One Organization Did The Math And It Seems The Numbers Behind Sen. Mitch McConnell's Reelection

[linnknee]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Political Tribune

According to vote tallies in the election, McConnell was somehow able to rack up an insane amount of votes in traditionally Democratic strongholds, including some counties that he had never before carried in an election. Given his dismal approval rating, even towards the end, and the fact that literally 1 in 5 Kentucky voters turned in a ticket with a vote cast for Donald Trump for President and Amy McGrath for Senate, it just doesn’t make sense.

And DCReport may have discovered what the problem is — vote tabulation machines made by Election Systems & Software.

The report from the non-profit organization breaks down, piece by piece, the wide and resounding discrepancies they found in the voting system in McConnell’s state of Kentucky, including discrepancies between the vote counts for presidential candidates and down-ballot candidates and counties carrying more voters on their rolls than they have voting-age citizens in their area. But the short of it all is this; the Trump team had spent the past few weeks railing against the Dominion Voting Systems, claiming that the system was flipping votes for Trump into Biden votes. But as is customary with Donald Trump and his people, if you want to find the true issue, look in the opposite direction of where he’s pointing.

The investigation conducted into McConnell’s election win determined that the counties that saw an alarming leap in votes for Mitch McConnell were not using Dominion voting machines — they were using ES&S. If you were to take this vote flipping theory and swap ES&S for Dominion, you would suddenly have a pretty clear explanation for why Amy McGrath’s votes didn’t line up with Joe Biden’s.

Read more: https://polinews.org/one-organization-did-the-math-and-it-seems-the-numbers-behind-sen-mitch-mcconnells-reelection-do-not-add-up/

---

I had heard about this very early after the 2020 Election. I have told numerous people and to see exactly what I believed had happened in print this morning. I am making my first post on Democratic Underground and I read it every single day as the first thing I read in the morning. Thanks to all and to the people who run for an outstanding factual based website. In fact, when I'm in the car, I listen to Tom Hartman and one day he said he read your site and it was excellent. Let's hope someone takes this up maybe even congress investigates.

[MyOwnPeace]

1. That WOULD be great if

this were to lead to an 'investigation' into what happened in "Moscow Mitch's" election!
Also a great early posting for the 'rookie!"
Welcome to DU!!!!

[rkleinberger]

29. This could be a big deal

There was news in 2020 that this company had some ties to Trump or Republicans. I think the Dems blew it here buy not demanding and investigation. I think the DOJ may want to check this out.

[randr]

2. This is the hidden info that Trump has over the Reps

He knows they are cheating

[Hugh_Lebowski]

3. Perhaps this is why he's skee-daddling on out of Dodge ...

After all, if he quits, no harm no foul, right?

That's how it works if you're a RePuQ anyway

IOKIYAR is the Law of the Land, as we've all seen.

Welcome to DU, BTW!

[PatSeg]

41. I think there are also some health issues involved

Republicans have been cheating for years and that hasn't caused them to quit.

[catrose]

4. I wonder what machines Maine uses. I could have sworn Maine had enough of Collins.

And gosh, I hope somebody cares and that there are consequences.

[tikka]

7. I think it's the same machines. Also used in Iowa to elect Joni Ernst

[catrose]

9. Gosh! Almost like there's a pattern.

[catrose]

11. I wish Dems would automatically ask for a recount, no matter what.

I'm not convinced Cornyn won, and I sure don't think Ted won 2 years ago.

[rurallib]

40. Iowa does have a paper trail

Iowa may have ES&S machines, but I do not think that is why Ernst was elected and re-elected. Iowans are just stupid.

[SharonAnn]

61. Please. I grew up in Iowa and belong to Mensa. But then, I left and never went back.

[rurallib]

63. Iowa today and Iowa many years ago are two very different places, sad to say.

[PatSeg]

44. I was really surprised that Collins got reelected

and I know I'm hardly the only one. Lindsey Graham was also a surprise. Even he thought he was going to lose and went on TV begging for donations.

[catrose]

73. Let's hope somebody looks at what voting machines all those surprise states used.

Isn't ES&S the Diebold descendant?

[bronxiteforever]

5. Didn't you post on DU in 2017?

Welcome again to DU!

[brush]

6. This must be one reason McTurtle is hinting at retirement.

He has to know there are questions being raised about his too easy win.

[soothsayer]

8. Note that wifey is in trouble and drumpf hates him

[CaptainTruth]

13. I wondered that too.

Too many questions about the legitimacy of his win wouldn't be good for him.

[KT2000]

10. his was the rigged election

thought that since the election. They blame Democrats of doing exactly what they have already done.

[MarcA]

14. +1000 n/t

[PatSeg]

48. They accuse Democrats of voter fraud

and we accuse them of election fraud. They really are brazen and shameless, but they've gotten away with it for so long, they keep on doing it.

[RussBLib]

71. so why can't we bust them on it?

If true, this is a mega-scandal.

[PatSeg]

76. I really don't know

Every election, there seem to be outrageous stories like this, but so little comes of it and no one is held accountable in spite of the overwhelming evidence. The best I can come up with is no one wants the public to not trust the legitimacy of our elections and this past year we've seen why.

[Pas-de-Calais]

12. ES&S used in Graham's state too??

[csziggy]

38. Yes - and so did other RepuQ's states according to DCRport.og's report

This is towards the end of the actual DCReport.org report:

McConnell had his biggest percentage of registered Democrats voting Republican in counties using ES&S machines. But he wasn’t the only senator to perform so well. Other Republican incumbents, whom polls indicated would have close races, had similar luck to their majority leader on Election D8thay.

Lindsey Graham’s race in South Carolina was so tight that he infamously begged for money, yet he won with a comfortable 10% lead—tabulated on ES&S machines throughout the state. In Susan Collins’ Maine, where she never had a lead in a poll after July 2, almost every ballot was fed through ES&S machines. Kentucky, South Carolina, Maine, Texas, Iowa and Florida are all states that use ES&S machines. Maybe the polls didn’t actually get it wrong.

https://www.dcreport.org/2020/12/19/mitch-mcconnells-re-election-the-numbers-dont-add-up/

[Ponietz]

15. McGrath, Harrison, Gideon, et al. need to speak up if there is anything to this

Otherwise it’s a non-issue.

[FoxNewsSucks]

16. ES&S has a history of that kind of thing.

Chuck Hagel (R-NE) was expected to lose his senate race. He had an "unexpected " big "surprise" win due to ES&S voting machines.

Guess who owned a big part of ES&S?

That's right, Chuck Hagel. Hasn't even been 25 years, and people forget.

[Evolve Dammit]

17. K&R; great post

[CaptainTruth]

18. Has McGrath's campaign said anything about it?

I would expect them to have internal polling & if there were unusual differences between their polls & the reported results, I would expect them to say something about it.

For example, if McGrath's internal polls agree with the reported results everywhere except those areas where McConnell had "surprising" performance, & the internal polls were "surprisingly" wrong in those areas, it's more evidence that their really is something wrong with the reported results in those areas.

[ampm]

19. Army of one wow

I've been reading about this for months so everywhere that Dominion voting machines were used the vote was correct and everywhere no so much. Because I was saying how can the numbers flip in the opposite direction and how can the numbers of the vote be larger in some districts where the people count was smaller and the machine count was higher. No wonder trump thought he won it was rigged but for the fact that we got the machines that had backups paper count so the machines were correct. They didn't win they cheated

[ace3csusm]

24. Maybe this is why they puched the big lie....look over here ...

[mackdaddy]

20. Are these Paper ballots? If so they will be held for some time then destroyed.

In most states, citizens can apply to examine ballots. Sort of a private recount. This is what the newspaper consortium did in FL after 2000 to determine Gore actually did get more votes.

You do not have to do the entire state initially though. Just examine a few of the more suspicious precincts.

It is not fun, but even a couple of people can go through a few thousand ballots by hand in just a couple of hours. If a discrepancy is found then a bigger effort can be brought.

Paper ballots ARE the evidence.

[Lonestarblue]

56. I think ES&S machines do not have paper backups.

They have a long legacy of suspicious elections. After the controversy of the 2004 Ohio election, in which Diebold was accused of irregularities with some of their voting equipment, Diebold paid a fine of several million dollars, and Diebold machines became ES&S. Evidently, they can easily be programmed to deliver the results whoever is in charge wants. I believe this is how Mitch has stayed in office for decades. He has never been well liked in Kentucky.

Edited to add: I think the federal government should require that any voting machine used in a federal election have a paper backup that must be preserved for a year after any election.

[OMGWTF]

66. Diebold makes ATMs and I used to fantasize about

making up stickers to put next to their name that said “is stealing your vote”

[Bayard]

21. It was appalling news

To hear that McConnell had won again. People hate him here, so I thought it was just lazy voting--vote straight rethug ticket. For people who vote at all.

I would definitely like to see investigation pursued on this one.

[ace3csusm]

22. As much as i hate All of those mentioned above...I hope its not True

This would surely destroy our democracy, we would now be a laughing stock of the world...What angers me the most, these so called patriots know this but dont care because they are more concerned about them being in power...I do believe they could care less what happened to America as long as they are in power...It would be great if they would install a national voting system. Pick one system that require a paper ballot that scanned into system, im in california and it seem to work okay here...

[BadgerMom]

35. They also know how to poison a well.

After all of the screaming by disreputable Republicans about voter fraud and all of the pushback and research demonstrating election security by Dems and honorable officials regarding the 2020 presidential election, investigating this would be opening Pandora’s box. Do I think this fraud is possible? Oh, yeah. Do I think an investigation into vote manipulation would do more harm than good? Quite likely. Now, while we have our slim majority, it would be more worthwhile to adjust the filibuster, pass HR1 in the Senate and work to secure voting rights and future elections.

Then, why not use paper ballots and take these election tallying systems out of the equation? If hand counting paper ballots takes longer, so what?

[halobeam]

45. Can't we do both, investigate and adjust the filibuster, etc.. everything you just said.

If we can't then I would agree with you. We would benefit by not wasting our time, if we couldn't do both the right way.

If we can, then why wouldn't we nail these awful systems that DO cheat the people and get rid of them, and hold those responsible, accoountable.

I don't understand why holding ppl accountable has become like some pipe dream or something.. isn't it a bit of a defeatist attitude.. (not saying yours, just saying in general) to let it go, thinking we can't handle both things, and additionally, if we didn't get to the bottom of it, how in the world would we get enough action to get rid of these machines that are so hackable?

Mostly all rhetorical questions here.. but this whole thing leads to questions unanswered.

[csziggy]

54. A good compromise - paper ballots with scanning machines

But only if there is a requirement to hand count the paper ballots as a check on the scanners.

My county has used paper ballots for over thirty years. The scanners are set that if a ballot is not read as valid, or has an under or over vote, the machines kick the ballot back immediately so that the voter has a check to repair their ballot. If needed they can get a new ballot and re-vote.

In 2000 during the recount, Leon County (where I live) completed their recount in only a few hours. The Supervisor of Elections assisted other counties in doing their recounts. Our neighboring county, Gadsden, did not have scanners at each polling place, therefore they did not have the option of allowing voters to repair their defective ballots. They were among the counties with the highest number of defective ballots that were not counted. The Leon Supervisor showed them how to do that and since the number of ballots that could not be counted has dropped drastically.

Even with all of that, I do not necessarily trust the count on the scanning machines. They can easily be hacked if the security around the machines is not good or if the people running the machines are not trustworthy. That's why I support had counting the ballots to verify the numbers on the machines. It's good insurance.

ETA - The scanned results can be almost immediately released as preliminary numbers, but the final count should be based on the hand counts. That way, we get the immediate fix - but in the long run we know who really won without a doubt.

[kimbutgar]

23. I hope the Democrats add to HR1 and investigation of ES&S

I also suspect that was the rigging they were screaming about that they couldn’t rig.

And I agree the orange maggot has that over the repukes.

[McKim]

25. I Distinctly Remember from the Time Before that...

I distinctly remember that the election before the recent one, he barely squeaked by and so I was surprised and then suspicious, knowing they do not respect democracy.

[littlemissmartypants]

26. Congratulations on your 51st post, linnknee!

Kicked and recommended.



❤ miss pants

[lagomorph777]

27. Exactly as one would expect. If Pubs accuse Dems of something, it means Pubs are doing it.

[reACTIONary]

28. Yet another "report". So, where is the...

... evidence?

[LiberalArkie]

30. If I am not mistaken, very R state uses ES&S. It seems to be designed so well. The voter even gets

a human readable card that shows the vote. Some where it is designed to be manipulated after the person has voted.

[garybeck]

55. Every system is different but ----

what you're showing there appears to be a voter-verified paper audit trail. (VVPAT) It appears it came from a touch-screen voting machine.

it gives the appearance that the votes were cast properly, but that is 100% false.

that is because you have no idea what the machine actually did with your vote. if there was a bug in the vote counting software, or malicious code that changed people's votes, this VVPAT means NOTHING. In fact it gives a false sense of security where there is none.

the VVPAT has one specific use and value: IT CAN BE USED TO VEFIRY THAT THE ORIGINAL COUNT WAS CORRECT. In other words, after the election and original count is done, a human being can view the VVPATs, count manually, and compare that to the computer count. This can be done in a full recount, or in an audit, where a statistically significant number of ballots randomly are selected (either within a precinct, or certain precincts can be audited) and counted by hand (or possibly a 3-rd party scanner machine... questionable...) and compared to the computer count.

That is the only time the VVPAT provides any value. as a "receipt" to show the voter that their vote was cast correctly, it provides zero value because again we do not know what the computer actually did with your vote unless there is a recount or audit where these VVPATS are inspected.

Presumably, the VVPATs are stored somewhere and could be viewed, even today. there is supposedly a federal law that all presidental voting ballots must be stored for 22 years. However in a place that is as untrustworthy as we have, it is possible that by now even the VVPATs have been compromised.

A big question in my opinion now is whether Amy McGrath has looked at this stuff and whether she cares enough to investigate.

[GB_RN]

60. Exactly

Some machines scan the bar codes to actually do the count and since we don't know what the codes actually say vs what the plain text is, there's a huge opportunity for shenanigans (got that info from Electoral-Vote.com).

[Botany]

31. " ... the problem is -- vote tabulation machines made by Election Systems & Software."

The polls were not that wrong. It was the machines damn it.

[LiberalArkie]

37. I also believe that is the most obvious place. If the local vote tabulation machine send it to

another machine at the secretary of states office, then that would be the most likely place. Playing with all the local tabulation machines would be difficult, but doing it at the final machine at the SOS, south be most likely

[Botany]

43. When Jennifer Brunner was OH's Sec. of State (She is now on the State Supreme Court) she had ...

... a study done on electronic voting machines and I think the central tabulators too and all of
them had electronic back doors programed into them that allowed outside parties to look @ and
manipulate the data without leaving any "fingerprints" and in some cases it could be done remotely.

McConnell has blocked any and all security up grades to our electronic voting systems.

I think Trump knows that the electronic voting machines and tabulators are dirty and that Russia
used this weakness in 2016 but in 2020 with the mail in voting some of the chance to rat fuck the
vote was by passed.

[judesedit]

32. You know the thugs cheated. That's all they know how to do.

I hope this is investigated thoroughly and made public, along with all the other states using ES&S showing funky numbers. We have been warned about these machines since 2000. Unfortunately, it's been ignored.

[movingviolation]

33. This needs exposure.

If we just start investigating republiQans with all that they project onto Democrats, who knows what will turn up. Me thinks that they thinks that they're cleverly disarming their own landmines, but they're just showing where they're buried.

[Trust_Reality]

52. Needs more than exposure!

Needs serious investigations.

I strongly suspect this has been happening for quite some time in various locations.

[turbinetree]

34. This brings back the John Kerry moment of Ohio

https://www.motherjones.com/media/2005/11/recounting-ohio/

the ratf*cking never stops

[halobeam]

51. and what a moment that was :( ugh n/t

[padah513]

36. If this is the case and EE&S systems were to blame

Can you imagine how many votes trump really lost by?

[ShazzieB]

42. WOW.

Just WOW.

[dianaredwing]

65. My point entirely.

I know that he didn't get his 74 million. There are a lot of dumb and delusional Americans, but I have always thought that number inflated. They are louder, more obnoxious, and often more odiferous than Democrats, but Republicans are not appreciated by most of the country.

[TomWilm]

39. So GOP rigged the election - and lost it all anyway... Sorry, but this is conspiracy BS!

The elections are rigged in all kind of ways - but I do believe in the vote count, even with those machines (though I hope they will be scrapped anyway).

These new number games makes no more sense, than when GOP is doing it.

[stopdiggin]

64. with apologies to the OP post -- yes

You have to bring me a good deal more than "well this sure doesn't look ...."

And "Cheating !! -- They stole the election !!" (trumpeted about without a shred of evidence) ...
Is a dangerous game currently being played by people who don't believe in democracy.
Think carefully, my friends.

[garybeck]

46. kr

[Trust_Reality]

47. Extremely suspicious. Always has been. I have not idea why Dems do not demand an investigation.

[pnwmom]

49. Did Amy ask for an audit or recount? n/t

[bringthePaine]

50. time to break out the shovels and get to digging! we're gonna needa bigger dumptruck...

[birdographer]

53. Like so many others,

I thought his reelection was very, very suspicious. Just didn't add up.

[Lokee11]

57. The telltale to know that they cheated - especially the Orange POS

Is that they accused others of it.

Said it before and I will believe it until I am dead in the ground.

That Orange FUCK cheated in '16, and there is no way he had 10 million more votes than '16 in '20 and the telltale that he/they cheated is that he/they accuses everyone else of it. The whole party consists of a bunch of crooks. They are always "projecting" ALWAYS.

FUCK THEM ALL!

✊!

[karynnj]

58. Very unlikely that Mcgrath really won

1) No one from her campaign has even spoke of being surprised (stunned) that she lost. If they had internal information that their voters were coming out in high enough numbers to even make it close, they would have shone more surprise that they lost.

2) None of the polls showed her ahead - https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/kentucky/ In fact, most of the better rated polls showed McConnell close to 10 points ahead.

3) Supporters of her primary opponent were quoted rather frequently that they thought her campaign would lose badly. Yes, I know that this is biased, but the comments made clear that her campaign was not overperforming -- and it would have needed to.

[Fiendish Thingy]

72. There you go, bringing verifiable evidence, spoiling a perfectly good Conspiracy Theory. Nt

[stopdiggin]

59. KY is a solidly RED state

(possibly getting redder) and many of it's denizens would vote for pond scum (a rough equivalent for McConnell, come to think of it) over a Democrat. Have no problem with 'investigation' -- as long as it doesn't devolve into conspiracy theory. And the vote in KY was not as out of whack, or unexpected, as some media wanted it to be.

- Herald-Leader, Nov. 6, 2020 - Why Does Kentucky Keep Electing McConnell?

- snip - While support for McConnell trailed support for Trump by around 7 percentage points on Tuesday, the seven-term senator’s margin grew from the 14 percentage point victory he won over former Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes in 2014 and the 14.7 percentage point victory Sen. Rand Paul won over Lexington Mayor Jim Gray in 2016.

Kentucky, once a Democratic stronghold, is now a firmly Republican state. In a press conference Friday, Republican party leaders attributed the shift to McConnell.

So do Democrats.

[OMGWTF]

62. I've been saying this for months.

Other states that use those pesky vote-stealing ES&S machines need to be investigated too.

[intrepidity]

68. I've long believed that a large part of the former guy's strategy

of arm-waving about a stolen election was precisely to preemptively weaken any legitimate claims of the same by our side.

[canetoad]

69. Great post!

Don't wait so long for the next one.

[live love laugh]

70. Every time I read or hear that the 2020 election was totally fair

Graham AND McConnell and the many Republican senators from Democratic districts come to mind.

The senatorial elections need to be investigated thoroughly.

When RepubliQans claim the election was stolen they are right. Only they are the thieves.

[nycbos]

74. What is missing is that these "Democratic Strongholds"...

... are actually Dixiecrat stronghold.

While they might still be registered as Dems they no longer vote that way.

[C Moon]

75. Oh my, wouldn't it be hilarious if he was found illegitimately elected.

He would have a turtle temper tantrum.

[Omaha Steve]

77. After a review by forum hosts....LOCKING

This is an opinion piece that was over 12 hours old when posted.

Statement of Purpose
Post the latest news from reputable mainstream news websites and blogs. Important news of national interest only. No analysis or opinion pieces. No duplicates. News stories must have been published within the last 12 hours. Use the published title of the story as the title of the discussion thread.

[Omaha Steve]

78. After a review by forum hosts....LOCKING

This is an opinion piece that was over 12 hours old when posted.

Statement of Purpose
Post the latest news from reputable mainstream news websites and blogs. Important news of national interest only. No analysis or opinion pieces. No duplicates. News stories must have been published within the last 12 hours. Use the published title of the story as the title of the discussion thread.