Posted on 11/21/2020 6:22:13 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Campaign officials for President Donald Trump and supporters have promoted the faulty claim that Joe Biden received nearly 100,000 votes in Georgia through ballots that only included selections for president, suggesting it’s “suspicious.” But the claim ignores that some voters do not vote a straight-party ballot.
Social media posts spread by Trump campaign officials suggest that voter fraud may have occurred in Georgia, based on the claim that President-elect Joe Biden secured nearly 100,000 votes through ballots that were “ONLY” cast for Biden — and not for any candidates in other races.
But that claim rests on a flawed assessment of vote tallies.
The claim has nevertheless been passed along by thousands through various social media posts in recent days.
“Nothing suspicious about this at all!” one of President Donald Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr., wrote with a retweet of a post spreading the claim. Both tweets have since been deleted.
“In Georgia, ballots where the voter ONLY voted for President: • Trump: 818 • Biden: 95,801,” the post read. The tweet came from an account using the name “Sarah Hucklebee” that was made to look like an account for former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The claim was put forward in a Nov. 10 video by Steve Cortes, a Trump campaign adviser, in which he outlined what he deemed a “statistical case” demanding further “investigation.”
“Biden, though, a 95,000 vote differential — there were almost 96,000 people in Georgia, allegedly, who voted Biden-only and then did not vote for Senate,” he said in the video. “That seems far too wide to be believable.”
We don’t know how many voters only voted for Biden, but Cortes’ number doesn’t represent that.
Instead, the figure refers to the fact that Biden won almost 100,000 more votes in Georgia than Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff. But it’s faulty to assume that all of those votes must have been on ballots for Biden only, ignoring that some voters in the state selected Biden for president but didn’t adhere to a strictly party-line vote for the Senate.
As of early Nov. 12, there were 4,992,420 votes counted in the presidential race in Georgia. While the total number of votes fluctuates across other races — since, indeed, some people don’t cast a vote for every race — there were 4,945,792 votes counted in the Senate race between Republican Sen. David Perdue and Ossoff.
That’s a difference of 46,628 total votes — or almost half of what’s being alleged in the viral posts.
The conservative National Review’s Dan McLaughlin said the difference between the total votes cast for the presidential race and the Perdue-Ossoff contest renders “the 95,000 number … mathematically impossible.”
McLaughlin also pointed out that one could look to the election in Maine — where Republican Sen. Susan Collins received 55,468 more votes than Trump as of Nov. 12.
That “means that some voters went for Biden and Collins, as voters have been doing as long as there have been elections,” McLaughlin wrote, later adding: “Split-ticket voting is not fraud, and there is nothing unusual about it.”
Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told us in an email that it’s “difficult to assess the accuracy of the factual claims being made” about “Biden-only” ballots.
“How do these folks know how many voters selected Biden or Trump for president but skipped the Senate race?” he said. “Knowing that would require individual-level information from ballots, not aggregation information about ballots cast in each race.”
Burden also said it’s common that voters “choose a candidate at the top of the ballot and then ‘roll off’ as they move down the ballot. There is nothing suspicious about lower participation in lower level races.”
And “even in an era of strong partisanship, some voters split their tickets. That is precisely why aggregate totals can be deceptive when trying to reach conclusions about individual voter behavior.”
Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting system implementation manager, made note of many voters straying from party-line votes during a press conference on Nov. 9.
“The other thing we’ve discovered is, from our initial assessment, there was a lot of ticket-splitting going on,” he said.
Biden’s lead in Georgia stood at about 14,000 votes on Nov. 12. Georgia’s secretary of state has announced the state will conduct a hand recount of the presidential race.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here.
This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here for more.
Burden, Barry. Director, Elections Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Email to FactCheck.org. 12 Nov 2020.
“Georgia Election Results.” New York Times. Accessed 12 Nov 2020.
“Georgia Secretary of State Update on 2020 Election.” C-SPAN. 11 Nov 2020.
“Maine Election Results 2020.” Politico. Accessed 12 Nov 2020.
McLaughlin, Dan. “No, There Were Not 95,000 Biden-Only Ballots in Georgia.” National Review. 11 Nov 2020.
“News Conference on Georgia Vote Count.” C-SPAN. 9 Nov 2020.
FactCheck.org is run by communists. Propaganda (read: liberal lies) is all they know.
The suite in GA was filed by Lin Wood and not the Trump team. Lin Wood has the goods. He has already been specific about what he has on a few interviews now. Lin Woods’ civil suite is going full steam.
Looking on Annenberg’s FactCheck.org with their AP and USA Today et al reporters as staff is not conducive to finding the truth.
Pardon me, I’m been overwhelmed by the last two weeks. I think I see what you’re getting at. This fact checking didn’t check its own facts too well?
Are you actually defending this explanation?
It's deceptive. It sets up a straw man fallacy.
Of course we don't know the exact number that selected Biden or Trump for president without voting for a senate candidate.
But we do know, based on what the candidates stand for, that it's statistically far fetched to believe that 100K Biden ballots didn't have a missing senatorial pick.
And the way to confirm what really happened, an audit, is being denied to us.
RE This fact checking didn’t check its own facts too well?
Let’s put it this way -— There are flaws in their arguments.
Correct. A short look at the members of their staff confirms that.
Yes, post #25.
Actually, we are hearing it ALL, and not letting the talking heads do our thinking for us. That's why we reach the conclusion we do.
RE: Are you actually defending this explanation?
Errr no... I am PRESENTING their explanation, waiting for a BETTER explanation from anyone to refute them.
Posted in Free Republic state page
Where the elections results are being questioned
Canvassers should given the precinct lists of registered voters and their addresses and sent in. Ordered to verify those listed for their qualification and residency.
When active with the GOP in Chicago 12th and 23rd wards during the 60’s and 70’s this was a standard practice by Committeeman Dick Andersen 12th and John L Waner 23rd for precinct workers.
Was surprised when I became active in Wisconsin in the 20’s this isn’t done by the local GOP.
The Audit will be a real... cleaned up mess. The central tenet of GA law requires the absentee ballot to be verified. These, can not be possible votes. Hesitate to say what have been shot down about but there is the matter of the validity of entire ballot (paper included). Our friends in the Chi-Com resistance movement reported the presence of SFExpress (the major chi-com “fedex” which has no service in the US— had to have come from the chinee consulate in ATL) packets filled with “ballots”— which were seized- they did not say by whom but implied it was US Atty’s office. This was on Guo— GTV- which is the outlet for the poor bastards ground into dust in Hong Kong. They love Trump and freedom- bless them.
You mean 93,000 ballots for Biden only but 800 for Trump only in Red counties when that’s never happened before anywhere ion the country in any election needs disproving that it is a sign of fraud??
RE: Yes, post #25.
Well, that post simply copied and pasted the relevant portion of the so-called Factchecker’s argument. Those aren’t mine.
RE: You mean 93,000 ballots for Biden only but 800 for Trump only in Red counties when that’s never happened before anywhere
Make that 95,000 for Biden and about 818 for Trump.
Well, crap, I guess that proves it wasn’t fraud. :)
In the motor city they even perfected over the years the drill.
When the polls close ask a judge to keep the doors open so everyone waiting in line’s vote is counted.
Clear out their crowd, kick out any watchers(not likely at 10, 11, midnight), lock the doors, open up the poll books and help the people not recorded as voted have their voices heard using extra blank ballots.
Whitener. Nessel, Benson used wuhan virus to drastically simplify the process and let have more time to leisurely do it.
Usually no complaint or Attention paid because racism.
Also they now can update the signature files so the new ballots are legitimate now.
Everyone knew this happens for decades afaik.
" But if it is by nearly a hundred thousand, then there is cause for suspicion of pre-designed voting. How can we tell without an audit? Georgia never did one, all they did was a recount."
Yes, to that.
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