by John F Di Leo -
On November 2, A.D. 2021, a red wave swept the nation, and the talking heads were bewildered.
It’s certainly not unusual that the party in power would lose seats in midterm elections, but even the most casual of observers could tell that there was something else going on this time. It was quite a sweep.
Throughout the night, and throughout the day that followed, the talking heads couldn’t help themselves, as they repeated the depressing statistic, “but Joe Biden won that state by 10 points just a year ago…" and “But Biden won that state by 16 points just last year…"
Watching the television or listening to the radio, astute observers could not help but mutter, “Well… maybe he didn’t.”
One of the most challenging aspects of political analysis is the fact that everything is based, not on the events themselves, but on one’s understanding of past events.
In the scientific method, all analysis is to be repeated carefully, studied again and again in different ways, usually against control environments, so that there can be reasonable certainty of a conclusion.
You can’t really do that with politics (which may be one of the many reasons why my molecular biologist daughter frequently reminds me that “political science isn’t a real science…!”). There is one campaign, and one election. Then two years later, there is another campaign and an election. No matter how much you may try to rigorously study the events and the results, you are dependent upon your interpretation of them.
You are making educated guesses as to why people voted the way they did, why they turned out at the polls the way they did. As an anchorman or guest analyst, you are guessing at the reasons why people who said they cared about economics trusted this guy, why the people who said they cared about experience trusted that guy, etc… but you just might be completely wrong, too.
We all know this. The fact that campaigns are a mix of subjects – the economy, the candidate's personality, the money spent, the quality of the campaign, the nature of news coverage, the weather, etc., etc. – is certainly well-known.
We forget, however, to apply this fact to vote counts, especially to past vote counts. We think that, at least, the final numbers are certain. At least they are not open to interpretation. Right?
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Throughout the evening as election returns rolled in, the news anchors cushioned every statement with the words “…but we don’t know about the outstanding vote yet…”
The Democratic Party has been pushing a certain narrative for the past year: that vote fraud isn’t real, that vote fraud has never existed, that if you believe in vote fraud, you must be a conspiracy theorist.
The claim is patently ludicrous on its face.
It is well known to any student of history that vote fraud is a tried-and-true method of Democratic party politics across the country. From Lyndon B Johnson‘s very first congressional campaign… to John F Kennedy’s 1960 election, and the late night ballot stuffing engineered for him by Chicago’s Mayor Richard J Daley… to the McCloskey/McIntyre race in Indiana, to the Dornan/Sanchez campaigns in California… The list of well-known examples is long; the list of under-reported examples is almost endless.
American elections are in fact well known to be riddled with dozens of forms of vote fraud. There isn't a jurisdiction in America that's completely free of it.
Until last year, even Democrats admitted it, often with glee, dismissing it as “the overzealous efforts of true believers, but harmless because it’s never really enough to make a difference.”
In fact, however, we have never been given the opportunity to truly study vote fraud. It is impossible, after the fact, because of the secret ballot. There is no way to properly audit votes, because once a person's vote is mixed in with the hundreds of others in his precinct, you lose the ability to review anything with any kind of accuracy.
But what do we know, for certain?
Well… we know that the Motor Voter Act automatically enrolls tens of millions of people in their states' voter lists, without checking their citizenship or felon status. They are registered, whether they are legally allowed to vote or not.
We know that an enormous amount of political advertising is directed at immigrants, without providing the information that only U.S. citizens are allowed to cast a vote. Candidates try to win a vote that isn't legal to cast.
We know that millions of Americans hold multiple addresses, either simultaneously or over the course of time, as college students move from dorm to dorm, as homeowners buy second homes, as adult kids move out of their parents' houses, etc.
We know that hundreds of millions of ballots are now mailed out without being requested, and can be filled out and cast by anyone, without verification of any kind, eliminating the identification check and chain of custody requirements that have always been standard in the absentee ballot process.
And this is all before we even consider the kind of late-night computer switching, ballot box stuffing, and other tools available to the powerful political machines that run almost all of America's cities.
Is there vote fraud? Of course there is. You would have to be a fool to deny it.
But is there enough to change the results? That’s what cannot be proven. But when we add up all of the dozens of different methods, it cannot be discounted.
Assume any percentage you want. If there's a 10% base of fabricated or otherwise illegal votes, or just 5%, or just 1%… well, there are plenty of races, from legislative to executive, from local to federal, where the margins are tiny indeed.
Returning to the events of this week… We saw counting stop in some precincts, at 9 PM, at 10 PM, at midnight, and then kick back in later, in the middle of the night or the following day.
We saw many in the press declare New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy the victor when only hundreds of votes separated him from his Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, and only 90% of the vote had been counted. Why? Just because they were so certain that the votes yet to arrive would be sure to tilt in Phil Murphy‘s favor. How could they be so sure? We all know. We just aren’t supposed to say it out loud. We aren't supposed to write it down.
Back to the statistics of Tuesday night.
Glenn Youngkin and Jack Ciattarelli did wonderfully, beating Donald Trump’s numbers, often by 10 or 15 points from county to county. This is correctly attributed, in part, to the fact that both were terrific candidates; both ran wonderful campaigns; both were running in an environment in which the electorate is universally horrified by the Biden/Harris/Pelosi/Schumer regime.
But we should also be asking the question, Are we comparing this week‘s numbers with real numbers from a year ago, or with numbers that were inflated a year ago by unusually high levels of fraud?
Maybe the Biden/Harris ticket did win Virginia by 10 and New Jersey by 16.
Maybe.
But maybe it was much closer than that, and the difference was an unusually high level of fraud last time, that was not matched this time.
Some inside baseball for you, Gentle Reader:
Another of the things that political activists know, but that the talking heads don’t say out loud, and reporters certainly don’t write down, is the fact that political machines commit vote fraud at different levels from election to election, either depending on how much they think it will be needed, or on how much they care – personally – about the result.
Perhaps in Virginia, for example, Fairfax County decided that with the eyes of the world upon them, it might not be worth it to try the usual late-night games this time… And perhaps in New Jersey, the same offices in Essex County made a different call, and decided it was worthwhile, and corrupt Jerseyites went further over the line for Murphy than corrupt Virginians did for McAuliffe.
These are the unknowns… we may suspect, but we cannot be certain.
If we apply the scientific method, however…. One cannot help but wonder. Why didn’t Ciattarelli’s numbers increase proportionally statewide? Why did he do so much better in most counties, but not in the counties where Democrat machines control all the mechanics of the election?
Glenn Youngkin’s win was big enough to overcome the margin of fraud. That’s wonderful, and he and his campaign deserve to be complimented. We'd sure love to know how much he really got, with the false/fabricated McAuliffe votes removed…
But Jack Ciattarelli was just as effective a campaigner, just as organized, just as popular. A fair analysis of demographics, campaign activity, and media coverage, would point to Ciattarelli doing even better.
There is a margin of fraud, a foundation that is built into every count, built into every race, built into every district. It certainly differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. It’s not all run by the party, but it is enabled by the party.
Democrat politicians don’t have to fabricate every ballot themselves, you see.
They just have to advertise to illegal immigrants, and make sure but nobody tells these immigrants that you have to be a citizen to vote. It will take care of itself.
They don’t have to tell suburbanites to vote twice, both at their first home and their cabin, their primary house and their Florida condo, their current apartment and their last apartment… They just have to slow-walk the process of cleaning up a voter list when people move, and let the overzealous voters believe that Republicans are devils, so these individuals will cast votes from both addresses.
They don’t have to tell nursing home administrators to fill out ballots for a hundred senile, comatose, or even deceased residents; they just have to make sure the nursing home administrators know that state and federal funding to nursing homes will go up if Democrats win… and then let the ethically challenged but greedy nursing home administrators take care of the rest on their own.
Did Youngkin and Ciattarelli do a wonderful job this year? Of course they did.
Did they both deserve to win? Of course they did.
Do we have an awful lot of work to do, from coast to coast and border to border, in order to operate the kind of elections that can truly deliver the honest preferences of the American public, every time election day rolls along?
Of course we do.
Copyright 2021 John F Di Leo
John F Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based trade compliance trainer and transportation manager, writer and actor. A one-time county chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party, he has been writing regularly for Illinois Review since 2009.
A collection of John’s articles about vote fraud, The Tales of Little Pavel, and his 2021 political satires about current events, Evening Soup with Basement Joe, are both available in either paperback or eBook on Amazon.
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