s question. As I said, great to punish bad actors, but no change to the election. Prosecuted in the name of The People by the geographically-appropriate United States Attorney.

    Then I mentioned the civil side – the legal redress available to individuals through United States Code, Section 1983. This is what Donohue was – a civil lawsuit, brought by Mr. Donohue as lead Plaintiff, claiming that someone violated his federal constitutional rights under color of law (per Sec 1983), and requesting as one remedy that the election results be overturned.

    So, yes, Guiliani et al are pursuing remedies that would nullify the elections in the states where they’re bringing lawsuits. (Or, have I misunderstood your comment?)

  • The Sanity Inspector

    Speaking for my own state of Georgia, the errors did go both ways. There are 100+ counties in Georgia, each with their own Elections boards running things. The errors discovered in the few disputed counties ran mostly in Trump’s favor, but not enough to overturn the final result.

  • Paul Marks

    bobby b – Senator Rand Paul was physically attacked in Washington D.C. a policeman was sent to hospital by the attackers.

    The attackers were not there by accident – they were brought to Washington D.C. by aircraft and given instructions by wealthy and powerful interests.

    And the “Justice” Department is going to do NOTHING about those wealthy and powerful – clue they are the same wealthy and powerful interests who have had whole areas of American cities burned n recent months, and have prevented (with their regulations) many people getting early treatment for Covid 19 – that meant they DIED, and those deaths were useful from a leftist political point of view.

    The U.S. Attorney in Washington D.C. is going to do NOTHING about the powerful people behind the attack.

    So it is fine to attack United States Senators – or rather plan and organise the attack (just the low level thugs will get punished – not the interests that sent them).

    What do you think the authorities would do if you and your family were attacked bobby b.

    As you know the Attorney General of Minnesota is Keir Ellison – would he care if you and your family were skinned alive?

    What about “President Biden” – would he care?

    You know the answer is NO.

    In the world of Agenda 2030 you and your family are just CATTLE bobby b – you have no liberties, none.

    The same is true for me.

  • Paul Marks

    The Sanity Inspector.

    Were the mail-in ballots checked (I.D. checked by representatives of the candidates) as they were opened?

    We both know the answer to that question is “no they were not” – so the election is as bent as a corkscrew.

    The idea that Joseph “Joe” Biden won in Georgia is bovine excrement – and you know it.

    One does not need 40 years of dealing with elections (as I have) to know this – you know it just as well as I do.

  • Paul Marks

    The desperate whistling in the dark “nothing really bad has happened – the election has not really been massively rigged” or “Biden is a centrist – things will go on much as before”, is understandable – people do not like to face the end of the world as they have known it.

    It is so much nicer to believe that the Great Reset is just a “conspiracy theory”.

    Sadly it is only too real. “Sustainable Development” (“Green” totalitarianism) and “Stakeholder Capitalism” (FASICSM – for that is what it is, Big Business and Big Government coming together to exterminate freedom) will be the death of the West.

    We are seeing this in the United Kingdom and most Western countries – now the United States will go down the same road.

  • G Raymond

    Well well well. Seems the voters chose wrong. There will need to be a do-over, till we get the right result…

  • Paul Marks

    Keith Ellison Attorney General of Minnesota.

    Congresswoman Omar down the road.

    Vice President K. Harris – someone whose voting record and Marxist background makes Senator Sanders look like a conservative.

    But still people are desperate to believe that nothing really bad will happen.

    Did my father’s cousins think like this – even as they went into the “showers”?

  • Jacob

    A question:
    Suppose some D activists (community organizers) requested mail ballots for real people, registered voters, voters who usually don’t vote (30-40% of potential voters don’t usually vote). When the ballots arrived they took them from the voters (with the person’s consent), filled them out (with the person’s consent or without) and then mailed them.
    Would that be considered fraud? Is there any way to find out if these ballots were fraudulent or not?
    In Pennsylvania Bidden won by some 70k votes, say 100k. You recruit, say, 2000 activists in Philadelphia and Pittsburg (you can also bring them in from NY where they are not needed) – and each fills out and mails 50 ballots. Easy.
    In places where the difference between parties is very small (Trump won Pennsylvania by 48k votes out of 6 million, in 2016, 0.8%) it is easy to tip the election one way or the other, it just requires work and organization. It isn’t even illegal or fraudulent.
    You can’t claim statistical anomalies – in Pennsylvania for example – like in the link in the post – where margins are so low. Such claims don’t make sense.
    So… if you want to win an election – you have to invest hard work and organization, and do the best you can, including fraud (or quasi fraud). Fraud is part of the game.

  • Jacob

    One state where the elections were 100% kosher, with no fraud at all, was California. Biden got about 2/3 of the votes, a plurality of about 5 million votes.
    An exemplary state – California.

  • Jacob

    In states where both candidates got about the same number of votes (within 1-2% of each other) – the result is a toss-up.
    You cannot claim that a gross fraud or gross injustice was done – no matter who won. You cannot claim the election was stolen.

  • עדינה רסלר

    “But still people are desperate to believe that nothing really bad will happen.”
    Bad things happen. All the time… For example – John Kerry got a cabinet job… That is still no proof of fraud.

  • Mr Ed

    In states where both candidates got about the same number of votes (within 1-2% of each other) – the result is a toss-up.
    You cannot claim that a gross fraud or gross injustice was done – no matter who won. You cannot claim the election was stolen.

    As I understand it, the allegation is more or less that in such states, the Dems knew the vote counts in real time due to the machines (along with the switched votes) so they could find 1.1 to 2.2% of votes needed (by switching, losing or finding votes etc. to steal the election. Plus the roll out of the dead and fake vote etc.

    Jacob, there are some really nice bridges on the Thames you might want to buy.

  • Exasperated

    Personally, I think there was enough fraud to overturn the election and that it was targeted in 4-5 areas that specialize in fraud. I find it incredible that 20 million more people voted in 2020 over 2016; that Biden outperformed Hillary by 14 million votes (2016) and outperformed Obama by 10 million votes (2008). I say this even though I realize that Trump is a polarizing figure. Trump’s base held and increased by 11 million, and he outperformed himself across the country except for a few key areas. In fact, at a glance, the election looks like a red wave. A couple of things you should know is that the Republican party hierarchy did not have Trump’s back and that there were, as long as 15 years ago, bipartisan protocols in place to minimize fraud. These protocols were gutted or undermined in the last couple of months based on the covid pretext. That said, I don’t fancy that my opinion should carry any weight.
    If you are interested see todays (11/23) podcast “What are the Odds”, on the YouTube channel People’s Pundit Daily. Robert Barnes, attorney, and Richard Baris, pollster, break down the efforts to fight the election results. It is an education in and of itself, also you’ll have all kinds of facts to tout at your next cocktail party if we ever get out of lockdown. Forget about Sydney Powell, she was was neutralized by the European server, Maduro, and Dominion software scam, unfortunately.

  • John Lewis

    Detroit, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Philadelphia.

    Four large cities run by Democrat machines. No Republican oversight of the count process and no non-aligned judiciary willing to get involved. All halted counting virtually simultaneously in the early hours of 4/11 when Trump was comfortably ahead. Four states where his lead had either been decimated or eliminated once the count re-started.

    Forger ballots, illegal registrations and double voting? No, all it took was Democrat operatives in those 4 cities “counting” the votes and someone somewhere monitoring the machines knowing when to press pause and how much intervention was needed to make the numbers right, all safe in the knowledge that nothing they did would ever be effectively challenged or investigated.

  • The Wobbly Guy

    @John Lewis,

    I’ve seen the drastic increase in raw numbers, but to me it’s not really that convincing unless you also juxtapose it against population growth and changes in the demographics of eligible voters.

    In terms of percentages, it’s pretty incredible though, that Biden got more votes than Obama. That alone should raise alarm bells.

  • Jacob, there are some really nice bridges on the Thames you might want to buy. (Mr Ed, November 23, 2020 at 10:42 pm)

    Mr Ed, I agree, but let me put the case against harvesting in a manner Jacob may find more persuasive.

    – Under Stalin, many elections (e.g. in the Baltic states) involved the voter arriving at the polling booth to be handed a ballot conveniently pre-marked for the communist candidate. They were told they could put it in the box unchanged or else had the right to go behind a screen and change it if they wished. They were not told – and did not need to be told – that if they went behind a screen, it would be remembered.

    – Under post-election-day ballot-harvesting, some guy who did not vote gets visited by an antifa-looking gang who tell him they will ‘help’ him vote. He can say to the leader, “Oh thanks man, I clean forgot” (I am quoting from memory the start of one actual cringing conversation in an inner-city west-coast area in 2018) or he can refuse. He is not told – and does not need to be told – that if he refuses, it will be remembered.

    If anyone doubts the element of intimidation, consider this from Seattle:

    Meantime, to exert maximum pressure from the outside, mobs have been patrolling the streets of residential neighborhoods and paying midnight house calls to wavering public officials. One group, which calls itself Every Day March, has assembled gatherings as large as 300 people and descended on the personal residences of Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan, former police chief Carmen Best, and nearly all city council members. They bang drums, chant slogans, and leave threatening messages on the driveways and doors of their perceived enemies: “Liberate oppressed communities,” “Don’t be racist trash,” “Guillotine Jenny.”

    In one incident, the mob marched to the home of Councilman Andrew Lewis after midnight and rousted him out of bed. When Lewis arrived at his building’s entrance, ringleader Tealshawn Turner demanded that he verbally commit to defunding the police. Lewis, standing alone at the gate, was visibly frightened—and he relented, promising to cut the police budget by 50 percent, fire cops with citizen complaints against them, and redirect millions to “communities of color.” Having extracted her demand, Turner left with another threat: “If you don’t keep your promise, we’re for sure coming back.”

    Since this is how councillors with strong left-wing credentials get treated, it will be obvious how the ‘harvested’ politically lackadaisical non-voter is influenced.

    But as the MSM assure us, it is absurd to suggest that any of these people, when not marching, might have been registering some dead or absent voters over the past few months. 🙂

  • Paul Marks

    The Marxist terror group “Black Lives Matter” (founded in 2014 by people who DESCRIBED THEMSELVES as “trained Marxist organisers”), does not just get tacit support from the endless lies of the “mainstream media” – it gets large scale FINANCIAL support.

    How did that money get to BLM? What was the mechanism to fund this organisation that has looted and burned areas of American cities (including areas of Minneapolis bobby b)?

    The money comes via a platform called “Act Blue” – who created and controls “Act Blue”?

    The Democrats created and control “Act Blue”.

    Have a think about that people – the organisation that has burned stores (and store owners) is funded by the Democrats.

    On top of this – Marxist activists have been bailed out of prison directly by the Biden/Harris campaign, so they could carry on looting and burning.

    Imagine if the “Weathermen” Marxists and the “Black Panther” murderers (who even murdered their own book keeper – because the woman discovered some of the senior Comrades were stealing money from the Marxist movement itself) had been financed by the Democratic Party back in the 1960s. That is, essentially, what has happened in 2020.

    Why does the “mainstream” media mention none of the above? They do not mention because they SUPPORT IT.

    Not that banks and the big media Corporations really support Marxism – they are USING the Marxists.

    The aim is Agenda 2030 – FASCISM, “Stakeholder Capitalism” – the coming together of Big Business and Big Government to utterly crush free competition (especially from small business) and to exterminate the freedom of ordinary people generally.

    Please do NOT be fooled by the term “Sustainable Development” into thinking that this is all about “Global Warming”.

    Klaus Schwab and his pals were pushing tyranny as far back as 1971.

    No one was talking about “Global Warming” in 1971 – this is not really about Global Warming.

    “But Paul we will fight back” – a bit late for that, the election has already happened.

    More than 600 thousand unchecked Mail-In ballots in Pennsylvania, and more than 300 thousand in Michigan – plus all the other fraud.

    “There is still no proof of fraud” – what part of “the representatives of the candidates must be allowed to examine mail-in ballots as they are opened” (as that is the only way that I.D. can be checked) do people not understand?

    It is Election Fraud to count mail-in ballots without such checks by representatives of the candidates.

    Why do people such as G. Raymond not understand that simple point?

    As for Georgia….

    Back when Joseph Biden (or rather his controllers) were deciding on a running mate, they considered someone from Georgia – who might have given them a chance of taking the State.

    They decided AGAINST that – they picked a running mate from San Francisco (K.Harris – who was almost invisible in campaign).

    No one seriously believes that Biden/Harris won in Georgia – so STOP LYING.

    And they did not win in Michigan and they did not win in Pennsylvania – hundreds of thousands of UNCHEKCED mail-in ballots would not have been needed if they had won.

    Face reality – the election was rigged, and a Fascist (“Sustainable Development”, “Stakeholder Capitalism”) Agenda 2030, “Great Reset”, “Build Back Better” line will now be pushed.

    The education system, the media and the “Woke” Corporations (who depend on the funny money of the Federal Reserve and the Credit Bubble banks) will all support it.

    There is no hope – at least none that I can see.

    The Western World is finished – unless there is some factor which I have missed.

    Let us hope that I am WRONG. Let us hope there is some amazing fight back in 2021.

    But I do not see it happening.

  • John Lewis

    Wobbly Guy

    Population growth and demographic change would surely have also been reflected in the “pre 4am” votes. From my recollection when the counting was paused although one of the 4 states had only recorded totals from around 62-3% of precincts the other 3 had over 90%, over 95% in one case. At that stage despite growth and demography Trump was well ahead.

    I don’t necessarily share your amazement at Biden receiving more votes than Obama. If you create postal ballots for everyone, alive or dead, still living instate or moved away, legal or illegal and the right people get hold of them surprising things can happen. It would be fascinating to compare Biden and Obama vote numbers for those states which did NOT mail out ballots to all and sundry (which presumably would rule out the 4 interesting ones). IMHO for those 4 states the voting totals were a work of manufactured fiction.

  • Flubber

    It would be fascinating to compare Biden and Obama vote numbers for those states which did NOT mail out ballots to all and sundry (which presumably would rule out the 4 interesting ones). IMHO for those 4 states the voting totals were a work of manufactured fiction.

    Look at Florida. After its previous well publicised problems, they implemented a robust system

    The result? Trump won at a canter.

  • Paul Marks

    Over 600 hundred thousand (almost 700 thousand) ILLEGAL ballots in Pennsylvania – mail-in ballots that were not examined by representatives of the candidates (in this case President Trump) as-they-were-opened (the only way of checking IDs).

    Over 300 hundred thousand ILLEGAL ballots in Michigan – mail-in ballots that were not examined by representatives of the candidates.

    If this stands – then the United States of America is a Banana Republic.

    And those people who are saying to themselves “it is just Trump – the Dems will not rig the election of other people”.

    If they get away with this – it will tell them and the Corporations (Google and the rest of them) that they can get away with ANYTHING.

    Full speed ahead to the Fascist Corporate State of Agenda 2030, “Sustainable Development”, “Stakeholder Capitalism”, “Build Back Better”.

  • This election was a beta test of the Dominion system, and it worked. The “right” fellow got elected by a comfortable margin. The technique of moving votes in the early morning hours while the counting machines are shut down on one pretext or another, than carefully metering all subsequent votes to insure that a second revision isn’t necessary is successful. Next election, the shutdowns will be spaced out, and the follow up proportions will be slightly different from state to state. The technique will be expanded to the down ballot positions and even the questions.

    Face it. Voting is no longer necessary. The outcome and the margins are pre-determined. All investigations will be stopped on Jan 23rd, and anyone who keeps one up will be either fired or charged with abetting election fraud, or both.

  • Jacob

    “As I understand it, the allegation is more or less that in such states, the Dems knew the vote counts in real time due to the machines (along with the switched votes) so they could find 1.1 to 2.2% of votes needed (by switching, losing or finding votes etc. to steal the election. Plus the roll out of the dead and fake vote etc.”

    It is well possible that massive fraud occurred, but far from proven – which is the only thing that matters.

    Look – these are the rules, the Dems imposed and increased voting by mail which facilitates fraud. The Repubs were unable to block this. You play by the rules you have not by the ones you wish you had. Not by the ideal rules that don’t exist. In an ideal world elections are honest. In our world they are what they are.
    Knowing the rules the Republicans should have stuffed ballots as much as possible in counties or towns that they control. They failed, Fact.

    And I repeat: when the difference between candidates is so small – 1-2% of the vote – any outcome is ok. It is actually a draw – and any candidate could win. So, the wailing about a stolen election is hollow, no great injustice was done.

  • Jacob

    It’s like in a football game. You lose 1:0 after the referee awarded them a dubious penalty in minute 89. Well, maybe the referee was wrong, maybe he was bribed, maybe he was a s.o.b. etc., etc.,
    There is no point in complaining about the referee. These are the rules of the game. If you want to win you have to score some goals. If you are unable – you cannot complain that you was robbed.

  • bobby b

    “If you are unable – you cannot complain that you was robbed.”

    This is so cynical as to be beneath contempt. We have rules. Laws. A social contract that holds up democracy – honest democracy – as a value. To hold that the losing side simply didn’t cheat well enough to keep up with the cheating from the other side – sorry, you are the enemy.

  • JohnK

    Jacob:

    You seem to be some kind of moron.

  • Jacob

    You live in a phantasy world.
    It is one thing to win an election Putin’s way – by murdering your rivals.
    That is not what happened in the US.
    In the US there was an election with very close results (small differences). Paul claims there were 460k fake votes or so… it would be nice to know how he counted them.
    There might have been fraud – definitely – but you need proof. Else you just parrot conspiracy theories.

    To me it seems more plausible that 2000 community organizers went out and got the mail votes of people who would otherwise not have voted. Sounds kinda legitimate to me.
    The Democrats insist on mail voting – and claim (correctly) that in the past – minority (black) votes were suppressed. That doesn’t justify mass mail voting, but mail voting exists – is a fact, a legitimate fact. Republicans and Trump were unable to block massive mail voting. So you need to act under the given circumstances. That’s all.

    And I repeat: the election was extremely close in the key states. (In most other big states Biden won by huge margins).
    To be terribly shocked about a stolen election – under these given circumstances – sounds false and partisan to me.

  • Jacob

    Biden’s Presidency might well turn out to be catastrophic. At least as much as Obama’s.
    This is where the US stands today. This is what it is. It is the country of BLM and antifa. It is a fact. It is so. Sad but true.
    The election is not what created this bad situation…

  • Jacob (November 25, 2020 at 1:55 pm), your argument seems to apply as strongly to the litigation as to the election. Suppose Trump gets a 5-4 ruling that there was only minor and post-electoral fraud – but just enough to make the electoral college outcome moot. Do you agree that your own argument demands the narrow losers of the court case accept that the vote was close, either could have won, etc. – and therefore (that being so), it makes perfect sense for Trump to do his best in court.

    I also note that your ‘small margin’ argument only applies if we assume that post-election-day top-up fraud was the only significant kind that occurred. If the CA pair mentioned in my post, who were so busy registering in the three months before the election, are representative (and it would be bizarre to doubt they are in kind, whether or not in amount – BLMers who burn your property but are above stealing your vote are psychologically improbable) then a good deal of pre-election fraud was followed by hasty top-ups after election day because even that was not quite enough. In that case, your argument falls. On the contrary, anyone who feels they have sufficient evidence of that should pursue litigation by your own argument – while being aware that the post-election-day fraud may be the easier case and/or sufficient to win.

    As I indicated earlier, I share the feelings of Mr Ed and bobby b about the fundamental folly and/or immorality of your whole line of argument here, although I choose to engage with it. We can agree that fraud must be evidentially and/or statistically demonstrated – that the “We wuz robbed” cry of losing football fans is never evidence of anything merely in and of itself, although some sporting contests are indeed ‘fixed’. I have a good opinion of, for example, Justice Clarence Thomas and anticipate reading his rulings with attention.

  • lucklucky

    When you have culture it means the incentives are well established and you don’t need commands.

  • Shlomo Maistre

    For these reasons, Plaintiff asks this Court to enter a judgment in their favor and provide the following emergency relief:
    1.An order directing Governor Kemp, Secretary Raffensperger and the Georgia State Board of Elections to de-certify the election results;
    2.An order enjoining Governor Kemp from transmitting the currently certified election results to the Electoral College;
    3.An order requiring Governor Kemp to tra nsmit certified election results that state that President Donald Trump is the winner of the election;
    4.An immediate order to impound all the voting machines and software in Georgia for expert inspection by the Plaintiffs.
    5.An order that no votes received or tabulated by machines that were not certified as required by federal and state law be counted
    6.A declaratory judgment declaring that Georgia Secretary of State Rule 183-1-14-0.9-.15 violates the Electors and Elections Clause, U.S. CONST. art. I, § 4;
    7.A declaratory judgment declaring that Georgia’s failed system of signature verification violates the Electors and Elections Clause by working a de facto abolition of the signature verification requirement;
    8.A declaratory judgment declaring that current certified election results violates the Due Process Clause, U.S. CONST. Amend. XIV;
    9.A declaratory judgment declaring that mail-in and absentee ballot fraud must be remedied with a Full Manual Recount or statistically valid sampling that properly verifies the signatures on absentee ballot envelopes and that invalidates the certified results if the recount or sampling analysis shows a sufficient number of ineligible absentee ballots were counted;
    10.An emergency declaratory judgment that voting machines be Seized and Impounded immediately for a forensic audit—by plaintiffs’ expects;
    11.A declaratory judgment declaring absentee ballot fraud occurred in violation of Constitutional rights, Election laws and under state law;
    12.A permanent injunction prohibiting the Governor and Secretary of State from transmitting the currently certified results to the Electoral College based on the overwhelming evidence of election tampering;
    13.Immediate production of 36 hours of security camera recording of all rooms used in the voting process at State Farm Arena in Fulton County, GA from 12:00am to 3:00am until 6:00pm on November 3.
    14.Plaintiffs further request the Court grant such other relief as is just and proper, including but not limited to, the costs of this action and their reasonable attorney fees and expenses pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1988.

    Respectfully submitted, this 25th day of November, 2020.

  • The Wobbly Guy

    Thanks Shlomo.

    With regards to point 14:

    Frankly speaking, if the state messed up its procedures for an election, why the hell should the plantiff pay for any recount?

  • Jacob

    Niall: “it makes perfect sense for Trump to do his best in court.”
    Of course it makes. You do the best you can. If you failed in the election itself you go on and give it a try in the courts. Good luck with that!
    It is better still to win on election day and let the other guy go to the courts (as in the 2000 election).

  • As regards the lawsuit Shlomo has linked to, I would be interested to know (but doubt I ever shall) whether (Republican) Governor Kemp desires to win or to lose this lawsuit that is formally being made against him, not just specific water-leak-alleging election officials.

    A common politically-correct tactic, especially in universities and left-wing city administrations, has been the ‘collusive’ (but perfectly lawful AFAIK) lawsuit. University students launch a case against (nominally) the university’s administrators alleging dreadful discrimination and the necessity of costly, freedom-restricting changes to remedy it. The putative defendants act like Stalin show-trial subjects, admitting guilt, apologising and begging the court to impose the plaintiffs’ demands with the full force of law. The administrators then have a legal justification for doing what they wanted to do all along.

    I have no such knowledge of this. On the contrary, whereas the university administrators are usually obviously involved from the start, we have to recognise that (IIUC) Governor Kemp did sign off on using Dominion voting machines where Texas refused, so Kemp cannot possibly be suspected of being eager for this lawsuit from the start.

    However, if Governor Kemp found himself obliged to confess in court that, being busy with day-to-day matters, he rashly entrusted the purchase of Dominion voting machines to officials he now suspects of being bribed or politically corrupted by an evil multi-national firm – I wonder how deeply distressed he would feel in his heart.

  • Jacob

    Today we all speak and think Maradona.
    Maradona scored a crucial goal with the hand in 1986 against England. The referees failed to see it and approved the goal.
    That is life. For truth to matter – the referee needs to see it. If he failed – the truth does not matter. The truth is what we see and say it is… there is no other truth.
    For England to win it needed to score some more goals in this tight contest. With the foot, head or hand (unseen by referee) or knee, does not matter.

    We can agree that fraud must be evidentially and/or statistically demonstrated
    It’s worse than that – we must first agree what is fraud, and how we define it, and how we check it, and who rules (who is the referee), and what is proof etc. etc. etc.
    Democrats say mail voting is ok, vote harvesting by community organizers ok, after election mail votes ok… the Republicans were unable to pass some better rules. So, these are the rules you play by.

    Absolute justice resides in heaven. Here, on Earth, we have an approximation, the best we can. Most people are more interested in winning that in applying absolute justice.
    Exit question: should Maradona have admitted immediately that it was a hand, thereby annulling the confirmed goal?

  • Exit question: should Maradona have admitted immediately that it was a hand, thereby annulling the confirmed goal? (Jacob, November 26, 2020 at 9:21 am)

    The very fact you can think this a question suggests you are deeply confused about the most basic questions of morality.

    If you changed ‘should to ‘would’, the question is perhaps no harder to answer. His later claim that it was “the hand of God” suggests Maradona believed fervently that, “A lie is an abomination unto the Lord – but a very present help in time of trouble.”

    Meanwhile, our ultimate referees are the nine supreme court justices and they have yet to declare that they can see, or cannot see, a hand on the ball.

    Laws often include statutes of limitations and after that date it is too late to pursue the matter further in law. (Sports have similar rules. I do not recall whether they could truly be said to apply in the hand-of-God case. IIRC, at a later date, extensive corruption in the football association was exposed and somewhat punished.)

  • Jacob

    Suppose the law suit succeeds and the judges throw out the Georgia results (very unlikely). It is not enough. Biden is still the winner.

  • Jacob

    “you are deeply confused about the most basic questions of morality.”
    I an not talking about “morality”. I’m talking about how elections are decided in practice.
    Maybe Biden and his Democrat accomplices will rot in hell in the next world – in this one he will be president.

  • Jacob

    extensive corruption in the football association was exposed and somewhat punished.)
    And… is the football association or the Olympic committee any less corrupt now?

  • JohnK

    Shlomo:

    I have just read Sidney Powell’s complaint, and I must say I am impressed.

    I had been led to believe that her case would rely on the possibility of vote tampering caused by the dodgy voting machines, which I thought would be hard to prove. However, it also had a lot of hard evidence of vote tampering seen and attested to by real people. Added to this, the rules concerning postal votes seem to have been altered ultra vires by election officials. That seems like a good point to me.

    I expect this case will fail in Georgia, but hope it is expedited to the Supreme Court. We are witnessing the biggest heist in history unfold before our eyes.

  • Paul Marks

    Yes JohnK – Sidney Powell is a good lawyer, so (in his own way) is Rudy G. (even though they are following different paths).

    They may not win – indeed I think they will NOT win. But the forces of evil will know they were in a fight.

    For, make no mistake, it is the forces of evil they are up against – and the forces of evil are NOT to be found in only one political party.

    “But Paul – Trump has a bad record, he has done horrible things in his life”.

    I know that – to whoever would say it.

    It is one of great cosmic “jokes” if you will – sometimes good chooses very flawed human beings. We are ALL very flawed human beings.

    For example, it is not because I am a good and innocent person that I understand what motivates the forces of evil – it is because I am NOT a very good and innocent person, that I understand what motivates them.

  • bobby b

    “I expect this case will fail in Georgia, but hope it is expedited to the Supreme Court.”

    Sadly, I think that if this case fails, it will fail in the factual findings that arise out of the evidentiary hearings that might occur.

    It would be better if there was a legal conclusion that lay at the center of this controversy, because then there would be an opportunity for an appellate court to meaningfully review and correct, or maybe even not correct but re-guide, to say that the precedent cited isn’t exactly enough on point.

    But it’s all going to come down to factual analysis, and the appellate review of factual findings grants huge deference to the trial court. If a trial court makes a mistake of law, an appellate court will easily reverse it. A factual finding is not so easy a target.

  • Paul Marks

    bobby b.

    I think you will find the “factual analysis” does not matter at all. There is massive evidence of very large scale Election Fraud – but my guess is that the courts (being corrupt) will throw out the cases.

    Let us hope I am WRONG – but I strongly believe the world is not the basically decent place you believe it to be.

  • Paul Marks

    I might trust the courts in some places (say South Dakota) – but the problem is that places where there is a lot of election corruption, tend to be in corrupt States (no surprise there) where the courts also tend to be corrupt, POLITICALLY corrupt. This ideological corruption – not financial corruption.

    These problems also extend into the Federal Courts – and there are two layers to the intellectual corruption.

    The Democrat judges are (of course) GENERALLY (not all of them) despicable – but then they are supposed to be despicable. But some of the Republican judges are despicable as well.

    The “we must maintain the system”, “we must not undermine public confidence” Republican judges are a plague – ditto this sort of Republican in general.

    The system is rotten – faith in “the institutions” (public or private) is utterly misguided.

    Everywhere one looks, government, church, commercial companies, there is rottenness and decay.

    And NO I am NOT just talking about the United States.

  • JohnK

    Bobby:

    Clearly, you are far more clued up on American law than I am.

    I have only read Sidney Powell’s Pennsylvania complaint, which I assume has not yet been heard. I assume the lawsuit which has been dismissed in Pennsylvania is Rudy Giuliani’s, which will now go to the USSC.

    I do not know if the PA court gave it a fair hearing or just tossed it. Did it decide that all those who swore they saw electoral fraud were liars?

    I hope the USSC does not defer in any way to the lower courts, where the judges seem to be little better than political hacks if not outright scoundrels. But as I say, I am no expert, and can only hope that right will be done.

  • bobby b

    “I do not know if the PA court gave it a fair hearing or just tossed it. Did it decide that all those who swore they saw electoral fraud were liars?”

    It did what I feared it would do, and what I would have done if I were a PA Supreme Court Justice who wanted to send a message that what happens in PA stays in PA, and everyone else should just go home.

    It said that the lawsuit should have been filed back in 2019 when the law was changed, not now when votes have been cast pursuant to that law. It used the old common-law equitable doctrine of laches – controlled under state law principles, not federal law (which would give the USSC some reason to enter the fray – they have no real business reviewing a purely state-law-derived ruling unless it implicates some federal constitutional principle.) In effect, they said that the plaintiffs sat on their hands for too long and don’t deserve, under equitable principles, to have their lawsuit heard.

    Judges work hard to not only make correct decisions, but to hamstring people upriver from them who might want to review the judges’ work. They did a good job of that here. Constitutionality has not typically been a determination that can be obviated through a lateness defense, but that’s what they did. So I don’t know where this goes from here. It’s further complicated (for me) by the fact that it’s been decided under state constitutional principles and not the US Constitution, and the USSC only gets involved when the federal constitution is implicated.

    They punted – they’re saying that this is not the proper time or avenue to try to fix the 2019 law that structured this completed election, it’s now up to the PA legislature to fix the next election instead. They’re sort of taking a Roberts approach – this is all too important to be decided by a court, it’s a political question and needs a political solution. And it was a unanimous decision in a mixed court, so they obviously felt strongly about this.

  • JohnK

    Bobby:

    Thanks, that was informative.

    I am saying they are both hacks and scoundrels, and can only hope that the USSC sees its way to do some good for once.

    As I understand what you have explained, the law changes relating to mail in votes etc were made in before the election, and so should have been challenged then. I can see that. But vote fraud, such as GOP observers not being allowed to observe, and votes being counted in the small hours without any supervision, could hardly have been the subject of a lawsuit before they happened. Do you know if the PA court considered this, or were they too busy counting their money?

  • bobby b (November 29, 2020 at 2:01 pm), thanks for that information. I’m in danger of (probably actually already am) becoming confused about the various PA law cases.

    1) My memory was that one case reached the supremes before the election but also before Amy, so got a 4:4 + casting-vote decision to defer till after the election, but with the affected ballots to be set aside meanwhile. I thought that case was about the PA governor ignoring a date-limit written by the legislature into the 2019 law, and the PA court allowing this, so (to my ignorant not-a-lawyer way of thinking) can’t be the one the lower court has now tossed for not having been made in 2019, since no ignoring of the 2019 law had then happened. I conjecture that one was not the suit you were talking about (IIUC it was instead a recent suit by Sidney Powell but I may have been confusing the across-comment discussion).

    2) JohnK’s remark that any suit involving post-election-date fraudulent votes would not be fairly dismissable for not being brought a year before said fraud occurred would seem reasonable outside the world of clairvoyants – or lawyers. 🙂 Again, suits about that may not be the suit you were discussing.

    3) I apologise for so battening on your US legal knowledge. By all means point us all at some site or blog or posts where the relevant matters are (in your opinion) well discussed.

  • Johnathan Pearce

    This article from the American Spectator, going into considerable detail, does lend itself to the claim that Biden has been elected via fraud, and that even if Trump eventually concedes, this result will go down in infamy. A question that I still have is that if these points are accurate, it is odd that the GOP has not done worse in the Senate and House races than was the case.

    https://spectator.org/legitimacy-of-biden-win-buried-by-objective-data/

  • Johnathan Pearce (December 1, 2020 at 1:25 pm), the fact that Trump had coattails, though allegedly losing, and Biden had none, though allegedly winning, is (rightly, I believe) often cited as evidence of the fraud. Fraudulent votes have a need to appear in reasonably well-controlled locations. The smaller the constituencies, the tighter their boundaries, the harder for vote fraud to cross them and infect many. It is easier to cast many fake votes into a whole state’s pool than into each of many smaller pools. It is easier to fake-vote for Biden many times than for Biden and an appropriate varied local line-up.

    IIUC, the founders sought to entrusted control of elections to the smallest constituencies – congresses, not senates not Governors – for that reason.