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ELECTIONS

A River of Doubt Runs Through Mail Voting in Montana

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/03/24/a_river_of_doubt_runs_through_mail_voting_in_big_sky_country_769321.html

MISSOULA COUNTY, Mont.—A mountainous, 2,600-square-mile region with a population of approximately 119,600 does not seem like your prototypical setting for machine politics. Yet a recent audit of mail-in ballots cast there found irregularities characteristic of larger urban centers—on a level that could have easily swung local elections in 2020, and statewide elections in cycles past.

The Biden administration, the Democrat-controlled Congress, and the Democratic National Committee are collectively pressing to both nationalize, and make permanent, many of the extraordinary pandemic-driven voting measures implemented during the 2020 election—particularly mass mail-in voting.

Political leaders and prominent media outlets have dismissed concerns raised by critics that such measures invite voter fraud. But could the election in small-county Missoula call all that into question?

The story at hand begins during the pandemic summer of 2020, when the then-governor, Democrat Steve Bullock, issued a directive permitting counties to conduct the general election fully by mail.  In the run-up to the election, a court also struck down Montana’s law aimed at preventing ballot harvesting.

Missoula, Montana’s second most populous county and one of its most heavily Democratic, opted in to the universal vote-by-mail regime.

In response, in October 2020, several county residents with experience targeting election integrity issues formed a group to ensure the legitimacy of the 2020 vote. The members contended that Missoula County had shown anomalies in elections past.

In November, the group approached state Rep. Brad Tschida, a Republican, to formally take up the issue. Tschida hired a lawyer involved in the group, Quentin Rhoades, to represent him in corresponding with Missoula County Elections Administrator Bradley Seaman, a Democratic appointee and a longtime supporter of progressive causes.

Seaman’s office complied with Tschida’s request for access to all of the county’s ballot envelopes, and on Jan. 4 a team of volunteers, overseen by Rhoades, conducted an audit with the assistance of the Missoula County Elections Office. The audit consisted of both a count and review of all ballot envelopes and comparing that to the number of officially recorded votes during the Nov. 3, 2020, general election.

‘Jim Eagle’ and Georgia’s Voting Law Biden compares state voting bills to Jim Crow, never mind the facts.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/jim-eagle-and-georgias-voting-law-11616799451?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

“No election rules are perfect. Ballot access, integrity and administration are all important. Mr. Biden knows this. Democrats aren’t smearing Georgia because they believe their “Jim Crow” nonsense. Their strategy is to play the race card to justify breaking the Senate filibuster, so they can jam through their election reform known as H.R.1 and overrule 50 state voting laws.”

Georgia passed its over-hyped voting law on Thursday, and the news was met with more of the same. President Biden said at his news conference that the voting bills percolating in GOP state Legislatures are “un-American,” “sick,” “pernicious,” and worse: “This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle. ”

C’mon, man, as Mr. Biden likes to say. The comparison is grotesque, and seeing that only requires swimming sideways for a minute to escape the rip current of the media narrative. Take a look at what’s actually in the legislation—and what isn’t.

Georgia’s new law leaves in place Sunday voting, a point of contention with earlier proposals, given that black churches have a “souls to the polls” tradition after services. The Legislature, rather, decided to expand weekend early voting statewide, by requiring two Saturdays instead of only one under current law. In total, Georgia offers three weeks of early voting, which began last year on Oct. 12. This is not exactly restrictive: Compare that with early voting that started Oct. 24 last year in New York.

The new law also leaves in place no-excuses absentee voting. Every eligible Georgia voter will continue to be allowed to request a mail ballot for the sake of simple convenience—or for no reason at all. Again, this is hardly restrictive: More than a dozen states, including Connecticut and Delaware, require mail voters to give a valid excuse.

So what does the Georgia law do? First, it gets rid of signature matching, so election workers aren’t trying to verify mail ballots by comparing John Hancocks. This subjective process should concern both sides. It creates avenues for contested outcomes, with fighting over ambiguous signatures. In 2018 about 2,400 ballots in Georgia were rejected for issues with the signature or oath, according to a recent paper in Political Research Quarterly. Those voters were 54% black.

The Courts and the Election of 2020 by Chris Farrell

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17192/courts-2020-election

[Judge] Benson did not go through the proper rule-making process when issuing the guidance…. That is precisely how elections are stolen.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts scrupulously ignored every 2020 election legal challenge raised by former President Trump in order to assure a legally uncontested Biden victory. Irregularities in six states could not get the attention of the highest court….

Pandemic or not, the last-minute rule changes imposed by judicial and executive branch officials were irregular and perhaps outright illegal. State legislatures govern elections. Changing the rules to extend deadlines, dropping signature requirements for mail-in ballots and other sketchy practices that saw huge voting total swings are all indications of election manipulation.

“We failed to settle this dispute before the election,” [Justice] Thomas wrote, “and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence.” He then reviewed the documented risks presented by mail-in balloting, which offers “simpler and more effective alternatives to commit fraud.”

The further we get from the November 2020 election, the more we will see documented evidence of voting irregularities, manipulations and gamesmanship. There remain unresolved issues in Georgia, Wisconsin and Maricopa County, Arizona.

We must use every legal tool available to us… to ensure free and fair elections that the American people can trust. That means cleaning up voter registration rolls; having and election DAY (not a “season”); voter ID; enforced rules for absentee and mail-in ballots; paper ballots for audit purposes; and banking-quality cyber security on all electronic voting systems. Those measures are just a start, but should be a minimum standard achievable by the 2022 mid-term elections.

While the mainstream news media continues to shout down anyone raising even the slightest penumbral emanations of possible 2020 election irregularities, and social media giants suspend, and even erase, people for similar “violations of community standards” (whatever that means) — a Supreme Court justice and a Michigan Secretary of State have issued written opinions that refute what every sensible MSNBC viewer desperately wants to believe is true.

State Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray ruled that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s guidance to Michigan clerks in early October was invalid. Benson instructed the clerks to presume the accuracy of absentee ballot signatures. Benson did not go through the proper rule-making process when issuing the guidance. Murray has ruled Benson’s actions unlawful, stating that Benson’s orders went, “beyond the realm of mere advice and direction, and instead is a substantive directive that adds to the pertinent signature-matching standards.”

That is precisely how elections are stolen.

Biden Unhinged: Calls Attempts To Stop Election Fraud ‘Un-American’

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/03/26/biden-unhinged-calls-state-election-integrity-bills-un-american/

‘Un-American.” “Sick.” “Despicable.”

What got President Joe Biden in such a lather? Was it the children packed liked sardines at border detention facilities? The recent mass shootings? China’s human rights abuses?

Nope. Biden flew off the handle over the fact that several states are taking steps to reform their election laws in ways he doesn’t like.

“What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It’s sick,” he said. “It’s sick … deciding in some states that you can’t bring water to people standing in line waiting to vote. Deciding you’re going to end voting at five o’clock when working people are just getting off work. Deciding that there will be no absentee ballots under the most rigid circumstances.”

“The Republican voters I know find this despicable,” he added later. “Republican voters.”

He wasn’t done. “I’m convinced that we’ll be able to stop this because it is the most pernicious thing. This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle. This is gigantic, what they’re trying to do.”

So what is it that states are trying to do? First, it’s worth clearing up a few things Biden rattled off.

There is a debate in Georgia about a provision regarding bringing voters food and water while they are waiting to vote. Is that un-American? Not when you consider that such “services” could amount to illegal canvassing. But maybe Biden thinks those restrictions are un-American, too.

How Pence Avoided Counting Alternate Electors: Diana West

https://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/4215/How-Benedict-Pence-Avoid

From the Twitter account of Politico’s Congress reporter, Kyle Cheney, January 7, 2021:

It’s 2:55 a.m. and I just figured out how Pence massaged the rules of the Electoral College counting session to avoid introducing the “rival” slates of Trump electors.

These are the instructions VPs have given out at the start in each of the last 5. Note the difference?

Cheney’s tweet included the following screenshot:    see at site

Cheney follows up in more tweets: 

TLDR: The law specifies that the VP must introduce all “purported” electoral votes. This year, that might’ve included the unserious/mock Trump electors.

But Pence worked with the parliamentarian to interpret it so only electors backed by a state “authority” would be introduced.

Let’s pause here, both to expand upon this stupendous news (Cheney’s snarky editorializing aside) and let it sink in because I am sure this will be brand new to most readers.

Sidney Powell Shreds Fake News Again Diana West

https://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/4216/Sidney-Powell-Shreds-Fake-News-Again.aspx

True story. Yesterday, as stories disparaging Sidney Powell’s motion to dismiss Dominion’s $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit began mounting up, all of them seizing on a few words from her lawyers’ brief to the  point that “no reasonable person” would conclude that her publicly discussed findings against Dominion were “statements of fact,” I knew something was wrong with this narrative, obviously. The idea that Sidney Powell would put forward a Dumb Blonde argument to discredit herself in defense of herself was and is ludicrous.

I wasted a few minutes yesterday looking for a piece of journalism that colored outside these crudely drawn party lines and found not a one. Not a one! No surprise but the absence of basic expository journalism clarifies one of the crises we face as a post-democratic society. There is no functioning Fourth Estate, there are only propaganda organs of the regime.

I read most of the 90-page brief myself, which is here, and got my own news. No, Sidney Powell did not say she was just making stuff up. Mouthpiece Media spatchcocked a couple of phrases together and lied about them. 

By the way, as Lin Wood pointed out on his Telegram account, “Dominion’s lawyer, Tom Clare, also represents Bill Gates. Just sayin’.”

See below for responses to the false regime narrative from Sidney Powell and her lawyer, via Powell’s websites sidneypowell.com and Kraken-Wood.

Democrats Give Their Iowa Game Away Their lawyer says the House should ignore state law to steal a House seat.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-give-their-iowa-game-away-11616538412?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

“Democrats are using every legal trick in an effort to claw back a House seat. But in the process they may finally awaken Republicans from their political slumber to see what is happening in Iowa. This is a power grab, pure and simple, and Republicans should be shouting about it to everyone in Iowa and beyond.”

Now here’s some lawyering that may turn out to be too clever by half.

Democratic litigator Marc Elias on Monday submitted his latest brief on behalf of defeated congressional candidate Rita Hart. He wants the House of Representatives to overturn the election in Iowa’s 2nd district, which Ms. Hart lost by six votes to GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks. But rather than asserting that if state election law is strictly followed his client would win, Mr. Elias tells House Democrats that they may need to bend the law to reach their desired outcome.

His brief responds to questions from the Committee on House Administration. In the first response, on procedures the committee should use in adjudicating the election challenge, Mr. Elias says “the Committee ‘is certainly not bound to’ follow state law.” The quote is from a 1985 case when the House overturned an Indiana election to seat the Democrat.

That sentence wasn’t a slip. Mr. Elias adds that “when voter intent can be determined but a ballot is not, for one reason or another, in strict conformity with state law,” it should be counted. He urges the Committee to “exercise its discretion to depart from Iowa law, and adopt counting rules that ‘disenfranchise the smallest possible number of voters.’”

A Warning to Pelosi on Iowa Can she hold her caucus together to overturn a House election?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-warning-to-pelosi-on-iowa-11616453810?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The eight-seat House Democratic majority has been remarkably disciplined so far in 2021, passing radical legislation on elections and unions with few defections. But the limits of loyalty to Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be tested as the party moves to overturn an Iowa House race and expel from Congress the certified winner.

GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks was certified the winner of Iowa’s 2nd district last year, prevailing by 47 votes in the first count and six votes after a county-by-county recount. The losing candidate, Democrat Rita Hart, points to 22 votes she says should have been counted and asked the House to seat her under the Federal Contested Elections Act—bypassing Iowa’s special court process for election disputes.

At a House Administration hearing this month, where Democrats hold a 6-3 majority, Mrs. Pelosi’s Members were unanimous in tabling Rep. Miller-Meeks’s motion to dismiss the challenge. That’s the first step toward a recommendation to overturn the election.

But as the reality of Mrs. Pelosi’s Iowa bloody-mindedness sets in, vulnerable Members are facing questions. On Monday Politico listed four Democratic Congressmen who have spoken publicly against reversing Iowa’s election in the last week. Another said anonymously that expelling Ms. Miller-Meeks would be “political malpractice. While we would gain one seat, we would lose a lot more next year.”

Ask Republicans, who suffered in the Georgia Senate races from trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In 1938, the last time the House kicked out a sitting Member over election disputes, New Hampshire voters seated him again in the next election. Democrats’ 1985 reversal of an Indiana election succeeded in the short term but invigorated Newt Gingrich’s rise to GOP leader.

Few politicians think about long-term institutional interests anymore, but let’s hope there are enough worried about political blowback to stop Mrs. Pelosi from a power play that would deepen the rancor on Capitol Hill.

Months after Trump complaints, some courts are finding irregularities in 2020 elections Michigan, Wisconsin and Virginia court actions show some absentee ballot procedures imposed by Democrats violated state laws.By John Solomon

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/thumonths-after-trump-complaints-some-courts-are-finding-illegalities

Long after former President Donald Trump dropped his legal challenges to the 2020 election, some courts in battleground states are beginning to declare the way widespread absentee ballots were implemented or counted violated state laws.

The latest ruling came this month in Michigan, where the State Court of Claims concluded that Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s instructions on signature verification for absentee ballots violated state law.

Benson had instructed local election clerks a month before the Nov. 3 election to start with a “presumption” that all signatures on absentee ballots were valid and only reject those that had “multiple significant and obvious” inconsistencies. Republicans and one election clerk challenged her instructions in court.

Chief Court of Claims Judge Christopher M. Murray ruled March 9 that the state Legislature did not provide such guidance in its election laws, and therefore Benson needed to promulgate a formal rule – a timely process – before imposing such a requirement. Murray told election clerks they should disregard Benson’s instructions in future elections.

“An agency must utilize formal rule-making procedures when establishing policies that ‘do not merely interpret or explain the statute or rules from which the agency derives its authority,’ but rather ‘establish the substantive standards implementing the program,'” Murray ruled.

“The guidance issued by the Secretary of State on October 6, 2020, with respect to signature-matching standards was issued in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act,” he concluded.

Ohio sets November special election, leaving Pelosi with empty seat most of the year Democrats’ progressive-establishment split could affect race

https://www.rollcall.com/2021/03/18/ohio-sets-november-special-election-leaving-pelosi-with-empty-seat-most-of-the-year/

Ohio’s Secretary of State announced Thursday that the special election to replace former Rep. Marcia L. Fudge in the 11th District will take place on Nov. 2, leaving Speaker Nancy Pelosi with an empty seat for most of the year.

The November election is the latest for the five House seats that are vacant. Louisiana has a special election for two open seats on Saturday, while Texans will vote in May and New Mexicans in June. The decision of when to fill Fudge’s seat in a heavily Democratic district was up to Ohio’s Republican state officials, who said in a news release that they followed a similar process when then-Speaker John A. Boehner, a Republican, resigned in 2015. At the time, the GOP majority in the House was more than 30 seats.

But with the House narrowly divided — there are currently 219 Democrats and 211 Republicans — Pelosi has few votes to spare, and an empty seat that the party won with 80 percent of the vote in November could put pressure on more vulnerable members.