Greg Palast - Here's What We Do Now

[milestogo]

November 6, 2024

Being right never felt so horrid. Before the election, I wrote, “How Trump Won.” And on Election night I waited for the returns to make a fool of me. Instead, the returns made the fool a President. And so, my vacation’s cancelled. My life’s cancelled; that is, a life of anything but sleuthing and exposing the details of the heist of our democracy. What’s at stake? No way around it, this is one frightening moment. Decades of progress created with sweat and determination face destruction. Within the next six months, we may see the Voting Rights Act repealed — and civil rights set back 50 years; the entirety of our environmental protection laws burnt in a coal pit; police cruelty will be made our urban policy; the Education Department closed to give billionaires a tax holiday; and howling anti-Semites will be appointed White House counselors.

But the horror we face is countered by this one hard question the US media will ignore, but I can’t: Did Donald Trump actually win this election? If so, was it really a landslide? Here’s something you won’t read elsewhere: In the last Presidential, according to the official count of the federal Elections Assistance Commission, 2.7 million provisional ballots were rejected.

Whose ballots? If you’re Black, Hispanic or Asian-American, the chance you were shunted to one of these provisional ballots is 300% higher than if you’re white. How many Black ballots were thrown in the electoral dumpster? As a former professor of statistics, I know there’s still a lot of sleuthing in the numbers I have to do, but I can tell you this: The number of rejected provisional ballots, the number of voters wrongly purged from the rolls, the number of ballots “spoiled” and not counted, has unquestionably skyrocketed. The result: This is the most “Jim Crow,” racially bent election I’ve covered in 25 years of reporting.

Did that make the difference? Don’t ask our “see-no-evil” media. While, before the election, The New York Times (never forget to capitalize the “The”) and MSNBC will run some stories on vote suppression trickery, from crazy ID requirements to rejecting student registrations to suspect purges of voters. However, the establishment outlets will NEVER, EVER say that these ugly, racist electoral swindles changed the outcome of the election. They will wave the flag and tell us that American democracy prevailed again. That’s just horseshit. Excuse my French, but when are we going to face the fact that Jim Crow has returned — this time as Dr. James Crow, systems analyst.

Read more: https://www.gregpalast.com/heres-what-we-do-now/

[mopinko]

1. how many mib's were rejected? lost?

[milestogo]

2. Palast is a statistician and journalist

so he knows how to gather this information. This is very early, and it takes time.

If something doesn't make sense, he'll find it.

[mopinko]

3. yeah, happy to see him on board.

he’s someone who can also put some kind of number on how many votes were suppressed.

[milestogo]

4. I've been thinking the last few days that what we really need

is a good statistician. Things jump out to them that most of us would never see.

[mopinko]

5. yup. brennan center, stacy abrams. where u at?

[bikes and bunnies]

7. What's a mib?

I googled it and could not find a definition.

[LSparkle]

8. Mail In Ballot

[mopinko]

14. mail in ballot. aka vbm- vote by mail.

[ananda]

10. I'd say quite a few.

I think that was part of the plan.

[Mr.Bee]

15. "the number of ballots "spoiled" and not counted, has unquestionably skyrocketed. "

Skyrocketed. That's all you need to know.

[Silent Type]

6. Racism part is true. But Palast is beating this same crud trying to maintain some relevance. If 800,000 people

actually showed up to vote and were told they had been purged, that's one thing. But that is not what happens.

They get purged because they move to another district, don't vote for several election cycles, don't respond to mailings telling them they are about to be purged, etc.

Then, they still don't show up at the polls to even ask for a provisional ballot. 800,000 being denied the right to vote on election day would be obvious.

I've been purged at least 4 times in my life when I moved to another district. I still got to vote in the new district.

With that said, we need to be diligent. Fortunately, there are lots of voter groups that watch this stuff.

[Hekate]

12. There were reports from all over the South over the past decade indicating a New Jim Crow...

SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act — I hope you noticed that rocket going off.

I won’t belabor the point just now for lack of time, but it is true. Every trick in the old book is being deployed, plus some enabled by new technology.

ETA: And the rest of the country. Here’s one from New York just today
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143336450

[jaxexpat]

9. Why is it we don't understand a basic fact of democracy?

That being: the moment your ballot is in another person's hands, your vote is only as valid as those persons in the chain of custody. The various iterations of compilation which create the total vote count are only as legitimate as the motives of those custodians. The US has an addiction to non-uniformity when it comes to elections. Every city, county and state have different means and methods, hardware, software, poll worker training and management.

[milestogo]

11. In some ways, the decentralization makes it safer.

Its a lot easier to hack one big system than 50 smaller ones that are offline. But there are so many other things to consider, like the voting machines and software.

Back in 2004 I remember reading that there are 11 times more laws regulating gaming machines than voting machines. Somehow I doubt that this has changed.

[jaxexpat]

16. Decentralization does not improve reliability. Simple as that, eh?

[moniss]

13. I believe Palast is correct about

the provisional ballots etc. and I also want to see the numbers for requested absentee ballots versus how many came back on time, came back late (postal issues) and never came back at all. Then we also need to look at people who sent one back but it is now unaccounted for.