As I write this on November 5, 2020, the United States Presidential election is up for grabs. Having cast our ballots and watched the preliminary results, we are all –Republicans, Democrats, and swing voters — gearing up for a protracted post-election battle.
Forty three states have finished counting, leaving seven doubtful:
- Wisconsin
- Michigan
- Nevada
- Arizona
- North Carolina
- Georgia
- Pennsylvania
Allegations of voter fraud abound, especially this year. Let’s look at another contested election so see what could happen.
An Example From Recent History
Let’s look at the 2000 Presidential election between George Bush and Al Gore.
The states are supposed to hold an election and pick a candidate. When poll workers of one party count the ballots, observers from the other party are allowed to watch the process. That keeps the count honest.
Forty eight states give all their electoral votes to the winner of the popular votes. Maine and Nebraska give two votes to the state popular winner and one vote to the popular winner in each Congressional district.
In less contentious election years all the states declare a winner by the next morning. On November 7, 2000, Al Gore contested George Bush’s win based on a slim margin in Florida that activated a state law mandating a recount.
Gore conceded the election early based on exit polls, then took back his concession when news outlets revised their predictions.
The recount shrank the lead to 537 votes.
The matter ended with a December 12 Supreme Court decision declaring that further recounting was unlikely to change the outcome. Gore conceded the election.
Going through the controversy of the 2000 election had three major effects on future elections:
- paper ballots were gradually replaced by electronic voting machines
- news outlets became more wary of declaring outcomes too soon
- candidates became reluctant to concede on election night
This year, news outlets started talking about concession before the election even started. President Trump was repeatedly asked to declare his willingness to concede to Biden, to which he responded “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged. Remember that.”
Way back in August, when the states were ramping up to vote by mail, Hillary Clinton advised,
“Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances, because I think this is going to drag out, and eventually I do believe he will win if we don’t give an inch, and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side is”
So the American public went into the process expecting a knock-down, drag-out fight, and it looks like that is what we are going to get.
What Trump Said In His November 5 Speech
At the close of the polls on November 3, the election was already hotly contested, but President Trump was winning in the key battleground states. Since then the counting has skewed toward Biden.
As Bernie Sanders predicted months ago, absentee ballots tend to favor the Democrat and in person votes tend to favor the Republican. The question is whether the absentee ballots qualify: real live registered voters with real signatures.
President Trump presented his objections to the counting methods tonight in a speech. Here are his views on the issues in the contested states:
“If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us…I’ve already decisively won many crtical states, including massive victories in Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio…“
The nation as a whole favored Republicans, keeping the Senate and gaining seats in the House of Representatives.
“We won these and many other victories despite historic election interference from big media, big money, and big tech.”
Media giants and social media actively suppressed any comments that did not fit the liberal narrative. I myself was briefly punished by Facebook for quoting a well-known dictator who stated that gun control is the best way to take over a nation.
“We kept the Senate despite having twice as many seats to defend as Democrats.”
In my own state of South Carolina, Lindsey Graham kept his seat despite the millions spent by his opponent. Many of us had to hold our noses to vote for Graham, who is at his most conservative in the months before each election, but we knew the value of preserving a majority in the Senate.
“Our major donors were police officers, farmers, and every day citizens, yet for the first time ever we lost zero races in the house…and actual won many new seats, with, I think, many more on the way.”
Donald Trump is a populist at heart, and his work ethic appeals to American voters who are disenchanted with the elitism of Washington politics.
“More Republican women were elected to Congress than ever before.”
Trump’s own practice is to hire the best person for the job, and he hires women for key jobs in his administration. Kayleigh McEnany, the White House Press Secretary, is an excellent example.
“I won the largest share of nonwhite voters of any Republican in 60 years including historic numbers of Latino, African American, Asian American, and Native American voters…we grew our party by four million voters, the greatest turnout in Republican history.”
The massive turnout in this election is a combination of Trump’s popularity and the frustration of Americans with the way this whole year has gone.
Beginning with the impeachment and continuing with lockdowns, mask mandates, and massive shutdowns of “nonessential” industries, Americans are sick of being told how to think and what to do.
The Congressional grilling given our latest Supreme Court Justice, Amy Coney Barrett, topped the cake for quite a few of us.
“There are now only a few states yet to be decided in the Presidential race. The voting apparatus in those states in all cases are run by Democrats. We were winning in all the key locations by a lot, actually, and then our numbers started miraculously getting whittled away in secret, and they wouldn’t allow legally permissible observers.”
Americans are watching in dismay as absentee ballots appear in large lots just when Biden happens to need more votes.
“We went to court in several instances and then we were able to get the observers put in, and when the observers got there they wanted them 60, 70, 80 feet away, 100 feet away or outside the building to observe people inside the building.”
That does not sound like a fair and free election to me.
“They want to find out how many votes they need, and then they seem to be able to find them.”
Arizona
“Today we’re on track to win Arizona. We only need to carry, I guess 55% of the remaining vote, 55% margins and that’s a margin that we’ve significantly exceeded so we’ll see what happens with that but we’re on track to do okay in Arizona. Our goal is to defend the integrity of the election. ”
Currently the AP electoral map shows Arizona as leaning toward a Democrat win.
Wisconsin
“We also had margins of 300,000 in Michigan. We were way up in Michigan, won the state, and in Wisconsin we did likewise, fantastically well, and that got whittled down. In Every case they got whittled down.”
Wisconsin is coded on the AP electoral map as leaning toward a Democratic win.
Michigan
“There have been a disturbing number of irregularities across our nation. Our campaign has been denied access to observe any counting in Detroit.“
Michigan is trending toward a Democrat win according to the AP electoral map.
“Poll workers in Michigan were duplicating ballots, but when our observers attempted to challenge the activity those poll workers jumped in front of observers to block their view so they couldn’t see what they were doing, and it became a little bit dangerous.“
Why didn’t they want to be observed?
“One major hub for counting in Detroit covered up the windows again with large pieces of cardboard, and so they wanted to protect and block the counting area. They didn’t want anybody seeing the counting even though these were observers who were legal observers that were supposed to be there.”
Did they have something to hide?
“In Detroit there were hours of delay in delivering many of the votes after counting, the final batch did not arrive until four in the morning, and even though the polls closed at 8:00, so they brought it in and the batches came in and nobody knew where they came from.“
Nevada
The President did not mention Nevada in his speech but it is trending toward a Democrat win on the AP electoral map.
North Carolina
“We were ahead in vote in North Carolina by a lot, tremendous number of votes, and we’re still ahead by a lot, but not as many, because they’re finding ballots all of a sudden, ‘Oh, we have some mail in ballots!’ It’s amazing that those mail in ballots are so one sided, too…”
North Carolina is listed on the AP electoral map as trending toward a Republican win.
Georgia
“Likewise in Georgia I won by a lot, a lot, with a lead getting close to 300,000 votes on election night in Georgia, which by the way got whittled down, and now it’s getting to be to a point where I’ll go from winning by a lot to perhaps being even down a little bit.”
Georgia is listed on the AP electoral map as leaning toward a Republican win.
“In Georgia a pipe burst in a faraway location, totally unrelated to the location of what was happening and stopped counting for four hours, a a lot of things happened. The election apparatus in Georgia is run by Democrats.”
It’s funny how easily one is distracted when trying to count.
“The 11th Circuit ruled that in Georgia the votes have been in by election day, that they should be in by election day, and they weren’t. Votes are coming in after election day, and they had a ruling already that you have to have the votes in by election day.”
Pennsylvania
“We were up nearly 700,000 votes in Pennsylvania. I won Pennsylvania by a lot, and that gets whittled down to, I think they said we’re down to 90,000 votes, and they’ll keep coming and coming and coming, they find them all over, and they don’t want us to have any observers. We won a court case: the judge said you have to have observers.”
Why would an honest vote counter want to be unobserved?
“‘In Philadelphia they’ve been kept far away, so far that people are using binoculars to try and see and there’s been tremendous problems caused. They put paper in all of the windows so you can’t see in, and the people that are banned are very unhappy and become somewhat violent.”
Pennsylvania is on the AP electoral map as headed toward a Republican win.
“I went to school there and I know a lot about it– hasn’t changed…it’s gotten worse. In Pennsylvania ballots are allowed to be received three days after the election, and we think much more than that, and they are counting those without even postmarks, or any identification whatsoever.”
While I was writing this article, a Pennsylvania appeals court rejected a deadline extenson for absentee voters to provide missing proof of identification and ordered those ballots to be put aside and not counted.
What Trump Wants
“We’ve also been denied access to observe in critical places in Georgia. In multiple swings states counting was halted for hours on election night, with results withheld from major Democrat run locations only to appear later…they all had the name Biden on them, which is a little strange. I challenge Joe and all the Democrats to clarify that they only want legal votes.”
The American people are fed up with the nonsense that is coming out of Washington. Fraud makes us angry.
“I want every legal vote counted. We want openness and transparency, no secret count rooms, no mystery ballots, no illegal votes being cast after election day.”
A politician who is elected using fraud is not accountable to the people. His allegiance will be to the crooks who helped him cheat his way into office.
“People know what’s happening and they see what’s happening right before their eyes, and there are many instances which will be reported very shortly. Tremendous litigation going on, and this is a case where they’re trying to steal an election. They’re trying to rig an election, and we can’t let that happen.”
What Trump Is Planning to Do
“We think we will win the election very easily, we think there’s going to be a lot of litigation. We have so much evidence, so much proof, and that’s going to end up, perhaps, at the highest court in the land…”
At this point an appeal to the Supreme Court is the most likely end to the controversy.
“It’s not a question of who wins, Republican, Democrat, Joe, myself, we can’t let that happen to our country. We can’t be disgraced by having something like this happen.”
American is the beacon of freedom to the world. The entire world is watching this election.
“We have a lot of information coming, and litigation that you’ll see, that will shake even you people [reporters] up, and you’ve seen it all. The officials overseeing the counting in Pennsylvania and other key states are all part of a corrupt Democrat machine that you’ve written about and for a long time.”
What You Can Do
“We’ll not allow the corruption to steal such an election or any important election for that matter, and we can’t allow silence–anybody to silence our voters and manufacture results.”
Talk about it! The taboo on political discussion must stop. Fraud happens in dark corners where no one is watching.
“I’ve been doing a lot of public things for a long time and I’ve never had a thing that’s been as inspirational by people calling, talking, sending things to us. I’ve never seen such love and such affection and such spirit as I’ve seen for this. ”
Call your Representatives! If you see fraud, report it! If you want your Senators and House members to back Trump, get on the phone with them like I did today.
That works, by the way. I called the whole South Carolina delegation along with a whole lot of other South Carolina conservatives. Lindsey Graham responded to the attention by pledging to give $500,000 to Trump’s legal fund to fight the fraud.
Appeal to the highest power. I don’t mean the Supreme Court. I mean get on your face before God and beg for an honest resolution to this election.
Finally, stay informed! Politicians are the most honest when they have the most supervision.
