Reader submitted comment. Original article by Other audits are likely in Georgia, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. But is there something else that has been overlooked in the frenzy to investigate or suppress (depending on one’s political persuasions) claims of “election irregularities” during the 2020 election? Retired senior DoD analyst Ray Blehar has examined an underreported election story pertaining to write-in and minor party ballots/votes. His investigation has resulted in some startling conclusions and a working theory: that Biden’s margin of victory in several key states could have been provided by shifting write-in and minor party ballots through ballot adjudication.
Let us examine his statistical analysis and conclusions in more detail. First, a definition of terms:
Write-in ballots. These are ballots marked by voters who choose to vote for a candidate other than those listed on the printed ballots.
Minor party ballots. These are ballots marked for candidates of minor parties who were qualified to be on the election slate, such as the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, and the Constitution Party. Approved minor party candidates will vary by state, depending on qualification requirements.
WIMP. This is an acronym that stands for the sum of write-in and minor party ballots in a given state.
Adjudication. This is a manual process by which the “intent of the individual voter” is determined when a given ballot cannot be determined by automated tabulation devices. Adjudicated ballots are typically write-in ballots, mismarked ballots (double votes), misaligned ballots, and other categories. Note: it is also possible to program voting machines in order to recognize a “straight party” ballot as misaligned and automatically sending it to the manual adjudication process. Adjudication is really where the vote shifting happens, particularly if the election officials in a given precinct are all from one political party and/or vote shifting malware has “infected” tabulation devices.
I have previously summarized his analyses of WIMP votes in Pennsylvania here and in Wisconsin here. Blehar’s findings from his Pennsylvania analysis include the following:
- The total number of WIMP votes in Pennsylvania declined by ~113,000 votes from 2016 to 2020. This is highly unlikely given the massive number of mail-in ballots cast in 2020 compared to previous elections.
- Only 453 write-in votes were received by mail-in ballot out of 2.6 million mail-in ballots cast. This is an improbably low number given that Howie Hawkins, the Green Party write-in presidential candidate, received ~34,000 fewer votes by mail-in than down-ballot Green Party average. Note that a similar situation occurred with Jill Stein in 2016 in Pennsylvania, causing her to refer to the Keystone State’s election system as a “national disgrace.”
- Jo Jorgenson, the Libertarian candidate for president, received ~20,000 votes fewer by mail-in than down-ballot Libertarian candidates. This is a highly unlikely circumstance and a historical anomaly that strongly suggests vote shifting took place.
- Vote-switching analysis determined that ~64,000 absentee ballot votes were taken from Trump and switched to Biden through the adjudication process, while ~30,000 Trump Election Day and absentee votes were directly shifted to Biden.
Blehar believes the following happened:
- Conclusion #1: The total adjudication manipulation resulted in Biden winning the state by ~80,500 votes, but in reality, President Trump actually won Pennsylvania by over 186,000 votes.
- Conclusion #2: Biden’s margin of victory could have only been obtained through adjudication manipulation.