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Blowing up Trump’s fraud claims in one easy step (spoiler: he relies on a single source)

Much of Trump’s (and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s) claims of “massive voting fraud” rest on the “work” of one person, Matt Braynard (photo),  a former Trump campaign employee.

Braynard, according to Mother Jones (see story here), “has produced analyses of the 2020 vote in swing states that claim massive amounts of illegal votes were cast.” Flouting those analyses, he’s been a frequent (and paid) witness in Rudy Giuliani’s lawsuits to overturn the election, which have produced no courtroom-quality evidence of voting fraud. Instead, many of those lawsuits have cited Braynard’s dubious work as “evidence” of voting fraud.

In fact, Mother Jones says, “Perhaps the closest thing to evidence they have to offer is the data analysis that Braynard has compiled.” So let’s take a look at how persuasive that is.

In general, Braynard testified in all these cases “that due to the lax controls on absentee voting in the November 3, 2020 election … results of that election include tens of thousands of individuals who were not eligible to vote or failed to record ballots from individuals that were. As a result, it is my opinion that the unofficial results should not be certified.”

The problems with this are (1) it’s based on speculative data-crunching (using flawed data), not actual voting records, and (2) it pretends the highly effective processes in place for validating and counting ballots don’t exist.

Even the number-crunching wasn’t done right; a real expert — a Harvard professor who specializes in studying voting data — blasted Braynard’s methodology and said there was “no scientific basis” for his conclusions.

Add the fact Braynard is a Trump partisan, not an impartial researcher, and you’ve also got a high probability he selected and manipulated data to fit a preconceived narrative. In other words, his “research” was designed and intended from the beginning to create a “case” of “voting fraud” where none occurred.

Another problem for Braynard is that not everyone is stupid, and outsmarting those who aren’t turned out to be above his pay grade. In other words, the Trump campaign didn’t get what it paid for in his witness fees. For example,

“Braynard sent a letter to the governor, attorney general, and secretary of state of Georgia, claiming he had uncovered 21,000 illegal ballots in the Peach State. He included a USB with what he described as ‘evidence.’ But two days later, when he testified at a Zoom hearing held by Republican Georgia state legislators—right before Giuliani would testify to the group—his conclusions and work were seriously undermined. He was even made to look foolish.”

How? Simply by scrutinizing his sloppy work, a Democratic legislator found a woman who Braynard claimed was registered to vote in both Georgia and Arizona was, in fact, two different women; that what Braynard claimed were post office boxes were, in fact, apartment numbers; and so on. Like so many Republican claims of double voting, dead people voting, illegal felon voting, etc., Braynard’s claims collapsed under examination. And manipulating statistics, using phone surveys, etc., to theorize how many people “should” have voted for a candidate is no substitute for counting actual ballots. To succeed in court, those contesting elections must prove actual cases of illegal voting or actual problems in ballot processing; speculative theories based on spinning statistics won’t fly.

And that, the Trump campaign can’t do, which is why they’re batting 1-for-55 (at last count) in the courts. The work of a Matt Braynard is good enough for rightwing media (where he’s widely cited), but not remotely good enough for the courts.

All of this is moot now, anyway, because the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the Texas lawsuit is the end of the road for Trump’s legal challenges. On Monday, two days from now, the electors vote, which will slam the door on legislative sedition. What’s left is a House uprising (there’ll probably be one), and a violent coup (I don’t think there’ll be one). The clock is ticking down on Trump’s reign; there are 5 weeks and 5 days to go. Expect him to do as much damage as he can on his way out.

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0 Comments Add Yours ↓

  1. Campaign employee magically transforms #
    1

    Magician trump turns campaign employee into an expert data analyst expert on voter fraud.

    No evidence to support former trump campaign loyalist Braynard’s fictious charts and analysis.

    Pulls numbers out of a magician hat after number crunching, again with no evidence to back up these untrue claims.

    Anyone (especially a trump loyalist with no shame for lying) can number crunch, create charts and try to bluff and con their way through testimony, but who would want to waste their time creating fiction and then lying about it and trying to convince others of what they are seeing is proof?

    Only another desperate trump loyalist. Party and loyalty above country.

    Quite a trick trump followers love this speculative but flawed data anything to prove they “win”.

    Can’t these trump cult followers just give it a rest and move on to something more positive to help unite our country?

  2. Roger Rabbit #
    2

    Doesn’t look like they can.