- Leave the misleading headlines and stories to the AP.
- Leave the catchy clever headlines to us.
Uh Oh: Half Of Detroit’s Ballots Might Be Disqualified Due To Errors
The normally excellent folks at Townhall produced that little perversion. It should have been made clear at the outset that the reference is to being able to do a recount, currently on again and off again, in that state.
The actual story is that according to provisions in state law the ballots in certain of Detroit’s precincts have been disqualified as far as being included for recount purposes. Without bringing in the recount matter as the reference, the implication is that a big part of Michigan’s vote has been found to be disqualified, possibly bringing the national race into question.
As suspicious as we are of voter integrity in that state, and have no doubt there is considerable discoverable fraud, the recount going on is not designed to ferret out fraudulent voting but whether the cast votes, fraudulent or not, were counted accurately or were subject to some sort of hacking legerdemain by Russians. There is no clean bill of health genuinely possible without comparing ballots cast to legal registration and determining that they were legally cast by that registrant. We would welcome such a well structured investigation into voter integrity by statistical sample in every state. We have no doubt indications would point to primarily Democrat voting patterns and demographics. A better headline would be “Half of Detroit’s Ballots might not be recounted.”
The story also fails to challenge the narrative that Hillary Clinton is merely supporting the effort by Jill Stein to force recounts in certain states as if Stein’s campaign was in any way competitive in those states. The article correctly refers to the challenge as a “clown show” but fails to excoriate the head clown, Hillary. How can Townhall not understand that Stein is purely a shill for Hillary, and someone for the liberal media to refer to as the instigator of record, as it allows them to discreetly avoid naming Hillary. It would be embarrassing for Hillary and for the media to report that Hillary was actually the one championing the challenge as they were so vociferous in castigating Donald Trump for demurring in a pre-election debate about accepting the results of the election without qualification.
This quote from a news analysis in the New York Times the day after the October 19th debate displays the nexus of their embarrassment and the reason Jill Stein is “out front”.
In a remarkable statement that seemed to cast doubt on American democracy, Donald J. Trump said Wednesday that he might not accept the results of next month’s election if he felt it was rigged against him — a stand that Hillary Clinton blasted as “horrifying” at their final and caustic debate on Wednesday.
The NYT analysts also referred to trump’s demurral as “the most breathtaking moment of the third and final debate.”
The recount has very narrow purpose
The types of fraud that mostly goes on in Democrat strongholds is immune from discovery in these types of recounts or Hillary would not have pursued the recount. Hillary and company may have been flabbergasted that their efforts of all sorts were insufficient to win but most likely they are intent on doing everything the money will allow to delegitimize in the public eye, or with their base, the Trump victory and to foment a move to end the electoral college. We think it will backfire as to the discerning public.
It should be emphasized that the certification, of sorts, in these recounts in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (to the extent they proceed) only relate to whether the vote was counted accurately, a species of fraud but one more likely to be innocent miscounts because the trail of custody and responsibility is greater in the counting process. All manner of other more likely types of fraudulent voting could still be going on. The stated purpose is silly because the recount cannot uncover hacking by Russian’s or others because the Internet is not relied on in the counting and voting processes as yet. That is a flimsy excuse but a convenient scare tactic for publicity to raise money.
We suspect the rational of the Michigan rule to not include at all precincts with discrepancies, in the totaling of corrections, is because the only thing the recount effort is designed to accomplish is whether the candidate votes coincide with other check figures. They require the number of ballots to match print-outs, or those precincts not be counted at all, because otherwise the difference as to which candidate is indeterminate, and there are no certain ballots as to the cause of the discrepancy. These are emergency recounts and doing a thorough investigation is apparently not part of the program. Balanced ledgers in all or most precincts could still mask great fraud problems.
Reading the excerpts from the Detroit News article that the Townhall article relied on and supplied, we see that the discrepancies disqualifying precincts from being part of the tally of candidate vote corrections were in the 1 to 5 ballot range per precinct. We do not think such levels are insignificant, especially if they are fraudulent, as they do add up and can determine close elections. But they could be errors of a different sort and we presume it is indeterminable as to what ballots or votes were in error.
The Townhall article we critique is not unique in its tone or shortcomings regarding what is said about this recount matter. Many other conservative articles do not make the effort to explain that, because the vote counts are going Trump’s way, or will not alter the win/lose results, that does not mean fraud is not present. That is regrettable. Trump is winning the recount of votes, such as they are. However we hold that a thorough audit would uncover fraud, and that lack of integrity in the system benefits Democrats and hurts Republicans.
Related reading, (latest) here: After Raising Millions on Recount, Jill Stein Finally Gets the Intervention Michigan’s Election Need
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