Palast: How Trump Will Steal the 2020 Election

[Foolacious]

Palast: How Trump Will Steal the 2020 Election

From Salon: https://www.salon.com/2020/06/15/investigative-journalist-greg-palast-heres-how-trump-will-steal-the-2020-election

Greg Palast is an investigative journalist whose work has been featured by the BBC, the Guardian, the Nation, Rolling Stone and here on Salon. He has become one of the nation's foremost experts on vote suppression, vote theft and vote fraud. He is the author of the bestselling books "Billionaires & Ballot Bandits" and "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." His new book is "How Trump Stole 2020: The Hunt for America's Vanished Voters."

In our most recent conversation, Palast warns that Joe Biden's chances against Donald Trump are worse than the polls suggest because millions of Democrats will have their votes thrown out on Election Day. Moreover, many of those voters will have no idea that their votes were purged and therefore not counted.

Palast explains how the Republican Party has refined its strategy of voter suppression, voter intimidation and vote theft in elections across the country. Palast also highlights how the planned chaos during the recent Georgia Democratic primaries is a preview of how the Republican Party intends to steal the 2020 presidential election for Donald Trump.

Finally, Palast issues an ominous warning: Trump and the Republicans, he believes, are plotting to use the 12th Amendment to the Constitution to declare the popular vote and Electoral College results invalid, so that the 2020 presidential election will be decided in the House of Representatives — which, believe it or not, may well vote in Trump's favor.

I've been skeptical of Palast's claims in years past, but over the past five years or so, he's seeming more credible to me. I suspect that I changed, not he.

I would also like to investigate a claim he makes that in the 2016 election in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, exit polls showed Clinton winning handily. But I don't know how to get the original exit poll data. To my understanding, US exit pollsters back-fit their findings to match the reported results after the fact (an action that the US State Department views with suspicion when it happens anywhere else in the world). So the exit poll results that are available now are those that were matched to the reported totals on election night.

[BSdetect]

1. Its writing on the wall but invisible to those who ought to be planning to crush the GOP tactics

[flamingdem]

3. Agree

This needs to be the focus from here on in. Question is how what can be done especially in GOP run states.

[questionseverything]

27. there are groups working on it..join them

https://democraticunderground.com/100213589037#post25

[Lulu KC]

2. Scary, but

I have been questioning exit polls for various reasons over the years and from what I've read, it seems they are losing their accuracy because of a bunch of different reasons. (That is my general impression. I don't have sources handy, but really interesting thing. I first noticed it in 2004 Ohio but that could have been a different matter--SmarTech.) I first started wondering as I saw them saying that white women voted for Trump at a shockingly high rate.

However, these articles just add to my anxiety. There are a lot of them. Especially if we haven't recovered from the 2000 election yet, it's just plain scary.

BUT, I consider the recent protests Anti-Trump protests, and the groups of white people in small white towns in red states very good indicators that we're done with him.

But thanks for posting, with good questions.

[samsingh]

4. Being On Guard and Vigilant

I completely support being on guard and vigilant. Repugs are going to suppress the vote and i think steal the election if they could. HOWEVER, a majority of EV are in Democratic states or States with Democratic Governors or States that have Biden way ahead. It would be difficult to steal all those.

And the article is contradictory. If votes are being stolen to throw the election (which i think would be impossible to do across all the States) then why would trump need to use the 12th amendment. Also, i'm not sure how the 12th amendment applies here.
Again, trump loses power on Jan 20th so any crap or confusion he stirs up won't mean anything unless it concludes before then.

The protests have shown us that the country is on edge and not willing to be disenfranchised any longer. The military has shown that they do not want to be used for political means. Get out the vote and get the repugs out because who knows what institutions will be left after another 4 years. We'll have barr like traitors and thiefs everywhere.

[BannonsLiver]

5. Greg's nuttier than squirrel shit.

Completely ‘round the bend.

[SlogginThroughIt]

7. I agree.

[still_one]

11. He sure is

[notinkansas]

15. Palast is well respected

and does amazing investigative work.

Sounds like somebody is afraid of him.

[obamanut2012]

20. zzzzzzz

[BannonsLiver]

26. He's a defeatist, and barking mad

Sounds like someone is ready for a full on embrace of defeatism.

[DrToast]

17. +1

[obamanut2012]

19. agreed

[tman]

6. Irresponsible journalism

That only serves to discourage the vote.

[BannonsLiver]

8. Is that an accident?

I’m not sure. I read the piece. It’s pure unadulterated defeatism. We know it’s defeatism because there is no solution or ideas presented in the piece. It’s aimed at getting people to stay home.

[still_one]

12. Perhaps he is bonding with Michael Moore

[Liberal In Texas]

16. Yeah, better to just ignore what they're doing.

[questionseverything]

30. not even a week ago in georgia 40 precincts had no machines and no paper ballots

you think all those citizens being disenfranchised is not news worthy?

https://democraticunderground.com/100213589037#post25

[Binkie The Clown]

9. I guess the only silver lining to this cloud...

..is that global warming will wipe out all the Republicans.

Of course it wipe out the rest of us to, but I guess that's the price we have to pay for taking democracy for granted.

[dragonlady]

10. Exit polls are not infallible

How many voters were uncomfortable with telling the poll taker that they voted for Trump and said Clinton instead?

[ProfessorGAC]

35. It Wouldn't Take Many

We know that exit polls do not ask every single voter what box they checked.

So, only a small number of people can lie, that gets extrapolated, and an EC victory decided by only 50 thousand votes makes the poll wrong.

So, sure what you suggest could occur!

[Fiendish Thingy]

13. Technically accurate re: WI, OH, & Fl forcing decision to House, but very unlikely

If the legislatures of WI, OH, and FL overruled the will of the voters and refused to seat their electors, the response of the people into the streets would dwarf the current BLM protests.

WI has a Dem sec of state, so the WI legislature would have to contradict the laws regarding appointing electors of an officially certified election. It would likely end up in the WI Supreme Court.

According to current state polls, Biden could lose the EV’s in WI, OH and FL and still win, as long as he carries AZ, NV, and NC, which are all currently listed as lean Dem. Even losing NC puts him at 270, according to electoral-vote.com , as long as he carries all the other Strongly and Likely Dem states.

NC may well turn out to be the tipping point state on election night (and thankfully, NC has a Dem sec of state).

[shockey80]

14. If the Republicans steal the election the American people will burn the country to the ground.

I truly believe that.

[Thunderbeast]

21. Just like they did in 2000?

[obamanut2012]

22. Have you been watching the news the last three weeks?

This ain't fucking 2000.

[BComplex]

24. And all the republicans with it.

Count on it.

[Thunderbeast]

18. Watch GOP State Legislatures

They have the Constiutional authority to determine electoral votes for President regardless of popular vote results in a given state.

[obamanut2012]

23. yawn

won't happen

[StarfishSaver]

25. How he'll TRY to steal the election

I'm not giving it to him that easily

[Quixote1818]

28. I actually don't think a lot of people around him want to help him win. They are sick of him. nt

[Progressive Jones]

31. I agree that there are those you mentioned, but Trump has

many around him that want to protect their cash and power flow.
I would believe that there are a lot of people using the Trump administration
to make truckloads of cash, and it's not all above board.

[Quixote1818]

32. Would not surprise me. There are mostly criminals around him. nt

[SiliconValley_Dem]

29. snore

[trueblue2007]

33. OH I'M SURE ... NOT !!!!! the 2020 presidential election will be decided in the House of Representa

HIS ASSERTION IS STUPID. THE HOUSE WOULD NOT VOTE FOR TRUMP

WHAT IS GREGG SMOKING??

[notinkansas]

34. The entire US House of Representatives would not decide

In the 12th amendment scenario, each state gets one vote regardless of how many house members the state has. Even though blue states have larger populations and therefore more house members than red states, there are enough red states with repub house members to outnumber the blue state votes.

Ugly scenario.

From the article posted by the OP:

The 12th Amendment states that if the Electoral College does not reach a majority, which is 270, the election then goes to the House of Representatives. How could that possibly happen with Trump and Biden in 2020? The answer is the rabidly right-wing legislatures in Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida say that there is so much voter fraud and that the mail-in ballots are not to be trusted. Trust me, those states are going to do things such as misprint ballots. Many "mistakes" are going to occur in those red states.

So the result could be that Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida do not certify their electors, and Biden has lost those three states' votes. There are still not enough votes for Trump, but Biden does not hit the 270 threshold in the Electoral College to be elected president.

The 2020 election now goes to the House of Representatives, where every state gets a single vote. New York, California and Illinois each get a vote. Wyoming, South Dakota and Oklahoma each get a vote. Who wins? Most state delegations are majority Republican, even though the Republicans don't control the House and have far fewer voters in America. But by the rules of the Constitution, Donald Trump could be re-elected even if he loses both the Electoral College and the popular vote.