Epistle to the Right
By: Bill Reed
Tags: Conspiracy Theories, Voting, Politics

Fifth Letter

Regarding the Texas Attorney General’s effort to negate the presidential voting in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin or about 21 million votes, 17 other states and over 100 republican members of the House have joined the suit. It is ironic to note that Texas and 9 of the other states permitted Mail-in, early in-person as well as in-person election day voting while 8 others only permitted mail-in and in-person election day voting.

That puts me at a loss as to see how all 18 states’ processes for mail-in, early in-person, and in-person election day voting are any different than the 4 states in question, except for the fact that Biden has been certified to have won. 2 of the challenged states used mail-in, early in-person and in-person election day voting just like 10 of the plaintiff states while the other 2 assailed states used mail-in and in-person election day voting just like 8 of the plaintiff states.

It is curious to me that I cannot find a portion of the Constitution where one state has standing to challenge any other state’s state election laws, especially when they are voting in such similar ways.

Facts according to the numbers are important.

At this writing, 158,388,355 votes have been cast. It’s a record! There were 101,128,415 (63.9%) cast early through mail-in and early in-person voting and 57,258,940 (36.1%) cast in-person on election day.

There were blocks of votes from 50 states and the District of Columbia. Regardless of blocks, 57,258,940 votes (36.1% of the total count) were cast in-person on election day as in all previous presidential elections of at least the last 50 years. These would have been the primary source of election night results.

Regarding pre-election voting, legal, in accordance with respective state laws, of the 51 blocks:

The first 17 blocks of early, legitimate votes permitted processing and tabulation of mail-in and early in-person voting before election day for a total of 36,955,453 votes or 23.3% of the total count. It is likely that these votes would have been available for election night reporting.

At best, only 59.4% of the total vote would have been available for reporting election night. The call to “stop the vote” the day after election would have clearly favored republican candidates as republicans sort of made it a test of party loyalty to vote on election day, in-person. It should not be surprising that classic, election night returns would likely favor republican candidates and did. Without understanding the whole process, it was a false positive result. As democrats pushed responsible avoidance of crowds due to COVID19, early and especially mail-in votes would likely favor democratic candidates.

The second 17 blocks of early, legitimate votes permitted processing and tabulation of mail-in and early in-person voting early on election day, 8 AM-ish in their respective time zones. This accounted for 33,108,011 votes or 20.9% of the total count. It is unlikely that these votes would have been available for election night returns. They would have been the first post-election night numbers to influence the totals and outcomes. They did.

The final 17 blocks of early, legitimate votes required the polls to be closed before mail-in and early in-person voting could be processed and tabulated. These accounted for 30,644,133 votes or 19.4% of the total count. As processing and tabulating these votes could not begin until after poll closed, these numbers would become available when scans and tabulations were completed in the ensuing week.

In latter two blocks’ processes, several things had to happen. First, legitimate ballots had to be stored and guarded until they could be processed and tabulated. Second, secure storage of mail-in and early in-person ballots and scanning facilities were often different. It is likely that vehicles carrying proper and legally stored ballots to scanning facilities happened. The operation required a level of security not unlike Brinks trucks distributing or picking up cash deposits from banks. Personally, I would have stored the ballots in the facility that was to count them but please remember, all in, that’s over 101 million packages. Conservatively, they represent 12.7 million pounds of ballots. That 6,320 tons, yes tons of ballots. That’s equivalent to about 1,600 large SUVs.

The conspiracy theories on this subject are easy to create and easier to pass on when there is not a single, critical thought. For the 4 states being assailed, that’s 157 tons of ballots from nearly 21 million voters. In Georgia’s case, that’s nearly 5 million or 33 tons of ballots that have been counted, hand counted, and recounted. That’s nearly 100 tons of handling in order to count.

Now, if you can come up with the infrastructure that can manipulate the presidential vote on such a scale without invalidating the down-ballot voting for other republican candidates, I’ll examine it. If confirmed, I will stand in awe. However, I have never encountered that kind of organization, one that demonstrated that kind of precision in anything in which there are more than 158 million source documents.

Oh, this epistle isn’t for all of those who already understand. It’s for everyone else.