The election is over, folks. Joe Biden won. The process of certifying the election and formally electing him isn’t over yet, but those are just formalities, and the result is inevitable: Biden will be our next president.
If anyone reading this doesn’t want to accept this, that’s their privilege; it’s still a free country, and they can believe anything they like. They have a constitutional right to believe false conspiracy theories about the election, too.
But that doesn’t mean they’re entitled to get their way, despite the voters having chosen Joe Biden. Nor does believing something make it true.
Still hoping against hope Trump might pull off a win? If you live on the same planet I do, you should keep in mind that recounts aren’t affected by people’s beliefs, only actual votes, and courts decided election contests based on evidence, not people’s beliefs. In short, conspiracy theories don’t count for anything except armchair entertainment and coffee shop kibitzing.
Let’s pick apart the top 5 election-related conspiracy theories that have gone viral (read source story here):
1. Dead people voted in Michigan
The allegation: Biden won Michigan with the votes of dead people.
What’s illogical: Biden leads in Michigan by more than 154,000 votes, so it would take a massive number of fraudulent votes to “steal” this state’s electoral votes from Trump.
The truth: There is no evidence that dead people voted in Michigan. The truth is complicated, but innocent: The conspiracy theory is rooted partly in the fact that some election officials told some voters without birth dates in their online voter registration records to enter dummy birth dates (e.g., “1900”). This isn’t illegal, and doesn’t invalidate those votes. In other cases, the suspicions are based on different people having similar names. For example, conspiracy theorists claim a “118-year-old man” voted, but the house once owned by William Bradley Sr. (1902-1984) is now occuped by his son, William Bradley Jr., who is very much alive (read that story here).
2. Trump votes were changed to Biden votes in Michigan because of a computer glitch
The allegation: Biden won Michigan because of a computer glitch that changed Trump votes to Biden votes.
What’s illogical: Assumes that if such a glitch did occur, it wouldn’t be caught and corrected; assumes the glitch was caused by defective software; assumes that a glitch which occurred in one county also occurred in all 47 other counties, despite the extreme improbability of this happening if the problem was caused by human error instead of defective software.
The truth: A reporting glitch (not a glitch that changed votes) did occur in one county, but it was caught and corrected, and did not affect the final reported results. Michigan’s secretary of state told BBC, “There was a problem in one county where votes were initially incorrectly reported for Mr Biden, which was quickly identified and corrected.” BBC says, “She added the initial mistake was a human error, not a software error. Viral posts currently circulating claim there could be the same issue in 47 other counties in Michigan where the same software is used [but] Mrs. Benson said: ‘There is no evidence this user error occurred elsewhere in the state.'”
3. Election workers in Arizona gave voters Sharpie pens so their votes wouldn’t count.
The allegation: Election workers schemed to invalidate Republican votes by distributing Sharpie pens that counting machines can’t read.
What’s illogical: Assumes election workers are dishonest; assumes election workers are Biden supporters; assumes election workers know who voters will vote for; assumes counting machines can’t read marker pen ink.
The truth: Counting machines can read Sharpie ink.
4. Biden’s Michigan vote total was inflated by 130,000 phantom votes.
The allegation: Biden’s Michigan vote total was padded by 130,000 nonexistent votes.
What’s illogical: Overlooks the possibility of a data error; assumes the error is in official election returns; assumes these votes were counted.
The truth: A private website tracking the election returns briefly inflated their Biden total by 130,000 because of a typo in their data entry.
5. More votes were cast in Wisconsin than the state has registered voters.
The allegation: 3,239,920 people voted in Wisconsin, but the state has only 3,129,000 registered voters.
What’s illogical: Assumes these numbers are accurate.
The truth: As of Nov. 1, 2020, Wisconsin had 3,684,726 registered voters, according to BBC, and as of Nov. 10, 2020, the total votes cast for Biden and Trump is 3,240,600, according to USA Today.
The election in the state of Washington that Governor Gregoire was over before the recounts? If o our Governor should have been the other candidate, the Republican that had more votes on election day. There was first a recount that he won and then a hand recount that he lost. This took some tie to happen. So Gregoire should have given up ad not put the states citizens through all that.
There are some peculiar things in some of the results, and at least in Pennsylvania some questionable events, and Philadelphia is not the home of election angels who would never steal an election.
The problem for Trump is he has to prevail in at least two states, and that is a tall order. There is also the possibility of running out the clock in doing challenges or recounts. That was really the onus in the Gore Supreme Court decision. If a states Secretary of state cannot certify the election, and no slate of electors is picked, and the state legislature does nothing what happens? I suspect no electoral college votes are cast for that state. Or are challenges when the votes are counted at the joint session of Congress.
Your points of 2, 4 and 5 will be of interest to political scientists for ears to come. There are issues with computer software, high turnout, and certainly if there are more votes than registered voters in districts or states.
So ye Biden is the likely winner, but this is politics and there is something worth stealing on the line presumably, why not assume humans will act accordingly?
Go ahead and assume the Democrats stole Pennsylvania for Biden if you like. This is America, and you have a constitutional right to believe utter nonsense. I’ll even let you post it here. The 2004 Washington governor’s race involving Gregoire is not comparable. She won the final recount by 129 votes (increased to 133 votes by the GOP’s election contest lawsuit). Biden leads in Pennsylvania by 48,247 votes as of today. That’s nowhere near being within recount range; a recount could be expected to change that number by a few hundred votes, and could go in favor of either candidate. Let ’em litigate all they want to, but lawsuits won’t get them anywhere without proof. Pennsylvania will certify its results by the deadline, and so will all the other states. Give it up; it’s clear that Trump lost. Would you bet money that Biden won’t be sworn in on Jan. 20? I sure wouldn’t.
You are missing my point. While winning recounts is the usual strategy of a candidate challenging the official results and no state has as of yet certified their results. And we are not at a point any candidate can demand a recount. Trumps strategy does not have to be to get those electoral votes, but to prevent them from being cast at all. Corvid and just the sheer number of votes is clearly going to make it challenging for any state to do a hand recount in time for certification by December 14th when the electoral college meets. If he can get the US Supreme Court to toss Pennsylvania’s election due to it being conducted in an unconstitutional manner he may just need one other state. If he can prevent two or three states from casting their electoral votes, Biden fails to get 270 and the election goes to the House where Trump wins. Just for Giggles it could be possible for Harris to win in the Senate as VP. Now wouldn’t that be fun?
There is also to dreaded situation where one of the Presidential candidates die between now and Inauguration day. It actually has happened once with the losing Vice President candidate dying, it did create some chaos in the electoral college, but I can’t say the outcome set any kind of precedent, or sheds light on any solution to the nightmare scenario.
I rather doubt you will want to put your thousand dollars up to my thousand as you should see the strategy is a viable one for Trump. He wins by not losing, whereas Biden must win the Electoral College vote.
We’ll know on January 20 whether you’re right, won’t we? Let’s revisit this question then.