‘2000 Mules’: Election Drop Boxes, ‘Geofencing,’ and ‘The Big Lie’

 

“We have put together, I think, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.” Joe Biden

Those were the exact words from a grainy clip of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden that opens a new movie by conservative author, pundit, and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, ‘“2000 Mules.” It was seen as just another gaffe by a candidate with a long history of malapropisms.

Salem Media Group and True the Vote (TTV) produced the movie. D’Souza relies on research from TTV’s President, Catherine Englebrecht, and TTV board member Gregg Phillips, a former state health official in Texas and Mississippi. Phillips also is a data analyst and the founder of several technology-related firms. He claims in the movie to have been “in and around” election integrity and analysis for 40 years.

Phillips is no stranger to controversy. He was the source of claims made by President Trump in 2017, never confirmed, that 3 million illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election. Mainstream media has worked overtime to discredit him and TTV, including a major investor’s claim that he was duped and other unsubstantiated claims. Yet, Phillips and TTV persist.

D’Souza, who launched a podcast in 2021 on the Salem platform, sets the stage with clips from three Republicans – former Attorney General Bill Barr (“Fraud did not play a role in the outcome of the election”), US Sen. Mike Rounds (“the election was fair”), and of course, US Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY). He touches on “J6” at the US Capitol, claiming it “wasn’t an insurrection. It was a primal scream. They wanted their elected leaders to adjudicate the claims of election fraud.”

“We can’t ‘move on’ until we know the truth,” D’Souza continues. “Is it a ‘big lie?’ It is a lie at all?”

D’Souza also relies on a panel of Salem radio talk show and podcast hosts, including Dennis Prager, Eric Metaxas, Larry Elder, Charlie Kirk, and former Trump administration official Dr. Sebastian Gorka. Most express reservations about election fraud claims in the first interviews.

By the end of the movie, they’re aghast. You may be, too. One of the retorts we often hear concerning claims of vote fraud is the phrase “without evidence.” Except that D’Souza, Englebrecht, and Phillips provide actual official footage of crimes committed by “mules” in the form of drop-box stuffing of ballots, often during the dark of night. Most states, including Pennsylvania – a particular focus of illegal election activity in the movie – prohibit voters from casting more than one ballot, their own, at drop boxes.

Drop boxes – many of them privately funded via $400 million from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg through the left-wing Center for Tech and Civic Life – were a unique feature of the pandemic-scarred 2020 election. Most were placed in Democratic-leaning counties and jurisdictions.

Here’s a dropbox outside of Arlington County, Virginia offices in the 2021 state elections.

Interestingly, as The Federalist reported, “Facebook has banned Trump from its platform and has delisted individuals — many of them conservatives — for espousing views about the election that it insists are “misinformation.”

Credit D’Souza for asking all the right questions throughout the movie. Let’s take one of the first: if Biden was so successful, why did Democrats lose so many down-ballot races for US House and other races? After all, a newly-elected President usually has coattails and sees increases in his party’s hold on Congress.

House Republicans gained 14 seats in 2020. In fairness, much of that is a rebound from the 2018 election when the GOP lost 40 seats. But, still, it is an anomaly for a new President to lose seats.

Pennsylvania is a better example. Biden “won” the state with 3.46 million votes and a margin of about 80,000 with 6.915 million votes cast. On election night, Trump led by nearly 800,000 votes before mail votes were counted. There were three other statewide elections for Attorney General, Treasurer, and Auditor General. Democrats held all, and other than Auditor General, a popular Democratic incumbent was on the ballot.

While Attorney General and 2022 Democratic gubernatorial nominee presumptive Josh Shapiro narrowly won reelection, the total ballots cast for Attorney General were over 110,000 fewer than for President.

Republican challengers Stacey Garritty (Treasurer) and Tim DeFoer (Auditor-General) won the other two races for the first time in several years. The ballot drop-off in those elections was nearly 150,000.

There are two explanations. First, a drop-off in ballots cast for down-ballot races is not uncommon, although 109,000 seems high. Second, in Act 77, the Pennsylvania legislature eliminated a ballot box for straight-party voting in 2020. If you are committing fraud by producing as many ballots as possible and only have time to mark one box, it will be for the top of the ballot – the presidency. Thus, the drop-off.

Phillips explained how TTV’s research worked. They obtained some 10 trillion cell phone “signals” using a petabyte of data. They narrowed their research to focus on “signals” that visited ten or more election drop boxes and five or more visits to “nonprofit” organizations that have collected ballots, starting in Georgia. They expanded their research to include Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Pennsylvania.

Remember, most state laws, including Pennsylvania, restrict the number of ballots (one) that any single voter can cast at a dropbox. Ballot harvesting – collecting and delivering ballots on behalf of voters – is illegal in most states. While most states have provisions to allow others to deliver ballots on their behalf, it is highly restricted.

A “mule” is a person who picks up ballots from an organization – “stash houses” – and delivers them to a series of drop boxes. According to Engelbrecht’s sources, mules are typically paid about $10 per ballot. They often take selfies of them depositing ballots to ensure payment. “In the Georgia (US Senate runoff, January 5, 2021), that payment was higher.”

Dozens of mules who participated in violent Antifa-BLM riots in Atlanta were also mules in the 2020 election, reports Phillips. Over 240 mules were identified in Atlanta. Some mules, especially in Michigan, visited about 100 dropboxes.

BLM rioters also were utilized as mules to drop ballots at multiple dropbox locations in Atlanta.

There were 1,100 mules identified in Philadelphia – many of driving back and forth across bridges from New Jersey – visiting as many as 50 drop boxes each. And TTV has 4 million minutes of surveillance video from across the country to help prove their case, obtained through open records requests. Except Wisconsin has no video, even though it was required under state law. Other jurisdictions, such as Arizona, turned off some footage. But where they do, TTV has the geospatial data to support the video.

Here is an Atlanta “mule” depositing – and dropping – ballots he’s stuffing into a dropbox during the night.

At one Gwinnett County, Georgia, 271 voters were videotaped dropping ballots at a drop box. Over 1,962 ballots were deposited, according to official “chain of custody” documents.

“This is organized crime,” Phillips asserts. With evidence. It appears even to violate federal racketeering laws (RICO).

And this is only from the first half of the movie. Watch the rest. You can access it here.

What will be done about this, given that Republican candidates are punished for making election fraud a top issue? Worse, can we expect the Biden Administration’s Justice Department to do anything?

The good news is that some jurisdictions are taking action, including either eliminating dropboxes or increasing surveillance. Some eighteen state laws have been changed to prevent “Zuckbucks” from privately subsidizing official elections, including Georgia. As for geofencing, a tool used chiefly by advertisers and law enforcement agencies, it is proving to be a valuable tool in elections. Including exposing fraudulent activity.

D’Souza then asks the $64,000 question – was the scope of election fraud big enough to tip the balance in the 2020 election. He says yes, especially in Georgia, Arizona, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The combined electoral votes from those three states were enough to put Biden over the top.

D’Souza leaves many questions unanswered. He does not disclose the names of “nonprofits” who acted as “stash houses” for mules to pick up and deposit multiple ballots. Where and how did these stash houses collect ballots? Where did the money come from to subsidize this effort? Will TTV provide this data to law enforcement authorities? Nowhere in America is it legal for nonprofit organizations to collect ballots and pay mules to deliver them, D’Souza asserts. Some 2000 mules visited 38 dropboxes each to deposit nearly 400,000 illegally-cast votes.

Associated Press attempted to “fact check” the movie. AP claims falsely that the film is based on a flawed analysis of geofenced data. They claim it isn’t precise, but that is laughably false. Drive up to any gasoline retailer who uses geospatial data to spot your presence at their pumps to text you with special deals. It has happened to me. Further, Phillips cited an instance where their geospatial data helped identify an alleged killer in Atlanta at the precise location where the murder occurred. The alleged killer has been arrested.

Election fraud is hard to prove. It takes time, money, and much effort, much more than was available between the November 2020 election and swearing-in day just 10 weeks later. There are unanswered questions. But eventually, the truth comes out. Like it or not, D’Souza has upped the anty on election integrity for the 2022 election. Local and state officials had better be prepared to respond.

Joe Biden might have been correct. Democrats and their allies may have created the largest and most inclusive voter fraud organization in American political history. Will we ever know with certainty?

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  1. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    I’m so glad the election officials and/or voting fraudsters allowed Youngkin, the Attorney General, the Lieutenant Governor, and the State House to win. Perhaps they are on our side after all. I guess we have to reconsider this whole election cheating thing in a new light.

    Seven months and still waiting on that audit of the machines they promised.

    Who promised these audits?

    • #211
  2. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    namlliT noD (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    In “Keeping Track of Election Fraud Allegations” (off-Ricochet link here), I have a new chapter analyzing various claims surrounding 2,000 Mules:

    Chapter 16: True the Vote

    Looks like pretty good evidence to me.

    Seven pages worth. But you still haven’t seen the movie?

    I can read and write a whole lot faster than I can join Locals, watch, type, rewind, watch, type, repeat last five steps.

    I hope to watch the movie after trying to reorg my thoughts on electronic fraud.

    The next step, however, will probably be to update the numbers in “Some Evidence that Illegal Actions Flipped Swing States.” Lots of new Wisconsin numbers, 1.4 million Biden votes in PA, and some other stuff too.

    • #212
  3. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    In “Keeping Track of Election Fraud Allegations” (off-Ricochet link here), I have a new chapter analyzing various claims surrounding 2,000 Mules:

    Chapter 16: True the Vote

    Looks like pretty good evidence to me.

    Seems like it would be a good idea to “revert to draft” then edit or add new stuff, and re-publish to make it more visible.

    Maybe another time.  Maybe after I reorg my thoughts on electronic fraud.

    But I lean against.  My strategy is to use short intros to bits and pieces of it with links to the growing original document.  It’s worked for three Main Feed posts.

    • #213
  4. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    namlliT noD (View Comment):

    And really… 81 million votes?  That is totally absurd.

    Nobody has ever offered a possible explanation for that number.

    They have now:

    Tabby's Star faded substantially over past century.

    • #214
  5. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    I’m so glad the election officials and/or voting fraudsters allowed Youngkin, the Attorney General, the Lieutenant Governor, and the State House to win. Perhaps they are on our side after all. I guess we have to reconsider this whole election cheating thing in a new light.

    Seven months and still waiting on that audit of the machines they promised.

    Who promised these audits?

    Youngkin in October 2021. 

    • #215
  6. namlliT noD Member
    namlliT noD
    @DonTillman

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    namlliT noD (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    2000 Mules and Rigged complete convince me that the election was rigged and stolen.

    Indeed.

    And really… 81 million votes? That is totally absurd.

    Nobody has ever offered a possible explanation for that number.

    The 81 million votes did seem absurd to me until I ran some numbers on how much of an increase it actually was. I’m too busy right now to re-do the calculations, but after adjusting for population increase I calculated that Biden only received about an extra 1% of the eligible American vote more than Obama did in 2008. Given that many Americans had been sitting home from their jobs for the previous year and spent more time surfing the Internet and reading about politics, I don’t find the 81 million votes to be much of an outlier.

    Nope.

    Hillary 2016 received 65,853,514 votes.

    Obama 2012 received 65,915,795 votes.  Effectively the same.

    Biden 2020 “received” 81,268,924 votes, a whopping 23% greater than either Obama or Hillary.

    That’s enormous.

    Especially for someone who stayed in his basement and had zero enthusiasm.

    And, as I said, there’s never been an explanation for that.  You think you’d hear about a “campaign genius” behind it all.  Nope.

    • #216
  7. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    The 81 million votes did seem absurd to me until I ran some numbers on how much of an increase it actually was. 

    Absurd. 

    From Seth Keshel:

    I love watching Larry Elder slap everyone on the back and talk about election fraud, when he wouldn’t say hardly a damn word about it while running for Governor in the third world soft tyranny of California. Even when people were being told they had already voted in GOP areas, not a peep.

    Somehow, enough momentum to get the recall running, and you lose by well over 20 point? COME ON.

    Anyone who is talking about electile dysfunction today who acts like “I just didn’t know, but now…” is lying through their teeth and covering their ass.

    GOP popular votes in millions since 1920 (Women can vote)-
    16m, 16m, 21m, 15m, 16m, 22m, 22m, 23m, 34m, 36m, 34m, 27m, 32m, 47m, 39m, 44m, 54m, 49m, 39m, 39m, 50m, 62m, 60m, 61m, 63m, 74m

    Dem popular votes in millions since 1920 (Women can vote)-
    9m, 8m, 15m, 23m, 28m, 27m, 26m, 24m, 27m, 26m, 34m, 43m, 31m, 29m, 41m, 36m, 38m, 42m, 45m, 47m, 51m, 59m, 69m, 66m, 66m, 81m

    DEMS never even stopped in the 70m vote range. Hit 69, then trended down, had a Republican with one of the top vote increases of all time, and jetted over the 70s and landed at 81m.

    This is not something that requires mathematical skill to understand or explain. Anyone who can’t grasp it by now is either complicit or stupid. Or both.

    • #217
  8. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    namlliT noD (View Comment):

    Nope.

    Hillary 2016 received 65,853,514 votes.  

    Obama 2012 received 65,915,795 votes.  Effectively the same.

    Biden 2020 “received” 81,268,924 votes, a whopping 23% greater than either Obama or Hillary.

    That’s enormous.  

    Especially for someone who stayed in his basement and had zero enthusiasm.

    If I correctly remember, Trump 2020 broke the previous record, Obama 2008.

    Biden 2020 shattering the Trump record in the same year can most easily be explained by mass, easy, insecure, fraud-enabling, and sometimes (depending on state law) illegal absentee voting.

    If that‘s the easy, non-conspiratorial explanation, then, plainly, we had an election that was not ok by rather a long shot.

    • #218
  9. Cassandro Coolidge
    Cassandro
    @Flicker

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    Cassandro (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    Cassandro (View Comment):

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    If it can be stolen once, it can be stolen every time. Doesn’t mean it WILL be stolen every time, but it can be.

    I think they’ve shown that it will be if the outcome disadvantages the Democrats control.

    How do you explain the Republican sweep in Blue State Virginia last year?

    I don’t have to explain it. It happened. I’ve been saying that any election can now be fixed, but that important, or pivotal, or “swing” elections will necessarily be fixed.

    I’d love to be wrong in my prognostication. I look forward to the day that you call me on it.

    The day of reckoning is only six months away. The mid-term elections are going to be revealing. If what the promoters of democrat election fraud say is correct, then Republicans will not take back the House and the Senate. It will be a cataclysmic reversal of what all the pundits, even democrat pundits, are predicting.

    No.  I am saying it.  (And to paraphrase Reticulator, who are the promoters of Democrat election fraud, and what do they say?)

    I am not parroting anyone else.  You are making sweeping assumptions that I did not make.

    And what I am saying is that it is unlikely that the House and Senate will be allowed by those who count the votes (and administer the voting machine algorithms, and who insure that elections will be mail-in, and who pay people to stuff mail-in ballot collection boxes), to swing control of the House and Senate to Republicans.  But either way, the game is one of subterfuge.  The Democrats do not have to win every election.  They just have to swing key elections.

    The midterms are very important, but they may not be considered key.  Just as the “Giant Red Tsunami” may be one more fake don’t-throw-me-into-the-briar-patch PR attempt to suppress conservative turn-out.

    The White House is now ruling lawlessly, from what I understand.  The presidency is the grandest key position from which all others essentially borrow authority.  If a principled conservative were president, much of what the left forces through with slim majorities would be vetoed.

    Electorally speaking, I do believe there is a difference between in your face, and a boot in the face.  The left right now it wholly in-your-face.  And the Left is trying to not make it explicitly clear that they intend a boot-in-your-face government.  (But they’re getting pretty close to going full boot-in-your-face.)

    Added: Apparently Dems have 5 more House reps than Repubs.  They can lose 4 and if they still take more Senate seats their power will be greatly expanded; if in fact the Repubs are blocking any appointments.  But even with the R/D division, most of what the Dems want to pass, they pass.

    • #219
  10. Dbroussa Coolidge
    Dbroussa
    @Dbroussa

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    So you are saying that Republicans cheat just as much as Democrats.   Interesting.  I haven’t heard that from anybody on Ricochet before.  And you want to keep Murkowski?

    Depends on what you mean by cheat. I’m not a person that is convinced that millions or even thousands of ballots cast in 2020 were fake. I’m more of the opinion that money was spent to make vote by mail easier in predominantly Dem areas was that “illegal” maybe and maybe not, but it was certainly not fair.

    The liberal paper in San Antonio (the author had a Houston Chronicle byline) had a multi page article about vote fraud in Gregg County Texas from 2018. It laid out a convincing case that absentee voting in that location was abused for years. The person who won the election was convicted of vote fraud (along with his wife) but plead to a misdemeanor and got 1 year probation and a fine of $2,000. The rest of the 230 charges were dropped by the State AG in large part because proving them was going to be very difficult. The article even said, in a system designed for secrecy, it’s hard to prove a crime.

    There is obviously cheating and fraud going on, the system is designed to allow that because it’s better than a public ballot. It’s why there is a book called, If It’s Not Close, They Can’t Cheat. Cheating plays a part in local elections for certain. National ones are less able to be manipulated by such shenanigans, but 2020 showed us ways that the system could be gimmicked. It worked in 2020, but if Zuck drops another half a billion on this election people will notice and raise a stink. Twitter and FB might surpress the story, and the MSM certainly will, but even the ignorant masses that make up the electorate can see when something isn’t right, if only we had a party that was good at communicating a message.

    If the GOP loses, or doesn’t win as big as they should this fall, it will be due to the inherent cheating and fraud in our system. Since that cheating and fraud is relatively small under normal circumstances, it’s important to win each race by a couple of percentage point so that it can’t be stolen. At a National level, it’s normally hard to steal an election, but when you get such massive turnout, the highest in 120 years by percentage, well, it suddenly becomes easier to swing those numbers in just a few key states. 

    • #220
  11. Phil Turmel Inactive
    Phil Turmel
    @PhilTurmel

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    I’m not a person that is convinced that millions or even thousands of ballots cast in 2020 were fake.

    This movie should change your mind.  If you don’t want to shell out the bucks to buy it, at least watch the podcast interview Charlie Kirk did with True The Vote.  It offers a good description of what they found, and how they did their analysis, and convinced me to pre-order the movie.  That interview includes some of the surveillance video that bolsters their case.

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    but 2020 showed us ways that the system could be gimmicked. It worked in 2020, but if Zuck drops another half a billion on this election people will notice and raise a stink.

    What this movie shows is that the ballot harvesting in 2020 was far larger than ever before, though the technique is not new.  (True The Vote looked at prior years and found some of the same people in the same patterns, at a smaller scale.)

    Even the most conservative view of the results from True The Vote has the 2020 electoral college flipped to Trump.  With reasonable tolerances on their mule identification filter, the electoral college would have been a blowout for Trump.  The blowout we were watching on election night.

    Zuck dropped a half billion on 2020, people noticed and are trying to raise a stink, but a shocking number of naysayers are shouting them down.  Like you.  Without even looking at the evidence.

    The election really was stolen.

    • #221
  12. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    I’m not a person that is convinced that millions or even thousands of ballots cast in 2020 were fake.

    This movie should change your mind. If you don’t want to shell out the bucks to buy it, at least watch the podcast interview Charlie Kirk did with True The Vote. It offers a good description of what they found, and how they did their analysis, and convinced me to pre-order the movie. That interview includes some of the surveillance video that bolsters their case.

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    but 2020 showed us ways that the system could be gimmicked. It worked in 2020, but if Zuck drops another half a billion on this election people will notice and raise a stink.

    What this movie shows is that the ballot harvesting in 2020 was far larger than ever before, though the technique is not new. (True The Vote looked at prior years and found some of the same people in the same patterns, at a smaller scale.)

    Even the most conservative view of the results from True The Vote has the 2020 electoral college flipped to Trump. With reasonable tolerances on their mule identification filter, the electoral college would have been a blowout for Trump. The blowout we were watching on election night.

    Zuck dropped a half billion on 2020, people noticed and are trying to raise a stink, but a shocking number of naysayers are shouting them down. Like you. Without even looking at the evidence.

    The election really was stolen.

    Is it OK if I wait for the book version? 

    • #222
  13. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):
    Zuck dropped a half billion on 2020, people noticed and are trying to raise a stink, but a shocking number of naysayers are shouting them down.  Like you.  Without even looking at the evidence.

    And as far as I can tell our Ricochet leaders are in that same boat. Not a peep about it on the podcast I’ll bet, and I’ll also bet Rob, James, Peter, and the editors haven’t seen it, or want to, or maybe haven’t even heard of it. It’s already been memory holed by the Beltway pundit and think tank class. 

    • #223
  14. Phil Turmel Inactive
    Phil Turmel
    @PhilTurmel

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    I’m not a person that is convinced that millions or even thousands of ballots cast in 2020 were fake.

    This movie should change your mind. If you don’t want to shell out the bucks to buy it, at least watch the podcast interview Charlie Kirk did with True The Vote. It offers a good description of what they found, and how they did their analysis, and convinced me to pre-order the movie. That interview includes some of the surveillance video that bolsters their case.

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    but 2020 showed us ways that the system could be gimmicked. It worked in 2020, but if Zuck drops another half a billion on this election people will notice and raise a stink.

    What this movie shows is that the ballot harvesting in 2020 was far larger than ever before, though the technique is not new. (True The Vote looked at prior years and found some of the same people in the same patterns, at a smaller scale.)

    Even the most conservative view of the results from True The Vote has the 2020 electoral college flipped to Trump. With reasonable tolerances on their mule identification filter, the electoral college would have been a blowout for Trump. The blowout we were watching on election night.

    Zuck dropped a half billion on 2020, people noticed and are trying to raise a stink, but a shocking number of naysayers are shouting them down. Like you. Without even looking at the evidence.

    The election really was stolen.

    Is it OK if I wait for the book version?

    I intend to buy the book myself when it is released, with the hope there’s more details.  But do watch that interview in the meantime.

    I gather TTV can’t just release their cell-phone data, as one must pay for it.  And they haven’t publicly identified the non-profits that were participating as middlemen for the mules, presumably to avoid defamation lawsuits.  But Georgia has begun a formal investigation, and I understand that the data will be subpoena’d for that.  That provides a path to data release that doesn’t make TTV a litigation target.

    Also, while they identified mules by unique cell phone and correlated visually to the surveillance, only law enforcement can turn that into named perpetrators.

    • #224
  15. Dbroussa Coolidge
    Dbroussa
    @Dbroussa

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):
    Zuck dropped a half billion on 2020, people noticed and are trying to raise a stink, but a shocking number of naysayers are shouting them down.  Like you.  Without even looking at the evidence.

    I am not shouting them down, not at all.  I am open to the idea that widespread cheating happened.  The problem I have is that elections, by their requirement to be secret, are extremely difficult to audit and thus prove malfeasance.  I am not convinced that we should go to open elections which would be one way to solve the problem.  What I am in favor of is limiting voting to in-person with a few, very restricted, exceptions.  I like to point to Texas as a model, but even here there are instances of fraud…they just rarely get prosecuted because proving it is difficult if not impossible.  Which, by the way, reinforces the idea that no fraud exists.

    The end result is that I have zero faith in our elections at this point outside of in-person voting, and thus places like CO, CA, OR, and WA I feel haven’t run a valid election in a long time.  

    • #225
  16. Dbroussa Coolidge
    Dbroussa
    @Dbroussa

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):
    Zuck dropped a half billion on 2020, people noticed and are trying to raise a stink, but a shocking number of naysayers are shouting them down. Like you. Without even looking at the evidence.

    And as far as I can tell our Ricochet leaders are in that same boat. Not a peep about it on the podcast I’ll bet, and I’ll also bet Rob, James, Peter, and the editors haven’t seen it, or want to, or maybe haven’t even heard of it. It’s already been memory holed by the Beltway pundit and think tank class.

    Want some real irony?  Listen to Hugh Hewitt having to read promos for the movie…you know he is cringing each time he has to suggest to people to see the movie that you KNOW he doesn’t like or agree with.

    • #226
  17. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Dbroussa (View Comment):

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):
    Zuck dropped a half billion on 2020, people noticed and are trying to raise a stink, but a shocking number of naysayers are shouting them down. Like you. Without even looking at the evidence.

    And as far as I can tell our Ricochet leaders are in that same boat. Not a peep about it on the podcast I’ll bet, and I’ll also bet Rob, James, Peter, and the editors haven’t seen it, or want to, or maybe haven’t even heard of it. It’s already been memory holed by the Beltway pundit and think tank class.

    Want some real irony? Listen to Hugh Hewitt having to read promos for the movie…you know he is cringing each time he has to suggest to people to see the movie that you KNOW he doesn’t like or agree with.

    I stopped listening to him years ago.  And especially paying for the privilege, at $5 a month (it was back then, could be more now) for just his show, and a web site that doesn’t work (the comments section broke years ago, and they never seemed interested in fixing it…) versus $5 a month for Ricochet with multiple podcasts, multiple discussion boards – not just about one podcast – and so much more.

    Plus Hugh is one of those “beltway” types who thinks his experiences in OMB ~40 years ago, makes him an expert on DC today…

    And the regular prattle about Ohio, and Football, and Ohio Football, and Baseball, and Ohio Baseball, and Basketball, and Ohio Basketball…

    feh. 

    • #227
  18. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    I’m more of the opinion that money was spent to make vote by mail easier in predominantly Dem areas was that “illegal” maybe and maybe not, but it was certainly not fair.

    Yes and no, depending on state law. Yes in WI and PA for bigger numbers than the Biden lead.

    • #228
  19. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    I’m not a person that is convinced that millions or even thousands of ballots cast in 2020 were fake.

    This movie should change your mind. If you don’t want to shell out the bucks to buy it, at least watch the podcast interview Charlie Kirk did with True The Vote. It offers a good description of what they found, and how they did their analysis, and convinced me to pre-order the movie. That interview includes some of the surveillance video that bolsters their case.

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    but 2020 showed us ways that the system could be gimmicked. It worked in 2020, but if Zuck drops another half a billion on this election people will notice and raise a stink.

    What this movie shows is that the ballot harvesting in 2020 was far larger than ever before, though the technique is not new. (True The Vote looked at prior years and found some of the same people in the same patterns, at a smaller scale.)

    Even the most conservative view of the results from True The Vote has the 2020 electoral college flipped to Trump. With reasonable tolerances on their mule identification filter, the electoral college would have been a blowout for Trump. The blowout we were watching on election night.

    Zuck dropped a half billion on 2020, people noticed and are trying to raise a stink, but a shocking number of naysayers are shouting them down. Like you. Without even looking at the evidence.

    The election really was stolen.

    Is it OK if I wait for the book version?

    Well, there is the nice PDF report I linked in Chapter 16.

    • #229
  20. Dbroussa Coolidge
    Dbroussa
    @Dbroussa

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    I’m more of the opinion that money was spent to make vote by mail easier in predominantly Dem areas was that “illegal” maybe and maybe not, but it was certainly not fair.

    Yes and no, depending on state law. Yes in WI and PA for bigger numbers than the Biden lead.

    That this wasn’t screamed to the high heavens by the GOP prior to the election, and after is a big fail on their part.  There are some States that are trying to pass some laws to prevent this in future elections, alas too late for 2020.

    • #230
  21. Phil Turmel Inactive
    Phil Turmel
    @PhilTurmel

    Dbroussa (View Comment):

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):
    Zuck dropped a half billion on 2020, people noticed and are trying to raise a stink, but a shocking number of naysayers are shouting them down. Like you. Without even looking at the evidence.

    I am not shouting them down, not at all. I am open to the idea that widespread cheating happened. The problem I have is that elections, by their requirement to be secret, are extremely difficult to audit and thus prove malfeasance. I am not convinced that we should go to open elections which would be one way to solve the problem. What I am in favor of is limiting voting to in-person with a few, very restricted, exceptions. I like to point to Texas as a model, but even here there are instances of fraud…they just rarely get prosecuted because proving it is difficult if not impossible. Which, by the way, reinforces the idea that no fraud exists.

    The end result is that I have zero faith in our elections at this point outside of in-person voting, and thus places like CO, CA, OR, and WA I feel haven’t run a valid election in a long time.

    Given this statement about your preference for in-person voting, you should be driving people to showings of “2000 Mules” with whips and cattle prods.  This movie is the ultimate (so far) indictment of vote-by-mail I’ve ever seen.

    Ok, maybe not whips and cattle prods.

    • #231
  22. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Dbroussa (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    I’m more of the opinion that money was spent to make vote by mail easier in predominantly Dem areas was that “illegal” maybe and maybe not, but it was certainly not fair.

    Yes and no, depending on state law. Yes in WI and PA for bigger numbers than the Biden lead.

    That this wasn’t screamed to the high heavens by the GOP prior to the election, and after is a big fail on their part. There are some States that are trying to pass some laws to prevent this in future elections, alas too late for 2020.

    Worth the effort.

    But the government of PA broke its own Constitution, and the WI Elections Commission flouts all kinds of state laws.

    We need more than laws. We need enforcement. We need the WEC fired. We need politicians who respect the law.

    • #232
  23. DrewInWisconsin, Unapologetic Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Unapologetic Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Dbroussa (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    I’m more of the opinion that money was spent to make vote by mail easier in predominantly Dem areas was that “illegal” maybe and maybe not, but it was certainly not fair.

    Yes and no, depending on state law. Yes in WI and PA for bigger numbers than the Biden lead.

    That this wasn’t screamed to the high heavens by the GOP prior to the election, and after is a big fail on their part. There are some States that are trying to pass some laws to prevent this in future elections, alas too late for 2020.

    Worth the effort.

    But the government of PA broke its own Constitution, and the WI Elections Commission flouts all kinds of state laws.

    We need more than laws. We need enforcement. We need the WEC fired. We need politicians who respect the law.

    I’ve been complaining about the WEC for years. They’re embedded, and not likely to go anywhere. Should some Republican try to disband them, you will hear the screams all the way in Hong Kong.

    The Democrats will say that disbanding them is an attempt to steal elections and prevent minorities from voting. When in fact, stealing elections is what the WEC does.

    • #233
  24. DonG (CAGW is a Hoax) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a Hoax)
    @DonG

    Dbroussa (View Comment):

    Yes and no, depending on state law. Yes in WI and PA for bigger numbers than the Biden lead.

    That this wasn’t screamed to the high heavens by the GOP prior to the election, and after is a big fail on their part.  There are some States that are trying to pass some laws to prevent this in future elections, alas too late for 2020.

    Maybe the GOP (headed by a Romney) got the outcome they wanted.  The same GOP that mostly went along with Russia-gate hoax. 

    • #234
  25. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Dbroussa (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Dbroussa (View Comment):
    I’m more of the opinion that money was spent to make vote by mail easier in predominantly Dem areas was that “illegal” maybe and maybe not, but it was certainly not fair.

    Yes and no, depending on state law. Yes in WI and PA for bigger numbers than the Biden lead.

    That this wasn’t screamed to the high heavens by the GOP prior to the election, and after is a big fail on their part. There are some States that are trying to pass some laws to prevent this in future elections, alas too late for 2020.

    Worth the effort.

    But the government of PA broke its own Constitution, and the WI Elections Commission flouts all kinds of state laws.

    We need more than laws. We need enforcement. We need the WEC fired. We need politicians who respect the law.

    We need politicians who are willing to risk a “constitutional crisis” (or whatever crisis the Left threatens) to speak the truth about the unprecedented sketchiness (putting it mildly) of the 2020 election and potential for worse going forward. 

    Leftists are bullies. Bullies don’t stand down until someone stands up to them. We need politicians with courage. Even the courage of Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema would be an improvement among Republican politicians. Rand Paul comes closest, it seems, but I haven’t heard him go after the election the way it deserves.  

    • #235
  26. Bishop Wash Member
    Bishop Wash
    @BishopWash

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    So you are saying that Republicans cheat just as much as Democrats. Interesting. I haven’t heard that from anybody on Ricochet before. And you want to keep Murkowski?!

    I forget the members, but one guy has talked about the trouble his wife had with Republican cheating in Illinois. A lady has talked about cheating in Ohio in 2004 and Kerry not pursuing investigations although he received donations for that purpose. Another member has talked about Republican fraud in Pennsylvania, I think. Maybe not as much cheating as Democrats, but people have been talking about Republican cheating in posts since 2020 and maybe before then.

    • #236
  27. Stina Member
    Stina
    @CM

    Bishop Wash (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    So you are saying that Republicans cheat just as much as Democrats. Interesting. I haven’t heard that from anybody on Ricochet before. And you want to keep Murkowski?!

    I forget the members, but one guy has talked about the trouble his wife had with Republican cheating in Illinois. A lady has talked about cheating in Ohio in 2004 and Kerry not pursuing investigations although he received donations for that purpose. Another member has talked about Republican fraud in Pennsylvania, I think. Maybe not as much cheating as Democrats, but people have been talking about Republican cheating in posts since 2020 and maybe before then.

    Murkowski won a write in campaign after losing the primary – edited to add it was a third party write in.

    • #237
  28. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    Stina (View Comment):

    Bishop Wash (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    So you are saying that Republicans cheat just as much as Democrats. Interesting. I haven’t heard that from anybody on Ricochet before. And you want to keep Murkowski?!

    I forget the members, but one guy has talked about the trouble his wife had with Republican cheating in Illinois. A lady has talked about cheating in Ohio in 2004 and Kerry not pursuing investigations although he received donations for that purpose. Another member has talked about Republican fraud in Pennsylvania, I think. Maybe not as much cheating as Democrats, but people have been talking about Republican cheating in posts since 2020 and maybe before then.

    Murkowski won a write in campaign after losing the primary – edited to add it was a third party write in.

    Murkowski’s write in campaign was a farce. It was the moment many Alaskans realized we have no influence over the machine. Even the Democrat candidate in that fraud sandwich realized Alaska is run by a mafia, and that crime families like the Murkowskis are inevitable. This time though they’ve got a new shiny toy in Tshbaka. She’ll be good for them for the next 20 years. 

    • #238
  29. namlliT noD Member
    namlliT noD
    @DonTillman

    The Nuge weighs in:

    • #239
  30. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    namlliT noD (View Comment):

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    namlliT noD (View Comment):

    Indeed.

    And really… 81 million votes? That is totally absurd.

    Nobody has ever offered a possible explanation for that number.

    The 81 million votes did seem absurd to me until I ran some numbers on how much of an increase it actually was. I’m too busy right now to re-do the calculations, but after adjusting for population increase I calculated that Biden only received about an extra 1% of the eligible American vote more than Obama did in 2008. Given that many Americans had been sitting home from their jobs for the previous year and spent more time surfing the Internet and reading about politics, I don’t find the 81 million votes to be much of an outlier.

    Nope.

    Hillary 2016 received 65,853,514 votes.

    Obama 2012 received 65,915,795 votes. Effectively the same.

    Biden 2020 “received” 81,268,924 votes, a whopping 23% greater than either Obama or Hillary.

    That’s enormous.

    Especially for someone who stayed in his basement and had zero enthusiasm.

    And, as I said, there’s never been an explanation for that. You think you’d hear about a “campaign genius” behind it all. Nope.

    Okay, I finally found the time to go through the details and show that Biden’s vote total is not as anomalous as you would think. Here are the official results:

    Biden – 81,268,924
    Trump – 74,216,154

    We’ve all heard the mantra that Biden won the most votes in history and Trump won the most Republican votes in history. These talking points are promoted by people who are either not fluent in statistics or mathematics, or if they are, they are just trying to bamboozle you. The most obvious retort is that we have more voters than at any other time in history. The population keeps growing. Besides, voter turnout has been steadily increasing over the last 20+ years. The only thing that is significant is the percentage of votes captured relative to the electorate.

    A little background history here on voter turnout:

    https://historyincharts.com/the-history-of-voter-turnout-in-the-us/

    As you can see, the 19th Century was the age of active democratic participation, with turnout rates in the 80% range. Modern America ranks near the bottom end of industrialized countries when it comes to showing up to vote. The year 1960 was the high point in modern times for voter turnout at 62.8%, presumably because the presidential campaigns were on TV for the first time. By comparison the voter turnout in 2020 was 62.0%.  This chart claims that 2020 was the highest since 1900, but my later Wikipedia stats puts 1960 as the highest by a smidgen.  Regardless, the turnout was very similar in all three of those years.

     

    CONTINUED

    • #240
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