Voter Fraud Disproven. Again.
March 10, 2024 12:38 PM Subscribe
Ken Block, a data expert hired by the Trump campaign in 2020, writes that he shot down false claim after false claim in an election that was not stolen. Block's account, “Disproven,” will be released Tuesday, and Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (recipient, along with his family, of death threats in the months following the election) provided the foreword.
In his book, Block, a software engineer/fraud finder who ran for Governor of Rhode Island twice — as a Moderate in 2010 and as a Republican in 2014 — "reveals how, again and again in the months after the November 2020 election, he was tasked by Trump’s campaign with batting down implausible and inaccurate allegations that Joe Biden had won the election through fraud. [...] Block’s book provides an insider’s account of the desperate measures Trump’s campaign took to pursue allegations of voter fraud and of how quickly the campaign concluded internally that each one was invalid, even as the president continued to rile up his supporters by claiming the election was stolen." (Washington Post archived link, March 10, 2024)
Block, founder of Simpatico Software Systems, studied "more than a dozen complaints from the Trump campaign," analyzed over 21 million voter records, reviewed voter data from five swing states, examined voting patterns at Pennsylvania nursing homes, and compared voter registrations against the Social Security death index looking for possible instances of votes cast in the name of deceased people. "Ultimately, he was paid about $800,000 [which Block demanded, and received, upfront] for his work, which was not made public at the time because it did not help Trump, he said." BeforeSimpatico Software Systems was tapped by then-Trump campaign lawyer Alex Cannon (later known for refusing Trump's command, in 2022, to tell NARA that all records had been returned), the Berkeley Research Group tried proving voter fraud. (BRG charged the campaign more than $1 million for its analysis.) "When its work also did not prove fraud, it also was not made public, The Post reported."
Last year, Block complied with the subpoena issued by Special Counsel Jack Smith's office; several BRG employees were also subpoenaed and interviewed by federal prosecutors.
Previously, Block worked on the Trump White House commission examining potential fraud in federal elections, established via Executive Order on May 11, 2017. On January 2, 2018, Trump disbanded the "Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity;" it had become "mired in multiple federal lawsuits and faced resistance from states that accused it of overreach." That commission's goal was to prove Trump's claim that he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 because of millions of illegally cast ballots. The bipartisan panel, chaired by V.P. Pence, "proved a magnet for controversy from the outset and was sued by one of its members, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap (D), who alleged in November [2018] that he has been kept in the dark about its operations, rendering his participation 'essentially meaningless."" [Before that, on August 3, 2018, Secretary Dunlap released the first set of records he obtained from the commission, along with a preliminary report on his findings, determining that the commission had found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.]
When Trump announced the end of what he'd dubbed his "very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL," he added that Homeland Security would continue the work.
In recent years, state legislatures passed a near-record number of new restrictive voting laws.
Voting rights court cases, at the ACLU.
Inequality in Access to Voting: How Your State Has Changed since 2020.
2023's See which states are expanding — or restricting — voting rights.
In his book, Block, a software engineer/fraud finder who ran for Governor of Rhode Island twice — as a Moderate in 2010 and as a Republican in 2014 — "reveals how, again and again in the months after the November 2020 election, he was tasked by Trump’s campaign with batting down implausible and inaccurate allegations that Joe Biden had won the election through fraud. [...] Block’s book provides an insider’s account of the desperate measures Trump’s campaign took to pursue allegations of voter fraud and of how quickly the campaign concluded internally that each one was invalid, even as the president continued to rile up his supporters by claiming the election was stolen." (Washington Post archived link, March 10, 2024)
Block, founder of Simpatico Software Systems, studied "more than a dozen complaints from the Trump campaign," analyzed over 21 million voter records, reviewed voter data from five swing states, examined voting patterns at Pennsylvania nursing homes, and compared voter registrations against the Social Security death index looking for possible instances of votes cast in the name of deceased people. "Ultimately, he was paid about $800,000 [which Block demanded, and received, upfront] for his work, which was not made public at the time because it did not help Trump, he said." BeforeSimpatico Software Systems was tapped by then-Trump campaign lawyer Alex Cannon (later known for refusing Trump's command, in 2022, to tell NARA that all records had been returned), the Berkeley Research Group tried proving voter fraud. (BRG charged the campaign more than $1 million for its analysis.) "When its work also did not prove fraud, it also was not made public, The Post reported."
Last year, Block complied with the subpoena issued by Special Counsel Jack Smith's office; several BRG employees were also subpoenaed and interviewed by federal prosecutors.
Previously, Block worked on the Trump White House commission examining potential fraud in federal elections, established via Executive Order on May 11, 2017. On January 2, 2018, Trump disbanded the "Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity;" it had become "mired in multiple federal lawsuits and faced resistance from states that accused it of overreach." That commission's goal was to prove Trump's claim that he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 because of millions of illegally cast ballots. The bipartisan panel, chaired by V.P. Pence, "proved a magnet for controversy from the outset and was sued by one of its members, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap (D), who alleged in November [2018] that he has been kept in the dark about its operations, rendering his participation 'essentially meaningless."" [Before that, on August 3, 2018, Secretary Dunlap released the first set of records he obtained from the commission, along with a preliminary report on his findings, determining that the commission had found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.]
When Trump announced the end of what he'd dubbed his "very distinguished VOTER FRAUD PANEL," he added that Homeland Security would continue the work.
In recent years, state legislatures passed a near-record number of new restrictive voting laws.
Voting rights court cases, at the ACLU.
Inequality in Access to Voting: How Your State Has Changed since 2020.
2023's See which states are expanding — or restricting — voting rights.
TRUMP: But it really was stolen.
TRUMPOIDS: There, that PROVES that it was stolen!
MEDIA: Opinions vary.
posted by delfin at 12:58 PM on March 10 [19 favorites]
TRUMPOIDS: There, that PROVES that it was stolen!
MEDIA: Opinions vary.
posted by delfin at 12:58 PM on March 10 [19 favorites]
I laughed out loud at the part where he demanded payment in advance.
posted by bq at 12:58 PM on March 10 [30 favorites]
posted by bq at 12:58 PM on March 10 [30 favorites]
if Trump's ineffably malicious incompetence hadn't gotten ~500,000 of his idiot supporters killed in 2020 he might have scraped together enough states to again win (he only needed 43,735 votes across Az, Ga, Wi).
posted by torokunai at 1:16 PM on March 10 [15 favorites]
posted by torokunai at 1:16 PM on March 10 [15 favorites]
Gift link for anyone who wants responsive design or to pay journalists for their work: https://wapo.st/3uWzVdU
posted by adamsc at 1:19 PM on March 10 [7 favorites]
posted by adamsc at 1:19 PM on March 10 [7 favorites]
We were lucky they didn’t hire the same “scientists” who do the climate research for oil companies and tobacco health impact assessments for cigarette companies. Unfortunately the next time we probably won’t be that lucky.
posted by interogative mood at 1:29 PM on March 10 [2 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 1:29 PM on March 10 [2 favorites]
Well done post, Iris Gambol.
posted by doctornemo at 1:59 PM on March 10 [10 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 1:59 PM on March 10 [10 favorites]
The "surelythis" meme around these parts has been with us since the Bush years. The joke, as should be evident by now, is that there is never enough evidence, for many people. It's been pointed out many times, we have no lack for it being mentioned.
People talk about tribalism, but I think it's the right-wing news ecosystem that keeps them floating in a comforting bath of ideas and opinions that's why they're so resistant to facts. That's what has to change, one way or another, to solve our problems, and it has to change, it got hundreds of thousands killed in the pandemic. It's the cost of the fog of unreality we're stumbling through.
posted by JHarris at 2:09 PM on March 10 [37 favorites]
People talk about tribalism, but I think it's the right-wing news ecosystem that keeps them floating in a comforting bath of ideas and opinions that's why they're so resistant to facts. That's what has to change, one way or another, to solve our problems, and it has to change, it got hundreds of thousands killed in the pandemic. It's the cost of the fog of unreality we're stumbling through.
posted by JHarris at 2:09 PM on March 10 [37 favorites]
People shouting fire in a crowded democracy should be invited to show their evidence, retract their claims, or go to jail.
And lose the right to hold public office. If you're going to intentionally fuck up the voting system, you shouldn't be allowed to benefit from it.
posted by pracowity at 2:19 PM on March 10 [33 favorites]
And lose the right to hold public office. If you're going to intentionally fuck up the voting system, you shouldn't be allowed to benefit from it.
posted by pracowity at 2:19 PM on March 10 [33 favorites]
Thanks, adamsc and doctornemo.
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:38 PM on March 10 [1 favorite]
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:38 PM on March 10 [1 favorite]
I remember back in 2000 getting messages from election-steal believers with such things as a photo of a closed box saying "this box is full of stolen votes" and a statement saying, "these election workers brought in boxes of votes through the back door."
I thought: I don't have X-ray vision, buildings often have more than one door and parking is often in the back, and are these coming from people who are making fun of those claiming that votes were stolen? In response to the last of those, I visited the sites, and found these claims were for "real."
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:53 PM on March 10
I thought: I don't have X-ray vision, buildings often have more than one door and parking is often in the back, and are these coming from people who are making fun of those claiming that votes were stolen? In response to the last of those, I visited the sites, and found these claims were for "real."
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:53 PM on March 10
I'm so confused by this. From the OP:
"reveals how, again and again in the months after the November 2020 election, he was tasked by Trump’s campaign with batting down implausible and inaccurate allegations that Joe Biden had won the election through fraud."
The Trump campaign tried to "bat down" implausible and inaccurate allegations? As in, they tried to DISPROVE allegations that Biden stole the election? Huh? This genuinely does not compute for me.
posted by chrominance at 4:09 PM on March 10 [3 favorites]
"reveals how, again and again in the months after the November 2020 election, he was tasked by Trump’s campaign with batting down implausible and inaccurate allegations that Joe Biden had won the election through fraud."
The Trump campaign tried to "bat down" implausible and inaccurate allegations? As in, they tried to DISPROVE allegations that Biden stole the election? Huh? This genuinely does not compute for me.
posted by chrominance at 4:09 PM on March 10 [3 favorites]
It's the upside down place.
posted by whatevernot at 4:19 PM on March 10 [2 favorites]
posted by whatevernot at 4:19 PM on March 10 [2 favorites]
The Trump campaign tried to "bat down" implausible and inaccurate allegations? As in, they tried to DISPROVE allegations that Biden stole the election?
Prove or disprove, I guess. Later in the article:
Prove or disprove, I guess. Later in the article:
In the book, Block describes how the number of claims sent his way “snowballed” in the weeks after the election, allegations he was often asked to verify or disprove in a day or less.posted by zamboni at 4:22 PM on March 10 [3 favorites]
“At first, the requests were worded ‘Please try to verify this claim,’” he writes. “By the end, the requests were phrased ‘Tell me why this claim is wrong.’”
It does no good to disprove it if there are no consequences for the people who continue lying about it.
The only way to give lying any consequences at all in the US, is to make the victim a corporation. It occurs to me that this is an argument to privatize all aspects of voting. If every election office had the potential to launch a Dominion-scale lawsuit, these idiots would be a little more careful.
If only there weren't inevitable catastrophic downsides to this approach.
posted by CaseyB at 4:37 PM on March 10 [3 favorites]
The only way to give lying any consequences at all in the US, is to make the victim a corporation. It occurs to me that this is an argument to privatize all aspects of voting. If every election office had the potential to launch a Dominion-scale lawsuit, these idiots would be a little more careful.
If only there weren't inevitable catastrophic downsides to this approach.
posted by CaseyB at 4:37 PM on March 10 [3 favorites]
Well, this isn't exactly voter fraud, but it certainly concerns the consequences of incessant claims of voter fraud: Today's Doonesbury glamorizes "sedition hunting" and gives a link to the FBI Most Wanted page for January 6 photos. Will the attention this brings have an effect on identifying and bringing charges to more people who engaged in criminal activity that day? Will it bring more attention to the concept of sedition for hordes of young people for whom it wasn't really on the radar before? For a moment I asked myself whether this was morally suspect, akin to doxxing, but then I reminded myself that this is already sanctioned by the FBI. Hard to get more legit than that.
posted by brambleboy at 5:21 PM on March 10 [5 favorites]
posted by brambleboy at 5:21 PM on March 10 [5 favorites]
hordes of young people
Is this a bit? Has there been a shift in the Doonesbury demographic while I wasn’t paying attention?
posted by zamboni at 5:40 PM on March 10 [13 favorites]
Is this a bit? Has there been a shift in the Doonesbury demographic while I wasn’t paying attention?
posted by zamboni at 5:40 PM on March 10 [13 favorites]
People talk about tribalism, but I think it's the right-wing news ecosystem that keeps them floating in a comforting bath of ideas and opinions that's why they're so resistant to facts.
“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”
― Daniel Patrick Moynihan
posted by kirkaracha at 6:09 PM on March 10 [4 favorites]
“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”
― Daniel Patrick Moynihan
posted by kirkaracha at 6:09 PM on March 10 [4 favorites]
"Well, I reject your reality and I substitute my own!"
-- Paul Bradford, (popularized(?) by Adam Savage)
posted by pwnguin at 6:23 PM on March 10 [3 favorites]
-- Paul Bradford, (popularized(?) by Adam Savage)
posted by pwnguin at 6:23 PM on March 10 [3 favorites]
People talk about tribalism, but I think it's the right-wing news ecosystem that keeps them floating in a comforting bath of ideas and opinions that's why they're so resistant to facts.
Of course it's the right wing, we expect it from FOX News, but it's also the centrist, "objective" news media. CNN is a whipping boy for the right, but they themselves are guilty of both siderism more times than you can count. The NYTimes, Washington Post...a long list of supposedly fair, moderate voices that simply refuse to call crazy crazy.
posted by zardoz at 6:36 PM on March 10 [17 favorites]
Of course it's the right wing, we expect it from FOX News, but it's also the centrist, "objective" news media. CNN is a whipping boy for the right, but they themselves are guilty of both siderism more times than you can count. The NYTimes, Washington Post...a long list of supposedly fair, moderate voices that simply refuse to call crazy crazy.
posted by zardoz at 6:36 PM on March 10 [17 favorites]
..but then I reminded myself that this is already sanctioned by the FBI. Hard to get more legit than that.Sarcasm, no? These days I can't reliably tell.
posted by Nerd of the North at 8:43 PM on March 10 [4 favorites]
The NYTimes, Washington Post...a long list of supposedly fair, moderate voices that simply refuse to call crazy crazy.
Someone on Twitter made an interesting point that there are a lot of extremist right-wing media outlets that are able to push a constant stream of bullshit and lies at the public with a free product, while the paywalled sites don't and can't reach the same audience, even if they bothered to take facts seriously, because they lock down their audience by default.
The point was that the ownership of the paywalled product is to some extent compelled by shareholder pressures to sell the same extremist right-wing bullshit to the public — albeit repackaged in centrist wrapping — in order to keep some eyeballs and maintain ad revenue.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:54 AM on March 11 [5 favorites]
Someone on Twitter made an interesting point that there are a lot of extremist right-wing media outlets that are able to push a constant stream of bullshit and lies at the public with a free product, while the paywalled sites don't and can't reach the same audience, even if they bothered to take facts seriously, because they lock down their audience by default.
The point was that the ownership of the paywalled product is to some extent compelled by shareholder pressures to sell the same extremist right-wing bullshit to the public — albeit repackaged in centrist wrapping — in order to keep some eyeballs and maintain ad revenue.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:54 AM on March 11 [5 favorites]
Previously, Block worked on the Trump White House commission examining potential fraud in federal elections, established via Executive Order on May 11, 2017. On January 2, 2018, Trump disbanded the "Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity;" it had become "mired in multiple federal lawsuits and faced resistance from states that accused it of overreach." That commission's goal was to prove Trump's claim that he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 because of millions of illegally cast ballots.
I remember the establishment of that commission, but I forgot that its whole reason for being was Trump's narcissistic insistence that he had won the popular vote in the 2016 election. Trump could have acted like George W. Bush & just simply ignore the Electoral College & claim a mandate anyway, but Trump's bottomless well of narcissism precluded that path.
posted by jonp72 at 10:16 AM on March 11
I remember the establishment of that commission, but I forgot that its whole reason for being was Trump's narcissistic insistence that he had won the popular vote in the 2016 election. Trump could have acted like George W. Bush & just simply ignore the Electoral College & claim a mandate anyway, but Trump's bottomless well of narcissism precluded that path.
posted by jonp72 at 10:16 AM on March 11
> malicious incompetenceMalcompetence, surely.
posted by farlukar at 1:11 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]
“It's Not Deception. It's Permission.,” Fred Clark, slacktivist, 20 March 2024
posted by ob1quixote at 8:13 AM on March 20 [1 favorite]
posted by ob1quixote at 8:13 AM on March 20 [1 favorite]
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