One person. One vote.

August 22, 2023 By: Nick Carraway Category: Uncategorized

I work with statistics on a daily basis. I look at all kinds of data for students. We look at standardized test scores, achievement scores, benchmark testing, Then, we look at data from diagnosticians, LSSPs, specialists, curriculum coaches, and occasional outside experts. Then, when I go home I pour through comprehensive baseball statistics and football statistics. Then, yesterday I was perusing X, Twitter, or whatever the hell it wants to be called today.

 

We have seen this the past three years in a number of different places. More people attended Trump’s rallies. More people have Trump merchandise. People are more enthusiastic Trump supporters than Biden supporters. Trump received more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. We see this kind of logic from sports fans. My team gained more yards than their team. My team had more hits and baserunners than their team. My team had a better shooting percentage than their team. These things may be true and often are. They prove nothing. It is the final score that matters. Certainly, secondary numbers can inform our strategy moving forward, but could you imagine Philadelphia Eagles fans suggesting they really won the Super Bowl because of some obscure stat they led in? It’s pure madness.

Historically, we saw an extreme version of the above. England used to use a system known as virtual representation. Voting districts didn’t change, so there were literally places where there were no people, yet those places had a representative. They were called rotten boroughs. This system even played a role in the coming revolution in the Americas. Ironically, we are getting close to that today. Harris county has nearly five million residents. Loving county in west Texas has 58 people as of 2023. In Brigette’s world they are the same. We’ve all seen electoral map where seemingly the entire country is painted red with the exception of the major cities. Land doesn’t vote. People vote. If you take away the red paint from the areas that don’t have people then we notice how much the map turns blue.

California has more than 38 million people as of 2023. Connecticut has 3.6 million people and ranks 29th in population. If you add together states 30 through 50 you wind up pretty close to the population of California. California has two senators. Those states get 40 combined. The two parties are very much divided along urban and rural lines. Smart sports teams utilize statistics as a way to improve their overall performance. If I’m good at shooting threes then I want to shoot more threes. If I am better at running the football then I want to run the football more. If my bullpen is better than my rotation then I want to maximize my bullpen. These teams don’t zero in on stats to prove they really won. The final score tells us who won. They use those stats to inform their strategy moving forward.

The GOP could use these numbers they are wielding to inform strategy, but instead they are suggesting they really won. Biden couldn’t have won. He didn’t hold big rallies. He didn’t sell a bunch of merch. Smaller counties went for Trump and the map is glowing red. The trouble is that none of these things really matter. Democrats and independents could honestly care less about merch and being more obnoxious than our opponent. We just voted in larger numbers for Joe Biden. It happens when the other candidate is a bloviating jackass.

The Bottomless Pit

October 26, 2021 By: Nick Carraway Category: Uncategorized

There are always moments that leave me speechless. As much as I am able to throw more than enough words on a page, I struggle to speak when someone does something so brazen that it defies explanation. The right makes up stuff all the time, so that really shouldn’t be a shock, but I still find a way to come away surprised at how low they are willing to go.

Nevada happens to be the place we are talking about today. A unassuming elementary teacher passed away in 2017, but was never removed from the voting rolls. That became a problem when she somehow cast a ballot in the 2020 election.

Fox News does what Fox News does. This seemingly isolated case became proof that the election was stolen. Now, we probably shouldn’t talk about the mental gymnastics necessary to take one case and somehow extrapolate widespread fraud out of it. Hyper-partisan hacks will certainly take logical leaps in the interest of a good story. Heck, they’ll even make conclusions without all of the evidence.

That’s not the part that gets me. The part that gets me is how they put on the husband to talk about how peculiar it was that his wife’s absentee ballot was submitted. He went on talking about how it proves there is fraud. He should know about that because he’s the one that submitted it. After all, he is seen looking dead into the camera expressing how dumbfounded he is that someone would do this.

I suppose we tell ourselves lies all the time. It’s all a part of the mental gymnastics it takes to get through the day. Sure, I’ve only had one cup of coffee. Sure, it wasn’t me that ate the last of the cookies. Sure, I’m going to work out today to work off some of these extra calories. We might even speak those lies out loud to our loved ones.

What we don’t do is go on television and offer bald-faced lies in the interest of a national narrative. The makers of South Park have always had ways of stripping down our malarkey and leaving us naked before the world. They poked fun at families that did this when some of them are probably guilty of murder. Those people blamed it on a random Puerto Rican guy. It’s the same concept. It’s not enough to say I didn’t do it. They had to actively point the finger at someone else.

One can hardly blame right wing blowhards for jumping on something before getting all the facts. Sure, their explanations defy logic, but we’ve done that before. Maybe we haven’t broadcasted those assumptions to the world, but most of us don’t have that opportunity. What’s unfathomable is being the guilty party and being brazen enough to go on camera and point the finger at someone else. I’d be doing good to find a bunker and stay put until everything blows over. I guess some people are more shameless liars than others.

Dan Patrick Finally Pays Out a Voter Fraud Bounty – We’re laughing

October 22, 2021 By: El Jefe Category: 2020 Election, The Big Lie

You recall when Dan Patrick, pandering to His Orangeness, offered $1 million in bounties to anyone reporting actual voter fraud.  Up until now, not a dime was paid, but now that’s changed.  Patrick’s campaign has paid out a $25,000 bounty to a Pennsylvania poll worker, and DEMOCRATIC poll worker, for reporting a man voting twice in the general election, once for himself, and again in a disguise for his son.  The poll worker, Eric Frank, denied the voter, 72 year old Trumpist named Ralph Thurman, who voted for himself and then asked to vote for his son.  Frank turned him away, but he returned later wearing sunglasses and voted again.  Frank reported it when he saw him and tried to confront the Thurman as he fled the building.  Thurman was charged and later pleaded guilty to felony voter fraud.  He got a slap on the wrist of 3 years probation and banned from voting for only 4 years instead of permanently.

Anyhoo, Patrick ponied up the $25k bounty for Frank catching Republican voter fraud, and I guess that’s something.

A Solution in Search of a Problem

March 29, 2021 By: El Jefe Category: Voter Suppression

Written by Nick Caraway – 
JJ ran her post last week on the legislative agenda for the new year and the HUGE issue that is voter fraud. I decided to do some data diving and decided to look up fraud cases in Texas the last ten years. I will include the two she referenced for 2020 and give you the other year tallies according to the Heritage Foundation.
2019– 1
2018– 8
2017– 6
2016– 2
2015– 9
2014–4
2013– 8
2012– 8
2011– 4
2010– 11
I could do the research, but let’s ballpark this. In presidential elections, between seven million and ten million Texans will cast ballots. So, in 2012, 2016, and 2020 we could put in a reasonable guess of 25 million total ballots. Let’s say that the off-year elections are at around 15 million between 2010, 2014, and 2018. That’s 40 million combined ballots and that doesn’t include the odd years when you have mayor elections, city council elections, and school board elections. Maybe that’s a total of 5 million votes cast. So, we will estimate a total of 45 million votes cast between 2010 and 2020. I might even be lowballing it there.
So, if we add the total cases of documented fraud we get a grand total of 63 cases since 2010. Using the trusty calculator on my phone, that ends up being .00014 percent of the ballots cast in the last ten years. Remember, I’m lowballing the number of ballots cast in that time.
Okay, the counterargument to that is that we didn’t catch everyone. Fine. Let’s assume we only caught ten percent of those that fraudulently voted. That means that fraud impacted .0014 percent of the vote. So, after all that we are going to prioritize making our elections safe and secure? Okay, gotcha.

We Found the Vote Fraudsters

March 09, 2021 By: El Jefe Category: Voter Suppression

Paxton made a big deal about this one, saying that the “left is gaslighting on voter fraud” pretending that it doesn’t exist.  The little detail he left out was that the arrests that were made last month included a Justice of the Peace of Medina County, Tomas Ramirez, a REPUBLICAN, along with 3 other suspects who had participated in a mail in vote harvesting scheme at managed care facilities.

They always accuse opponents for what they’re doing themselves.  BTW, am I the only one shocked that the Texas AG continues in his position FIVE YEARS after being indicted for felony securities fraud?

Former Colorado GOP State Chairman Guilty

December 10, 2017 By: El Jefe Category: 2016 Election

Steve Curtis, hate radio talker and former chair of the Colorado state GOP, regularly accuses Democrats of all kinds of malfeasance, including voter fraud.  Welp, this week, in a clear case of Karma is a Bitch, Curtis was convicted of…wait for it…voter fraud.  In 2016, ol’ Steve somehow thought it was a good idea to forge his ex-wife’s signature on a mail-in ballot and send it in.  Said ex-wife had moved to South Carolina and discovered the fraud when, upon requesting a mail in ballot for that state, was informed that she had already voted – in Colorado.

Steve’s defense?  He forged her name during a diabetic episode, and then accidentally mailed it in the next day.  The jury didn’t buy the story.  I wonder; why is it that the guys who scream the loudest about wrongdoing and voter fraud are generally the ones guilty of just that?