Lindsey Graham: vote tampering???

New York Intelligencer wrote:Lindsey Graham Pressured Georgia Secretary of State to Toss Legal Ballots
By Chas Danner
November 17, 2020

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham and other Republicans have reportedly pressured Georgia secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to toss out legal ballots as part of their increasingly desperate efforts to contest Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the presidential election. Part of those efforts include baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud in Georgia, aimed at challenging the outcome in the sudden battleground state where Biden narrowly defeated Trump. (A hand recount is currently underway, but other than uncovering a few thousand unreported votes, the recount has gone smoothly and is not expected to change the outcome.)

The president and his allies, including Doug Collins, the Georgia representative leading Trump’s challenge on the integrity of the results in the state, have publicly attacked Raffensperger over his handling of the election. Collins has accused Raffensperger of caving to Democrats, while Trump has called Georgia’s recount “a scam” that “means nothing.” In an interview with the Washington Post, Raffensperger said that he and his family have received death threats as a result of the rhetoric, and detailed the Trump team’s attempts to pressure him into supporting their claims of voter fraud. Those allegations include a bizarre and baseless conspiracy theory involving Dominion Voting Systems, the manufacturer of the voting machines Georgia uses, as well as the validity of mail-in absentee ballots. But Raffensperger made it clear to the Post that no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud has been uncovered, and he has defended the state’s handling of the election.

Senator Graham has also gotten directly involved, calling Raffensperger last Friday. Per the Post’s report:

Graham questioned Raffensperger about the state’s signature-matching law and whether political bias could have prompted poll workers to accept ballots with nonmatching signatures, according to Raffensperger. Graham also asked whether Raffensperger had the power to toss all mail ballots in counties found to have higher rates of nonmatching signatures, Raffensperger said.

Raffensperger said he was stunned that Graham appeared to suggest that he find a way to toss legally cast ballots. Absent court intervention, Raffensperger doesn’t have the power to do what Graham suggested, as counties administer elections in Georgia.

“It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” Raffensperger said.

Raffensperger later told CNN, “It was just an implication of, ‘Look hard and see how many ballots you could throw out.’” The Wall Street Journal, which also talked to Raffensperger about the call, adds:

“He just took it in a direction that I didn’t expect it to go,” Mr. Raffensperger told the [Journal. He] said that when he was contacted by Mr. Graham Friday, he thought the senator was calling about the state’s two senate races. After an initial conversation, Mr. Graham called back again and brought up the idea of invalidating absentee ballots from counties with higher rates of signature errors, Mr. Raffensperger said, adding that he had staffers with him on that call. [Raffensperger] and his staffers agreed not to act on any of Mr. Graham’s suggestions, he said. “We have laws in place,” he said.

On Tuesday, CNN talked to one of those staffers, who indeed corroborated that he had heard Graham ask if they could throw out ballots:

In response to a question from CNN about the incident, [election implementation manager Gabriel Sterling] said on Tuesday, “What I heard was basically discussions about absentee ballots and if a potentially … if there was a percentage of signatures that weren’t really, truly matching, is there some point we could get to, we could say somebody went to a courtroom could say well, let’s throw (out) all these ballots because we have no way of knowing because the ballots are separated” …

Graham’s comments “might have gone a little to the edge of” what people deem acceptable, Sterling said, but added that he understands why Raffensperger and Graham might have interpreted the conversation differently.

The South Carolina senator has denied that he was implying Raffensperger toss any votes, telling reporters on Monday night that the claim was “ridiculous” and insisting he was merely investigating the state’s methods for verifying signatures and protecting the integrity of mail-in voting (a method of voting that President Trump has been attacking for months). On Tuesday morning, Graham told reporters he had also spoken to secretaries of State of Nevada and Arizona regarding the integrity of the election, in what was likely an attempt to make his call to Raffensperger seem less egregious. But both the Arizona secretary of State and the Nevada secretary of State then denied that Graham spoke to them. Graham later clarified that he “can’t remember” whom he spoke to in Nevada, and that he did not speak with Arizona’s secretary of State, but its governor, Doug Ducey.

Graham told reporters on Monday that he thought he’d had a good conversation with Raffensperger, and that if the secretary of State “feels threatened by that conversation, he’s got a problem.” Of course, Raffensperger already has a problem — he’s being publicly attacked by the president and his allies. He is also facing a federal lawsuit that the Trump team filed the same day Graham called. That legal effort — which appears to be little more than a voter-fraud goose chase — challenges how the state checks signatures on mail-in ballots and allows voters to fix them if they contain errors, and seeks to prevent certification of the election outcome in the state until all mail-in ballot envelopes are inspected and matched to ballots. Raffensperger says that could violate voters’ right to secrecy, and he has vigorously defended the state’s already strict signature-matching process.

There is little reason to believe that Trump’s legal efforts in Georgia will be any more successful than they have been anywhere else. The Trump team’s postelection lawsuits haven’t just failed to gain any traction in the courts, some have been abandoned before they even got that far.

Meanwhile, Trump and his allies’ attacks on Georgia’s voting machines could damage the prospects of the two Republican Senate candidates facing January runoffs in the state. Voters in those elections, which will determine the balance of power in the Senate, will be using the same voting machines. Explained Raffensperger: “I don’t think it’s helpful when you create doubt in the election process. People might throw up their arms and say, ‘Why vote?’”

The Post also reported Monday that there is additional concern in Georgia, and among some Republicans nationally, that Trump’s sore-loser act could prove to be a distraction and political liability ahead of those runoffs. By the current count, Biden only won the state by about 14,000 votes, which means reassembling and/or building on the turnout for Trump in January will be critical. The presidential race is over, regardless of whether or not Trump and his die-hard supporters will ever accept that, and Republicans need voters to be focused on the two statewide races that aren’t.

This post has been updated with additional reporting regarding Graham’s call with Raffensperger and his comments after the fact.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/lindsey-graham-pressured-georgia-to-toss-legal-ballots.html

Ben Reilly wrote:Update: Trump gained votes in the recount, but Biden still won Georgia.

Original Quill wrote:There has been no voter fraud brought to light.  There are a few might be's and could be's, but even those will take years to get to trial and prove the crime.  Until then...we have only accusations, nothing more.

But the remedy that Trump is seeking is not trial, but invalidation of huge quantities of votes.  Biden received the largest count for a presidential election in the history of America: in excess of 7-million votes over Trump.  That would be a lot of invalidation.  To admit that there is that much fraud in the US is to admit that America is a failure.  Putin, Trump's close friend, would be proud.

Curious that Republicans are proceeding in regions of high black density.  They are concentrated on Michigan, and Wayne County (Detroit) in particular.  Going back, they have never really accepted the right of blacks to vote.  It's a good place to start, they reckon, as there is something offensive about denying the white person a vote.

It's safe to say that Republicans are waging a war against democracy.  They didn't like it when the people preferred Obama/Biden; they don't like it now, when the people prefer Biden/Harris.  It seems that Republicans want to proceed as a Caucasian autocracy...or, call what it is, a white dictatorship.

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:There has been no voter fraud brought to light.  There are a few might be's and could be's, but even those will take years to get to trial and prove the crime.  Until then...we have only accusations, nothing more.

But the remedy that Trump is seeking is not trial, but invalidation of huge quantities of votes.  Biden received the largest count for a presidential election in the history of America: in excess of 7-million votes over Trump.  That would be a lot of invalidation.  To admit that there is that much fraud in the US is to admit that America is a failure.  Putin, Trump's close friend, would be proud.

Curious that Republicans are proceeding in regions of high black density.  They are concentrated on Michigan, and Wayne County (Detroit) in particular.  Going back, they have never really accepted the right of blacks to vote.  It's a good place to start, they reckon, as there is something offensive about denying the white person a vote.

It's safe to say that Republicans are waging a war against democracy.  They didn't like it when the people preferred Obama/Biden; they don't like it now, when the people prefer Biden/Harris.  It seems that Republicans want to proceed as a Caucasian autocracy...or, call what it is, a white dictatorship.

So let's do random recounts and audits to keep everyone honest.  

We dont know the story behind those 2000 ballots yet, only that they were illegal ballots.

The system is working and it will show that Biden was the clear winner in every state that he won.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

So let's do random recounts and audits to keep everyone honest.  

We dont know the story behind those 2000 ballots yet, only that they were illegal ballots.

The system is working and it will show that Biden was the clear winner in every state that he won.

Abstractly, I have no objection to random audits.  Except, what guarantees their authenticity?  How do we know that such audits won't be rigged as well, as corrupt processors take charge of the audit process?  Someone has to start the audit; how do we know that they are to be trusted?

Corruption in political processes is nothing new.  State legislatures have, for centuries, written Jim Crow laws to prevent blacks from voting.  The Republican Senate is sabotaging the functioning of constitutional government today.  Even if we depend on the hallowed Supreme Court, I think that most citizens believe that Bush v. Gore was a rigged decision, as Republicans sided with Republicans, and then had the audacity to announce that it creates no legal precedent.  (No surprise there...God forbid the Democrats tried to pull the same trick.)

We are right now seeing voter suppression rolled up into lawsuits alleging voter fraud.  (Notice the challenges are only happening in predominately black districts?)  That is, Trump is actually trying to use the very legal processes that are supposed to guarantee fairness and equity, to deprive certain voters of their rights.  His very arguments sow distrust of the election process (which Putin loves).

It's an infinite regress.  Wouldn’t it be better if we trusted the first tier of elections, and devoted our energy to building fairness, as well as public trust in the preliminary process itself?

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Abstractly, I have no objection to random audits.  Except, what guarantees their authenticity?  How do we know that such audits won't be rigged as well, as corrupt processors take charge of the audit process?  Someone has to start the audit; how do we know that they are to be trusted?

Corruption in political processes is nothing new.  State legislatures have, for centuries, written Jim Crow laws to prevent blacks from voting.  The Republican Senate is sabotaging the functioning of constitutional government today.  Even if we depend on the hallowed Supreme Court, I think that most citizens believe that Bush v. Gore was a rigged decision, as Republicans sided with Republicans, and then had the audacity to announce that it creates no legal precedent.  (No surprise there...God forbid the Democrats tried to pull the same trick.)

We are right now seeing voter suppression rolled up into lawsuits alleging voter fraud.  (Notice the challenges are only happening in predominately black districts?)  That is, Trump is actually trying to use the very legal processes that are supposed to guarantee fairness and equity, to deprive certain voters of their rights.  His very arguments sow distrust of the election process (which Putin loves).

It's an infinite regress.  Wouldn’t it be better if we trusted the first tier of elections, and devoted our energy to building fairness, as well as public trust in the preliminary process itself?

You have an odd way of showing it.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

You have an odd way of showing it.

Well, it's like freedom of speech...I reckon that the truth will come out in the marketplace of ideas.

But there are cult followers who will follow Trump to the grave.  We may have to have another Civil War, in which they all get killed.  Or, they will go away silently, realizing the error of their ways.

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Well, it's like freedom of speech...I reckon that the truth will come out in the marketplace of ideas.

But there are cult followers who will follow Trump to the grave.  We may have to have another Civil War, in which they all get killed.  Or, they will go away silently, realizing the error of their ways.

I'm not worried about Trump supporters. I wonder why you are so non chalant about every case of voter fraud presented to you.  

You're about as useless as a Trump supporter. It's about your team winning, no matter what.  

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

I'm not worried about Trump supporters. I wonder why you are so non chalant about every case of voter fraud presented to you.  

You're about as useless as a Trump supporter. It's about your team winning, no matter what.  

Well, the evidence is simply not there.  To quote what I said on the other thread:

Original Quill wrote:The United States Department of Justice has determined that in studies of the 2002 and 2004 federal elections, cases of election fraud occurred in only 0.00000013 percent of ballots cast.  See, Brennan Center, NYU School of Law, “Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth” (citation below).  Indeed, A study published by a Columbia University political scientist tracked incidence rates for voter fraud for two years, and found that the rare fraud that was reported generally could be traced to “false claims by the loser of a close race, mischief and administrative or voter error.”

Original Quill wrote:

https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legal-work/Briefing_Memo_Debunking_Voter_Fraud_Myth.pdf

Nor does the evidence support personal malice on my part.  It's not a matter of whose ox gets gored, when there is hard evidence that election fraud is so negligible.  The one or two cases that a serious digger might find, are not worth our time on here.  You cannot generalize from specifics, and specific incidents are all there is to it.

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Well, the evidence is simply not there.  To quote what I said on the other thread:






Nor does the evidence support personal malice on my part.  It's not a matter of whose ox gets gored, when there is hard evidence that election fraud is so negligible.  The one or two cases that a serious digger might find, are not worth our time on here.  You cannot generalize from specifics, and specific incidents are all there is to it.

Do the cases that actually happen matter?

Yes or no will suffice.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

Do the cases that actually happen matter?

Yes or no will suffice.

I'll leave that to the district attorney at the relevant jurisdiction.  They are shaky cases, at best.

It's only when you find cases in abundant numbers, that you see a pattern.  Once you see a pattern, there is reasonable suspicion to believe they are more than oversight or mistake.  Otherwise, it's not worth a jury's time.

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

I'll leave that to the district attorney at the relevant jurisdiction.  They are shaky cases, at best.

It's only when you find cases in abundant numbers, that you see a pattern.  Once you see a pattern, there is reasonable suspicion to believe they are more than oversight or mistake.  Otherwise, it's not worth a jury's time.

So only abundant cases matter.  

I see.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

So only abundant cases matter.  

I see.

Yes...I'm glad you finally see.  You have to have enough vote tampering to show a pattern; otherwise it's random.  Also, numbers are required to tip the scales.  There is nothing to be gained by the single voter altering one or two votes.  There's no incentive.

With no incentive, it's either a misunderstanding or a clerical error.  I mean...who robs and empty bank??

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Yes...I'm glad you finally see.  You have to have enough vote tampering to show a pattern; otherwise it's random.  Also, numbers are required to tip the scales.  There is nothing to be gained by the single voter altering one or two votes.  There's no incentive.

With no incentive, it's either a misunderstanding or a clerical error.  I mean...who robs and empty bank??

I guess the people in the two above cases do.  

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

I guess the people in the two above cases do.  

Yes, vote harvesting yields numbers...which shows a pattern.  That is the point of vote tampering.  But notice, in each case, the grifters were working in furtherance of Republican interests: one a rent control issue, and the other for financial concerns.

Republicans are the minority party in the US, needing to make up large numbers of votes, and they also have the money to pay the grifters.  Blacks and Hispanics don't have the money.  Most people arrested for these crimes are motivated by conservative enterprises.

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Yes, vote harvesting yields numbers...which shows a pattern.  That is the point of vote tampering.  But notice, in each case, the grifters were working in furtherance of Republican interests: one a rent control issue, and the other for financial concerns.

Republicans are the minority party in the US, needing to make up large numbers of votes, and they also have the money to pay the grifters.  Blacks and Hispanics don't have the money.  Most people arrested for these crimes are motivated by conservative enterprises.

So do the above convictions matter?  

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

So do the above convictions matter?  

Certainly.  They are examples of more Republican attempts at voter fabrication.  The point is to win.  You can win by eliminating votes, or by overwhelming the system with false votes.  In order to do either of these things one must have numbers.

Frankly, I’m more concerned with what Trump is doing by invalidating the vote…and hence democracy, itself.  In the past voter suppression took the form of before-the-fact measures to keep blacks from voting.  Things like gerrymandering, Jim Crow laws in the south, property requirements, income requirements, education requirements, were all aimed at filtering black voters out of the system.

What Trump is doing is after-the-fact voter suppression, attempting to use the courts to invalidate black votes after they have been cast.  By now we are well aware of attempts to preclude or filter out black voters before-the-fact, by 160-years of southern Jim Crow laws.  Now that Trump has actually lost, he has no alternative but to apply filtration devices after-the-fact.  Think about it, though: with votes already cast, his only filtration device is the physical proximity of the voter.  He must eliminate black voters by way of the neighborhoods in which they live.  So, he is focusing on Counties, Cities and neighborhoods that have high black populations in order to suppress the black vote, which he knows is against him.  Same thing with Hispanic neighborhoods.

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Certainly.  They are examples of more Republican attempts at voter fabrication.  The point is to win.  You can win by eliminating votes, or by overwhelming the system with false votes.  In order to do either of these things one must have numbers.

Frankly, I’m more concerned with what Trump is doing by invalidating the vote…and hence democracy, itself.  In the past voter suppression took the form of before-the-fact measures to keep blacks from voting.  Things like gerrymandering, Jim Crow laws in the south, property requirements, income requirements, education requirements, were all aimed at filtering black voters out of the system.

What Trump is doing is after-the-fact voter suppression, attempting to use the courts to invalidate black votes after they have been cast.  By now we are well aware of attempts to preclude or filter out black voters before-the-fact, by 160-years of southern Jim Crow laws.  Now that Trump has actually lost, he has no alternative but to apply filtration devices after-the-fact.  Think about it, though: with votes already cast, his only filtration device is the physical proximity of the voter.  He must eliminate black voters by way of the neighborhoods in which they live.  So, he is focusing on Counties, Cities and neighborhoods that have high black populations in order to suppress the black vote, which he knows is against him.  Same thing with Hispanic neighborhoods.

You should have stopped at certainly.

That's where I stopped reading.  

Maddog wrote:Debating is not difficult.

Reading nonsense is.  I have little tolerance for it.  Sorry.  

Look on the bright side. Unlike most of the posters on here, I'll still converse with you.  

You don't try to debate.  In fact, I've never known you to face people who differ with you.  You confront them with anger and personal grievance.  It's your form of saying: STAY AWAY...I'M AFRAID!

You can try to make up the reasons for your avoidance...like: if I tell them it's “nonsense”, maybe they'll leave me with my pride.  You are hoping I will go away, or return the anger...which you prefer to actual rational thought.  (Fighting you understand; rational thought, no.)  But I'm not interested in you or your silly avoidance games.  I'm interested in pointing out the flaws in your arguments.  Dude...it's a debating website!

Haha...as far as "the posters on here"...there are no posters!     The LW posters are long gone, owing to power squelching voices.  The RW posters have learned to shut up...or, LOL, they’ll 'green' or 'red' certain posts, and silently slink away.  I'm reminded of that great line in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II: "And peep about, to find ... dishonorable graves."

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:Debating is not difficult.

Reading nonsense is.  I have little tolerance for it.  Sorry.  

Look on the bright side. Unlike most of the posters on here, I'll still converse with you.  

You don't try to debate.  In fact, I've never known you to face people who differ with you.  You confront them with anger and personal grievance.  It's your form of saying: STAY AWAY...I'M AFRAID!

You can try to make up the reasons for your avoidance...like: if I tell them it's “nonsense”, maybe they'll leave me with my pride.  You are hoping I will go away, or return the anger...which you prefer to actual rational thought.  (Fighting you understand; rational thought, no.)  But I'm not interested in you or your silly avoidance games.  I'm interested in pointing out the flaws in your arguments.  Dude...it's a debating website!

Haha...as far as "the posters on here"...there are no posters!     The LW posters are long gone, owing to power squelching voices.  The RW posters have learned to shut up...or, LOL, they’ll 'green' or 'red' certain posts, and silently slink away.  I'm reminded of that great line in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II: "And peep about, to find ... dishonorable graves."

Maddog wrote:I dont debate you.