- Will Democrats now question their early voting game plan? HA!
- No Republican case FOR early voting, only the jaundiced reasons remain
- Gianforte wins with election day voters as well
- In part a no confidence vote about the media
So Republican candidate Greg Gianforte wins substantially even after the dominant liberal media along with lots of money from Democrat operatives tried mightily to portray him as, well, a Trump type. And that was before the “the incident” where he ended up being charged with a misdemeanor for manhandling (liberal media won’t understand the term) a punk liberal trespassing “reporter” (provocateur). The dominant media went bonkers when that happened “encouraged” that they had the hook that would turn the thing.
And yet Gianforte won
Derek Hunter has a great focused piece about the race, portraying the liberal media for what they are and providing a flavor of the Montana voter. Wasn’t That Election “Special”? It’s a good read but he offers as an aside that the win was “Thanks, in small part, to Democrats’ insistence on early, by mail voting and the fact that 70 percent of votes had already been cast by the time of the incident,” Our quick check confirms that Gianforte won on election day as well. So, a win being a win, by political operative standards, Republican early voting was not determinative. As the Montana Secretary of State commented (reported in The Missoulian
“The events of the last 24 hours really didn’t have much of an effect on the people who voted on Election Day,” Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton said. “I was a little surprised by that.”
But an analysis of state election figures shows that Quist did receive an apparent boost in some counties from the news that his opponent had been cited for misdemeanor assault. However, it was largely negated by other counties where support for Gianforte actually grew after the incident saturated national news.
So if it was largely negated then it wasn’t much of a factor. But The Missoulian goes on:
Montana law does not allow people to change their ballot after it has been cast. Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton suggests only a sliver of Montanans sought to do so, tallying 17 calls to his office’s main line. Some county election clerks told reporters they also had received inquiries.
At the polls Thursday, most voters who talked with reporters said the incident did not change their vote, although some said it encouraged them to show up rather than skip the election.
To any extent that Gianforte did worse on Election Day compared to mail ballots sent before his citation, voter outrage apparently was not strong enough that the overall outcome of the race would have been different if all ballots been cast that day, Stapleton said.
So voters were not interested in changing their votes, there was no “we’ve been robbed” movement. Nevertheless political POS’s that they are, Democrats tried to portray that, given another chance people would have changed their vote and then their guy would have won. Of course who pushes early voting more than Democrats, trying to extend it in order to have extravagant opportunity to arm twist, bamboozle and “bank” votes? And they still lost in Montana. For all that is known, Gianforte may have won “bigger” had the incident occurred earlier AND the early voters been offered a chance to hear the full story, and reflect on it. Endearment to politicians who stand up to obtrusive bias attack media , show mettle, is not unheard of.
Nevertheless we have Republican efforts to copy Democrats and push early voting which inextricably enhances the overall zeitgeist to vote early. We believe that to be largely against interests (particularly in general elections). In our evaluation, Republicans are not only more reliable voters and informed but those who vote on election day are more likely to vote straight ticket. The opposite is our evaluation of Democrat voters.
Republicans would be well advised to use the Montana Gianforte election as an example of why not to vote early, played to Democrats and Republicans alike. Less uninformed early voting is just plain good government but it also provides tactical advantage to Republican voting culture. And what if Republican Candidate X was a reprobate instead of an arguably stand-up guy like Gianforte? Would Republicans be proud of early voting turn-out?
The concept of being able to change ones vote having cast it early, prior to election day is raised in the Montana election Missoulian story. It has been conveniently mouthed by Democrats thinking they have at least a rhetorical point although no serious intention of promoting it as it would be against their interests overall, and they know it.
Doing so involves disallowing early counting or processing of vote by mail. The voter has to have their unopened absentee ballot found, returned to them and they subsequently vote again. We are all for stopping early processing of vote by mail but why the stupid drill at all. Prioritizing voting on election day with photo voter ID is the way to insure both voting integrity and more informed voting.
R Mall
