No Fraud but Questions About Absentee Ballots and Zuckerberg Donations Remain
A detailed analysis of the 2020 Presidential election in the State of Wisconsin found that Joe Biden did in fact defeat Donald Trump, but only by a razor thin margin. The Wisonsin Institute for Law & Liberty, (WILL), issued the report because as the write in the prelude “The aftermath of the Wisonsin 2020 election has been market by allegations that it was subject to widespread voter fraud. Concerns have been raised about middle of the night vote dumps, the conduct of election officials in various communities, the widespread adoption of vote-by-mail and absentee drop boxes, as well as allegations of votes being changed by voting machines.
“In a Marquette University Law Poll conducted in August 2021, nearly a year after the election, more than 70% of Republicans and 26% of Independents reported a lack of confidence that “the votes for president were accurately cast and counted in last year’s election.” When large numbers of voters question the authenticity of an election, their concerns, whether valid or not, need to be addressed. A group of researchers and attorneys at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) engaged in an in-depth examination of the 2020 election in Wisconsin.”
21,307 ballots and 29,166 absentee ballots were reviewed by WILL for the study, and while this conservative think tank did find specific instances where ballots were cast by voters who should not have been allowed to, their final takeaway was, “In all likelihood, more eligible voters cast ballots for Joe Biden than Donald Trump.”
In 2016, Donald Trump won the State of Wisconsin by 22,748 votes over Hillary Clinton. In 2020. Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by 20,682 votes, according to official final statistics. Turnout in the 2020 Presidential election in Wisconsin was huge, (72.3%). But according to WILL, the super-high turnout can be attributed to several factors other than fraud.
The #1 reason for high voter turnout in Wisconsin was allowing 265,000 Wisconsin voters to claim “indefinitely confinded status,” allowing them to receive an absentee ballot and vote from home during the pandemic. WILL found that the collection of these ballots in ballot drop boxes “runs afoul of state law requirements for the collection of absentee ballots.”
WILL points out that Thousands of absentee ballots were sent to residents who did not provide a Statewide photo ID, as is required by Wisconsin law. “Further, 54,259 ballots were cast by individuals who have never shown a voter ID in any election. This does not necessarily mean that Biden did not win a majority of the votes of those eligible to vote, but the questions of fraud and unlawful processes are related. It is unclear whether, had these ballots been disqualified, the results of the election would have changed.”
WILL estimates that “This widespread adoption of absentee ballot drop boxes, not provided for under Wisconsin law, was correlated with an increase of about 20,000 votes for Joe Biden, while having no significant effect on the vote for Trump. WILL does not claim that the voters who used drop boxes were ineligible voters or should have had their votes rejected. But the ad hoc adoption of absentee ballot drop boxes without established rules, parameters, or security presents an election vulnerability and a challenge to state law.”
The number of indefinitely confined voters increased from 66,611 in 2016 to 265,979 in 2020. In Wisconsin, Photo ID is required to vote by absentee. That law was not enforced in most of Wisconsin in 2020.
Of those 265,979 absentee ballots, WILL identifies that 54,259 ballots were cast by individuals who have never shown a voter ID in any election. 3,718 were cast from addresses that were on the 2019 Mover’s List. 7,747 failed their DMV check when they registered.
WILL goes through several categories of voters who should have been disqualified and not allowed to vote. They include:
130 voters who were felons and should not have been permitted to vote.
42 ballots cast by dead persons, but 40 of those voters were not counted.
129 votes cast by persons with a commercial address, or a PO Box.
“We found limited instances where ineligible persons voted or attempted to cast ballots. We found no evidence of more than one vote being cast in the name of the same voter. And our analysis of the results and voting patterns does not give rise to an inference of fraud.”
Voting machines did not have an impact on the outcome in Wisconsin. “Donald Trump won communities that used Dominion voting machines with 57.2%, an increase from 2016. WILL’s review found that jurisdictions that used Dominion voting machines had no effect on the expected vote total.”
WILL determined that private grants from the Center for Technical and Civic Life (CTCL), a non-profit largely funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, “resulted in an increase in turnout in five Wisconsin cities—all voting heavily for Democrat Joe Biden. A statistical analysis finds significant increases in turnout for Democrats, approximately 8,000 votes statewide, as a result of the distribution of CTCL grants”
WILL also found from their review that “a significant number of voters who voted for Biden and a Republican for Congress, while far fewer voters split the other way.” This support the argument of many in their conclusion of the 2020 Presidential election; that a small percentage of voters who cast their ballot for Trump in 2016, still voted for republican congressional candidates, but voted Biden for President.
So for those who claim voter fraud in Wisconsin for President, how about the republican victories in Wisconsin (and across the country for congress)? Are those elections also fradulent?
The only way that Trump gets close enough in Wisconsin to win in 2020 is if a court ruled that the some or all of the 66,000 absentee ballots that were cast without a photo ID, or for other reason, were invalid. And no court in Wisconsin made that ruling, thus validating the decision by many county boards of elections to allow persons to vote at home by absentee without a photo ID.
Thanks to WILL for their analysis, and report, which can be read at https://will-law.org/election-integrity/. We also encourage WILL, or some other organization, to conduct a similar study in the State’s or Arizona and Nevada, so we can disclaim the allegations of the “Election steal” once and for all.
