Cont: The Trump Presidency: Part 27

[Ladewig]

What is he going to do and say when even these klutzes can't find any voter fraud? And they won't find any because they will have to be schooled first on how the vote-counting process works,

See, you’re thinking about a fair, logical, structured method to find the truth. There’s your problem.

before they can actually do a viable recount. And then if they do a viable recount, there will be none.

All they have to do is use their black or blue pens to make some stray marks on 11,000 Biden ballots and run them through the counting machines. Then they announce that 11,000 invalid ballots were counted in the previous counts, but the ninjas saw through the ruse and have discovered exactly how the Democrats cheated.

Given how few Americans understand that each state’s voting systems involve both Republicans and Democrats counting the votes side by side, it will be easy to convince low-information voters who get their news from a single source that they was robbed.

The problem will then be compounded by the Republican state legislature saying the “audit” was more valid than any audit in the history of audits.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

...

Interesting claims.

It isn't very interesting. It is the same type of claims that come up after every election and that always turn out to be nothing. It always ends up being name mismatches and old addresses and people who have residences in more than one state and so on.

The same claims were made in Georgia for this last election and they looked into each individual case and came up with nothing. They claimed there were hundreds of thousands of illegal votes. Georgia looked into it and came up with a something like a couple dozen possible illegal votes.

 

[eerok]

It isn't very interesting. It is the same type of claims that come up after every election and that always turn out to be nothing. It always ends up being name mismatches and old addresses and people who have residences in more than one state and so on.

The same claims were made in Georgia for this last election and they looked into each individual case and came up with nothing. They claimed there were hundreds of thousands of illegal votes. Georgia looked into it and came up with a something like a couple dozen possible illegal votes.

The difference with this AZ "audit" is that the people looking into it are partisan hacks who are no doubt willing to lie their asses off. It's all but certain that they'll declare Trump the winner, and then what will happen?

I know that it's all BS, but I'm not clear on the worst case scenario at the state level. The state courts will likely reject this obviously problematic gambit, but is that the end of it? Does the state legislature have much power here in its own right?

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

The difference with this AZ "audit" is that the people looking into it are partisan hacks who are no doubt willing to lie their asses off. It's all but certain that they'll declare Trump the winner, and then what will happen?

I know that it's all BS, but I'm not clear on the worst case scenario at the state level. The state courts will likely reject this obviously problematic gambit, but is that the end of it? Does the state legislature have much power here in its own right?

It won't affect the election results. the Constitution grants the Senate to be the judge of its own elections. If the audit says that McSally beat Kelly, she could take it to the Senate, but the Senate isn't going to buy this junk.

The Presidential race is over. The courts aren't going to uphold the results of this audit. Even if they do, what would Arizona do? Reject the previously electors and recertify new electors and send it to Congress? Harris and the House and the Senate aren't going to hold a joint session to recount the votes. There were enough problems the first time around.

This is just crazy nuts being paid by the state to indulge in their delusional conspiracy theories. The Senate says it will use the result to pass election laws to restore the public trust in their elections. The results, of course, will be that Democrats are a bunch of cheating losers and Republicans are the true majority who have been disenfranchised. That will be used to pass laws making it more difficult for Democrats to vote in order to right that mythical wrong.

 

[Minoosh]

For a bunch of the others - Are Arizona's ballots not private? How, specifically, are they establishing a link between the voter and the cast ballot?

They can't, according to Maricopa County. A digital file was turned over that includes scans of envelopes, but I don't know if Cyber Ninjas has any signature database to "match" signatures, and the ballots themselves do not identify the voter. At some point I heard Cyber Ninjas would go door-to-door and question people, to see if that person says they voted. Presumably they could ask who a person voted for, but I don't know what they'd do with that information.

That's with some added emphasis towards the non-citizen voters. If the GOP actually had viable means of determining if a vote was cast by a non-citizen voter, why the **** would it be only coming into play now?

Yeah, they can't do that by looking at ballots. In 2019, Texas had to withdraw a claim that up to 100,000 non-citizens were registered to vote in Texas; the list was garbage.

Maricopa County voters threw Joe Arpaio out of office and elected a Democratic sheriff in 2016. People were sick of him. It happens.

Here are some links from Cyber Ninjas website - I don't know if these are the same as the documents filed in Maricopa County Superior Court. Cyber Ninjas had sought to keep its procedures secret.
Counting Floor Policies
Digital Evidence Handling Policies
Audit Evidence Handling

Link to Maricopa Superior Court page on Cyber Ninja case

I'm not absolutely certain that the above links from the Cyber Ninja website are what was filed under seal in court, because I am not having any luck navigating to the documents on the court page.

I hope the Cyber Ninja guy realizes that doing this job *right* (correctly) will be better for his business than a partisan hack job.

Oh, and no blue or black pens allowed!

In addition to Cyber Ninjas, some of these documents refer to WakeTSI and CyFIR. It's all tied in together but I'm not sure how.

 

[eerok]

It won't affect the election results. the Constitution grants the Senate to be the judge of its own elections. If the audit says that McSally beat Kelly, she could take it to the Senate, but the Senate isn't going to buy this junk.

The Presidential race is over. The courts aren't going to uphold the results of this audit. Even if they do, what would Arizona do? Reject the previously electors and recertify new electors and send it to Congress? Harris and the House and the Senate aren't going to hold a joint session to recount the votes. There were enough problems the first time around.

This is just crazy nuts being paid by the state to indulge in their delusional conspiracy theories. The Senate says it will use the result to pass election laws to restore the public trust in their elections. The results, of course, will be that Democrats are a bunch of cheating losers and Republicans are the true majority who have been disenfranchised. That will be used to pass laws making it more difficult for Democrats to vote in order to right that mythical wrong.

Thanks for the analysis. I figured this was something more than just nutter election cosplay, but I wasn't sure about the worst case prospects. The GOP are indeed consistently disgusting with their voter suppression strategies. I can only hope that their efforts get stomped down.

 

[acbytesla]

From a legal perspective the AZ audit means nothing. The election is OVER. Biden AND Kelly have both been sworn in. Even the participants of the audit KNOW this. The audit is being used as a phony pretext to keep Trump's lie going. It will be used probably to promote legislation that will suppress voter participation and possibly worse.

 

[Ladewig]

I hope the Cyber Ninja guy realizes that doing this job *right* (correctly) will be better for his business than a partisan hack job.

Why?

They are not going to stay in the vote-auditing business.

Plus, we don’t know if there are bonuses promised to them to produce a specific result.

 

[Ladewig]

It’s being reported that Trump is asking about the audit several times each day.

I’m trying to imagine him asking about COVID progress several times each day, but I cannot.

(and yes, I’ll confess to an argument from incredulity fallacy)

 

[Minoosh]

Why?

They are not going to stay in the vote-auditing business.

Plus, we don’t know if there are bonuses promised to them to produce a specific result.

Are you asking why I hope the guy is doing things in a professional way? Just a stray bit of hope.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Why?

They are not going to stay in the vote-auditing business.

Plus, we don’t know if there are bonuses promised to them to produce a specific result.

We don't know how much they are being paid or who is paying for it. Arizona put up $150,000. The rest is coming from private donors that have not been revealed. Maybe Trump gave them a few million dollars from his leftover campaign funds and said, "Here's a ton of money. Go find enough votes to make me the winner, Brad. I mean, Doug."

 

[Aridas]

Umm... Isn't that the precise definition of what an absentee ballot actually is?? So how does that make them invalid ballots?

To poke at this question to clarify things a little... No. Absentee ballots can and frequently are mailed back from one's legal residence, but where they're mailed from has nothing to do with their validity. In most cases that I know of, they can also be delivered to the specified location by hand, as well. I did that last election, incidentally.

It isn't very interesting.

Your views may differ, of course. Perhaps that bit should have been in sarcasm magenta text to more fully capture my usage, though. It's interesting in how dumb, unreasonable, and fundamentally untrustworthy it is... just from the listed categories alone and before getting to everything else.

 

[Aridas]

Here's something mildly interesting in another way.

After quite the public buildup, it sounds like General Flynn forgot the words of the Pledge of Allegiance at Lin Wood's rally. Umm...

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Your views may differ, of course. Perhaps that bit should have been in sarcasm magenta text to more fully capture my usage, though. It's interesting in how dumb, unreasonable, and fundamentally untrustworthy it is... just from the listed categories alone and before getting to everything else.

Whether something is interesting to a person is of course subjective to their interests and experiences. My point was that in a general sense it is not interesting in how dumb and unreasonable these claims are because this is just a tired worn out record being played over again. They made the same claims in Georgia. And other states. And have been making the same claims for at least 20 years.

The same exact claims. Over and over and over. These exact same claims have been investigated over and over and over. Those investigations have proven that these claims are false over and over and over.

Someone seeing Uri Geller bend a spoon for the first time might find it interesting. But it isn't really interesting because it has been debunked a hundred times over.

These claims are not new or novel. They are exactly the same boring uninteresting consistently falsified claims that have been made for decades.

 

[SezMe]

It won't affect the election results.

That's right ... legally and in reality. But that's not the desired outcome.

Already a majority of the GOP believe the election was stolen. That's scary right there. But suppose these idiots conclude to much fanfare that, indeed, Trump won AZ. It's be on Fox, Newmax OANN, etc. 24/7. They would then move on to the next state, again with much fanfare.

GOP congresscritters would jam up the legislative process with all sorts of investigations, bogus legislation and the like. It would be even worse at the state level where the GOP is in control. You can expect every state where Biden won to start demanding more recounts more and more of the Big Lie.

The worst case scenario is that a majority of people come to believe Biden is NOT the legitimate president. That's a serious, serious problem for the democratic process. Biden will, of course, remain president but will find it impossible to get his agenda passed. But confidence in our electoral process will be severely damaged. And all this mess just as we head into the 2022 campaign season.

I hope this "recount" ends with a whimper and disappears in the dark of night. But if they do proclaim fraud, I expect bad things to happen. Right now I view the whole thing as silliness but should it turn out bad (a reasonable expectation) I will be scared ****-less for the country.

 

[Andy_Ross]

GOP AZ Ballot Audit Is About To Be Kicked Out Due To High School Graduation

Arizona Republicans and their ballot audit are about to be kicked out of the convention center due to high school graduations.

CNN reported, “Here we are in Arizona. There are legal challenges happening, but for now, this audit will continue. The tough part, Jim, is that the lease on the coliseum is up May 14th. They’re not going to be done. On May 14th, there are going to be high school graduations, so they have to give up that space. They’re stuck as to what to do because the count, they say, will continue. They’ll have to find somewhere else to do it.”

https://www.politicususa.com/2021/05/02/az-ballot-audit-high-school-graduation.html

Maybe they can cut out any pretext of seriousness and move the whole thing to Mar-a-Lago so that Trump can personally supervise.

 

[turingtest]

That's right ... legally and in reality. But that's not the desired outcome.

Already a majority of the GOP believe the election was stolen. That's scary right there. But suppose these idiots conclude to much fanfare that, indeed, Trump won AZ. It's be on Fox, Newmax OANN, etc. 24/7. They would then move on to the next state, again with much fanfare.

GOP congresscritters would jam up the legislative process with all sorts of investigations, bogus legislation and the like. It would be even worse at the state level where the GOP is in control. You can expect every state where Biden won to start demanding more recounts more and more of the Big Lie.

The worst case scenario is that a majority of people come to believe Biden is NOT the legitimate president. That's a serious, serious problem for the democratic process. Biden will, of course, remain president but will find it impossible to get his agenda passed. But confidence in our electoral process will be severely damaged. And all this mess just as we head into the 2022 campaign season.

I hope this "recount" ends with a whimper and disappears in the dark of night. But if they do proclaim fraud, I expect bad things to happen. Right now I view the whole thing as silliness but should it turn out bad (a reasonable expectation) I will be scared ****-less for the country.

I don't think they even need to do that much. ISTM that just by pretending they have enough grounds to justify having the audit at all, they've already accomplished their goal, which isn't to clarify anything, but to muddy the waters enough so they can pretend there may be a problem; they don't need to show it meaningfully exists in order to come up with "solutions" that, coincidentally of course, favor their party.

As the GOP has increasingly become the party that is home to CTists/creationists, the resemblance in methodology is also no coincidence. CTists don't really care who shot John, and creationists don't really care how the universe came to be as we see it today. The whole idea is to negate the idea of evidence as a concept by which to reach reasonable conclusions, and to substitute doubt so any conclusion can be justified in all the smoke they've blown.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

GOP AZ Ballot Audit Is About To Be Kicked Out Due To High School Graduation

Arizona Republicans and their ballot audit are about to be kicked out of the convention center due to high school graduations.

CNN reported, “Here we are in Arizona. There are legal challenges happening, but for now, this audit will continue. The tough part, Jim, is that the lease on the coliseum is up May 14th. They’re not going to be done. On May 14th, there are going to be high school graduations, so they have to give up that space. They’re stuck as to what to do because the count, they say, will continue. They’ll have to find somewhere else to do it.”

https://www.politicususa.com/2021/05/02/az-ballot-audit-high-school-graduation.html

Maybe they can cut out any pretext of seriousness and move the whole thing to Mar-a-Lago so that Trump can personally supervise.

he BBC wishes to deny rumors that it is going into liquidation. Mrs. Kelly, who owns the flat where they live, has said that they can stay on till the end of the month

 

[Armitage72]

Apparently Trump thinks the scam recounts will put him back in the White House.
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/trump-mar-a-lago-arizona-recount-white-house-035847717.html

I like this quote:

"The one time leader of the free world who now lives alone in a hotel sharing buffets, common areas, and staff with strangers, yearns for attention and relevance so badly, he now stands on a patio step every night ranting to tens of people about a 6 month old election that he lost."

 

[TofuFighter]

<snippity>

Looking from afar, I just don't get it. I would hope that I'd toss my cornflakes all over him if I was in his presence.

That looks and sounds like a euphemism, so i'd just like to have confirmation that you meant that literally.