On Nov. 5, a Pennsylvania appellate court ordered that observers would be allowed to watch the vote canvassing process, but the Trump campaign was blocked from doing so.
Chuck DeVore, the vice president at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, spoke in depth about the situation in Pennsylvania, saying the state “ironically” has a “proud tradition of election fraud.” DeVore gave an example where the Department of Justice indited a Philadelphia election official on charges of bribery and election tampering “just months ago.”
He also mentioned Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, an election official who has “a long history of very public statements against President Trump going back to when he first declared for office in 2015.” DeVore said if these officials were confident they had enough valid votes to beat Trump, they would not “resist” court orders.
“If they were that confident, why are they resisting an authorized court order to allow for people to observe the ballot as they’re supposed to legally be able to do? By the way, this is a common thing throughout the entire country that you’re supposed to have people from both sides observing the physical process of counting the votes to make sure that it’s done honestly and legally.”
He went on to say that this behavior was especially shocking because it could potentially anger the judicial system and cast doubt on the results that come out of Philadelphia.
DeVore spoke more about the “irregularities” being reported in the vote tabulations. Some, he says, are just “fat finger errors” where workers make clerical mistakes that don’t get noticed until later. While these errors are fixed when they are found, these mistakes can undermine faith in the efficacy of the election. Other irregularities are subject to a lawsuit or a recount to determine if it’s just an error or if there is real evidence of voter fraud.
He said the pandemic changed normal voting patterns: The huge influx of mail-in votes makes it hard to detect fraud until all ballots—mail-in and in-person—are looked at together.
DeVore said while election fraud is not common, it has happened in American history, and in elections with tight margins voter fraud can even change the course of history.
“So in essence, you may have a city essentially determining the victor of the 2020 election. Now, this is not without precedent in American history. You saw this in 1960 when the corrupt Chicago machine of Mayor Daley provided just enough votes to make sure that Illinois electoral college votes went to John F. Kennedy instead of Richard Nixon.”
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