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| Media fact checkers & experts resorted to hyperbole, appeal to authority, and absurdity in response to solid analysis. |
When former Army captain Seth Keshel's analysis of 8.1 million excess Biden votes was published by the Gateway Pundit, the media immediately scrambled to "debunk" Keshel's work.
It bears repeating, if the media labels someone a conspiracy theorist, then it is almost certain that the person is telling the truth.
Here is the first line of USAToday's so-called fact check (my emphasis added)
"Conspiracy theorists who, months after the 2020 election, still falsely claim voter fraud affected the outcome have started to get creative."
Before getting around to discussing the data, USAToday columnist Daniel Funke also wrote this little gem.
The article, which accumulated nearly 13,000 shares within four days, cites an Aug. 2 post from Keshel on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app popular with far-right extremists.
Absurd.
The USAToday headline read: "No evidence of 8 million 'excess' Biden votes in the 2020 election."
Here's "expert" Barry Burden, the Director of Elections Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison:
"Keshel is promoting a bizarre and unfounded conspiracy about the 2020 election,"
Oh, brother.
Next, Charles Stewart, a poly sci professor from MIT weighed in.
"It’s not clear precisely what Keshel has done to create this 'trend analysis.' So as far as I can tell, he’s just pulling numbers out of the air."
It is obvious that Stewart didn't bother the check the sources in Keshel's data table, as also he wrote this absurdity.
"If I infer he’s comparing Biden’s numbers to Trump’s, and Trump’s 2020 numbers to 2016, then we need to see the full model he’s using."
Finally, Funke went to a third unbiased (sarcasm) source to check Keshel's analysis. Lorraine Minnite, author of "The Myth of Voter Fraud," who remarked:
"Keshel's table as posted on Telegram is meaningless and therefore, meritless. Without more information about his data and analytical methods, the table shows nothing."
USAToday's Funke then repeated the same tired arguments that there was no fraud because Biden was certified as President, DHS/CISA said there was no fraud, and so did former US Attorney General Bill Barr.
Given that Funke's column was so weak in expert opinions, he cited the "independent experts" at the Associated Press (AP) to bolster the case.
AP's fact checker is Ali Swenson.
Earlier this year, Swenson was taken to the woodshed over the AP (aka Another Pathetic) fact check of election court cases. Her fact check alleged that the all inclusive list of 81 (now 90) election court cases was "out of context" while the cherry-picked court case analysis that included just 61 cases by Democratic Party election lawyer, Mark Elias, was in the proper context.
Absurd.
Swenson's so-called "fact check" repeated the same tired government authority arguments as Funke, but she and her experts may have gone the extra mile by actually looking at Keshel's data before making some of equally absurd arguments about voter behavior.
To Swenson's credit, she knew this much:
The report appears to use voting trends, population growth data and registration records to create “heat maps” showing how far the 2020 results diverged from the author’s predictions at the county, state and national levels.
After that, she went completely to La-La Land and so did her experts.
However, it doesn’t disclose where these numbers originated or the methods by which the analysis was performed.
Keshel's source are common data that are readily available from the United States Census bureau (population), state and county records (population, voter registration, election results), and the FEC (election results) to any person willing to make the effort.
Keshel's sources were not a mystery. Nor was how Keshel did trend analysis on the data.
All Swenson had to do was scroll up the page in Keshel's (far right wing extremist) Telegram account to see diagrams of his analysis in individual states. Here is one of his graphics on Pennsylvania -- a picture is worth a 1,000 words. Even Swenson might be able to figure it out.
One of Swenson's experts, Harvard University professor, Gary King told Swenson that voters don't act in ways that line up with predictive modeling.
“There is zero valuable academic information here. Voters, they’re allowed to do what they want. They surprise us."
King is obviously full of crap.
If no one can predict voter behavior, then elections wouldn't be called the minute the polls close on election night. According to King, we'd have to wait until enough votes were counted to rule out that the trailing opponent in an election could not catch up.
Cue the Fox News Decision Desk!!
The fact of the matter is that the majority of the state elections are called early in the Presidential races because one party dominates in voter registration and that state has a long history (i.e. trend) of voting for that particular party.
Voter registration and voting trends are the primary sources of Keshel's analysis.
It is an undeniable fact that on election night, everyone knows that the election will be decided in battleground states where one side does not have a clear advantage over the other.
Swenson's other fact checker made a similar argument, but really blew it by mentioning voter turnout.
There are myriad reasons why someone chooses to turn out to vote or not to turn out to vote or who to vote for. I wouldn’t even call it a gross simplification. It’s just nothing.”
As most know, Trump improved voter registration and turnout over his vote total in 2016 and Keshel's analysis (if they bothered to read it) shows that voter registration and turnout have correlated strongly since 2008.
In closing, these media fact checks are little more than desperate, partisan rushes to judgment to preserve the media's conspiracy theory that Joe Biden was legitimately elected and got the most popular votes of all time.
Absurd.
Ray Blehar, August 14, 2021, 5:13 PM EDT
Coming soon...
Smoking Guns of 2020 Election Heist
Dems Tacitly Admit to 2020 Election Cheating
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