News.com.au reports:

Singer Katy Perry has faced a backlash from fans on Twitter after posting about reconciling with family members who voted for Donald Trump in the US election.

“The first thing I did when the presidency was called is text and call my family members who do not agree and tell them I love them and am here for them. #FamilyFirst. Call your family today. Happy Sunday,” she wrote, concluding with a love-heart emoji.

Twitter users didn’t hold back in their replies, calling Perry out for her ‘white privilege’ and for being ‘tone-deaf’.

They really are crazy. They’re offended because Katy Perry said you should still love family members who voted differently to you.

By 2024 they will have probably converted Katy to a Republican!

STATE OF THE RACE

One of the crucial hallmarks of democratic nations is the integrity of their election process. If the citizens cannot trust the voting system to be fair and accurate then any government elected under a shroud of election irregularities will be considered illegitimate in the eyes of the voters for the opposing candidate. Major election fraud is the hallmark of unstable countries whose leaders engage in dictatorial, illegal, and unconstitutional behaviour – think Zimbabwe, Iran, Venezuela, the various ‘Stans’ that were part of the Soviet Union, various African nations, the list is long and inglorious. On the question in my title hinges the result of the 2020 US Presidential Election. As things stand right now, media networks have called the election for Biden on the basis of provisional wins in key states. BREAKING NEWS: likely as a consequence of the suits filed in Federal Court in Pennsylvania today by the Trump campaign, Real Clear Politics, the respected news and poll aggregation site, has WITHDRAWN its call for Pennsylvania in favour of Biden and placed it back into the Undecided category. This drops Biden below the 270 mark needed to claim victory. [EDIT] Since writing, CNN has withdrawn Arizona and Georgia from Biden into Undecided so now he has only 279 ECVs – they are keeping their call for Pennsylvania. The Trump campaign allege widespread voter fraud in six key states: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada and they are challenging the preliminary results in various courts and Trump himself is refusing to concede. It needs to be pointed out that network projections of a winner is not in any way an official result. These are certified by key officials in each state and usually not until some time in December.

The precedent for a challenged Presidential election outcome is the 2000 election when networks projected Al Gore had won Florida making him President but the Bush campaign challenged the Florida result and the court challenges wound up in the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) where the court ruled in favour of Bush in Bush v Gore stopping the count that was continuing only in Democrat heavy counties authorized by the county courts and then the then left leaning Florida Appellate and Supreme Courts. SCOTUS ruled that the selective counting breached the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution’s 14^th Amendment. The final result was that Bush carried Florida by just under 600 votes and he was elected President but was considered illegitimate by Democrats who felt robbed of the election because the counting was stopped. For the record, a consortium of news organisations (all mainstream and not conservative) paid for all the FL ballots to be counted and Bush still won by just over 500 votes.

Network election gurus have justified their calling the race for Biden on the basis of his leads in the key states that they considered insurmountable given the track record of normal mandated or requested ballot recounts. Right now, the Biden leads are:

Arizona 14,000

Nevada 38,000

Pennsylvania 43,000

Georgia 11,000

Wisconsin 20,000

The media and Democrats maintain that either there is no voter fraud or that the fraud is minor and of a size that cannot reverse Biden’s leads. The Trump campaign (and some Republicans) maintain that the fraud is of such a scale that Biden’s leads can be overcome thus ensuring Trump’s re-election. This essay looks at the 23 types of election fraud in the US, looks at some statistical anomalies in this election and then looks at each of the five most affected states and some specifics of what the Trump campaign are doing.

TYPES OF ELECTION FRAUD

For each one of these types of voter fraud, I will link to actual examples in the 2020 election except for a couple that are anecdotal on social media.

1. Throwing away Trump ballots: These actions are alleged to have been undertaken by either postal workers or polling clerks at polling stations. Some have bragging videos on social media.
2. Legitimately registered voters who voted on election day, were properly verified and ID checked and yet their ballots are not showing up on the electronic vote tracking website as having been counted. This allegation only exists in states that bar code every ballot and offer an online vote tracking system. I have friends in Arizona who say there is no official record of their vote despite doing all that is required to vote.
3. Collecting of blank mail-in ballots, opening them filling them out for Biden then resealing them and submitting them for counting.
4. ‘Losing’ ballots that were favourable to Trump or Trump friendly military ballots found in a dumpster. 8,000 military votes were ‘lost’ in Georgia.
5. Ballot harvesting. This practice is illegal in almost all states. It is where operatives from a party go around and assist people in how to vote and offer to then take their ballot to the polling station. In Minneapolis, MN Project Veritas caught an operative for Ilhan Omar’s campaign who had illegally collected over 300 ballots all filled out in favour of Biden and Democrats.
6. Voting machines switching votes. Of the various types of election fraud, this is one of the hardest to detect and prove.
7. Allowing into the official ballot count ballots that were received after the legal deadline set out in the relevant State election legislation. Of all the types of election fraud, this will be the one the Trump campaign’s lawyers will focus the most on.
8. Manipulating United States Postal Service date stamps to backdate late received ballots. This is a way to turn an illegal late ballot into a legally validated ballot as in no. 7 above. Postal workers in Erie, PA have alleged via affidavit that they were instructed to do this by their supervisor.  
9. Rejected ballots called over-ballots. This is another voting machine anomaly and various voters in Arizona have attested to this happening. This happens when a manually completed in-person ballot on election day is fed into the ballot counting machine and the machine malfunctions and the poll clerk overrides the malfunction to force it through to make it seem to the voter that the vote has been counted when in fact it has been rejected. This often falls more into the category of honest mistake rather than an attempt at outright fraud.
10. However, a fraudulent version of no. 9 is when poll workers knowingly guide voters to a machine known to be faulty to deliberately cause that vote to not be counted. Various people on Facebook have described being guided to one particular machine by poll station staff in a heavily Republican district despite there being no crowds or queues and there being a wall of empty machines to process the ballot.
11. Illegally curing ballots. Curing a ballot is when a voter comes in without ID or proof of current address to match the address where they are registered, and the ballot cannot be counted as legal until these mistakes are fixed. Poll workers have been caught on camera faking signatures, addresses and ID in an attempt to cure the ballot.
12. Selectively curing ballots such as only allowing this practice in Democrat heavy counties and not allowing it in Republican heavy counties. This has formed the basis of the latest Trump campaign lawsuit in PA.
13. Allowing absentee ballots to be counted with no ID verification
14. Not purging the voter rolls of dead people and allowing them to vote year after year. There have been numerous instances of this.
15. Counting the ballots of people who’ve left a state but still illegally voted in their previous state of residence.
16. Fabricating in-state proof of residence to allow an illegal ballot to be counted.
17. Taking rejected mail-in ballots and trying to use provisional ballots (only to be used for people unable to cast an in-person ballot on election day because of a recent address change) to fix the errors after the receipt of mail in ballot deadline was passed.
18. Processing ballots as counted without signature verification on instruction from polling station supervisor.
19. Computer glitches that always seem to go in one direction, benefitting Biden and not Trump. Of particular concern is vote collation software from Dominion Voting Systems that was used by 30 states to track and add votes.
20. Refusing entry to authorized party poll watching representatives so that election day voting and then the subsequent count goes on only being watched by Democrat representatives. This enables some of the other fraudulent activities to go on undetected. Variations on this are blocking counting tables from the view of Republican poll watchers or allowing them entry but forcing them to stand so far back as to make it difficult to view what is going.
21. Mass sending of absentee ballots to everybody on the voter roll. This is not fraud per se, but it has enabled fraud on a much larger scale than before. Mail-in ballots have been an integral part of voting in many US states. The difference in these states is that voters REQUEST a mail-in ballot and so it comes to a secure and known address. Mass posting of mail-in ballots to all voters on a voter roll means multiple ballots coming to addresses due to not updated voter addresses due to deliberately left messy voter rolls. These unused mail-in ballots get thrown out and then are collected by ballot harvesters.
22. Voters who never requested a mail in ballot and go to vote in person only to find that someone had requested a mail-in ballot for them to another address and voted for them, so they were unable to vote.
23. Rest home fraud. Reports are coming out of PA that a single nursing home ordered over 1,000 ballots and that almost all were for Biden and almost none had any other candidate’s circle filled in i.e. no under ballot votes.

STATISTICAL ANOMOLIES UNIQUE TO 2020

This election has thrown up some statistical anomalies that may be a pointer to vote fraud.

• Comparison between the 2020 election night tallies and tallies a few days later in battleground but Republican run states like Ohio and Florida were little altered because those states have much more robust voting procedures and counting oversight.
• Comparison between election night tallies and tallies a few days later were little different in the key states in 2016 whereas in 2020, the vote tallies in several key battleground states all shifted dramatically in Biden’s favour after a few days of counting. Some of this will be attributable to Biden leading with mail-in ballots but the leads leading up to election day were of the order of say 55/45 or 60/40. Then the results of the late night dumps in MI, WI and PA were massively lopsided to the point of being outside the so-called Benford curve that the US State Department election monitors use in monitoring overseas elections. The curve looks at the standard partisan split of votes throughout the ballot time frame and uses standard deviation analysis. Examination of all candidates on the ballot in these three states except Biden fit the Benford norm whereas as the pattern of Biden late votes are 2, 3, 4 and in one case (some wards near Milwaukee) 5 standard deviation points off the norm, a statistical impossibility in a normal fair election and thus only possible by fraudulent means.
• Large new batches of votes would come in and 100% of the votes were for Biden which is statistically impossible if the votes were all legitimate. Polling guru Nate Silver posts this on Twitter with no comment as to its real world impossibility.

• Turnouts in key Democrat heavy cities and counties in MI, WI and PA not only shattered all records but have been proven to be statistically virtually impossible by statisticians who have examined decades of prior voting patterns in these areas.
• In 57 mostly rural counties in Wisconsin, Biden underperformed from Obama in 2012 by as much as 28%. If you factor in population losses, that number rises to 41%. In another 16 counties he underperformed by single digits. Only in 10 counties did he overperform Obama but adjusted for population loss since 2012 in only 3 counties did he over perform Obama. Trump overperformed from Obama’s 2012 turnout in all but 4 counties. This means that Trump overperformed in 95% of counties and Biden underperformed in 80%. In Washington County (suburban Milwaukee) Biden overperforms over Obama by 15% and yet in neighbouring Milwaukee County he under performs by 5% – that’s a massive 20% swing in voter behaviour across just 20 miles (30kms). The same massive discrepancy happens in Dane County (City of Madison) a huge 20% increase over Obama and yet all the surrounding counties, he underperforms by 2 – 12%. Again, a swing of 20 – 30% across a few miles! This same bizarre and statistically highly unusual anomaly continues in Waukesha County where the overperformance compared to surrounding rural counties ranges from 15 to an improbably 43%! Ditto Ozaukee County. Trump’s results follow a normal distribution pattern you’d expect of a Republican candidate. Across these 5 counties, Biden beats Obama by 83,000 votes and yet he only leads Trump by 20,000 statewide. Furthermore, turnout in these 5 counties is a whopping 92 – 95% compared to 67% in 2016 – a statistically impossible improvement without widespread fraud.
• The number of votes cast for President for a particular party does not always mean that votes for the same party’s senate race will be the same. Mostly there is what is called the under vote phenomenon as down ballot voter enthusiasm wanes.  However, it is common for Senate incumbents to out-poll the same party’s Presidential nominee. Let’s look at some races on both sides of the isle – the determiner here is that the winning candidate for President is compared with the winning candidate for Senate of the same party.

Florida 2016                Trump 4,617,886

                                                Rubio 4,835,191

                                                Difference -5%

Ohio 2016                    Trump 2,841,005

                                        Portman 3,118,567

                                        Difference – 10%

Iowa 2008                    Obama 818,240

                                        Harkin 930,514

                                        Difference -13%

Michigan is the most instructive comparison because it involves seemingly wining Democrat candidates for President and Senate in both 2008 and 2016. The turnout differences makes the raw vote swing meaningless but the percentage over and under swing is significant – an almost 10% swing from the status quo of the Senate candidate doing better than the Presidential candidate to Biden scoring above the Senate candidate.

Michigan 2020           Biden votes 2,794,853   

Peters votes 2,722,724   

Difference +72,129 (+3%)               

Michigan 2008    Obama votes 2,867,680

Levin votes 3,033,550   

Difference        -6%                                             

Today the Trump campaign claimed the undervote of 42,000 in Arizona was two times the usual and 70 – 115,000 in Michigan a staggering three times more than usual. It was 98,000 in Pennsylvania, 80,000 in Georgia and 62,000 in Wisconsin, all well above historical norms.                              

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE CONTESTED STATES?

I have left Michigan off the list as the winning margin of 150,000 will be likely a too steep a hill to overcome, however the RNC have filed in Federal District Court in Detroit proof of some 2,800 incidents of voter fraud that they plan to insist be investigated.

Networks show Trump on only 214 Electoral College votes but Alaska is 2:1 for Trump so he should pick up 3 there and North Carolina has a mandatory pause on counting until November 14 but Trump is well ahead with fewer fraud allegations being made so he should snare those 15 ECVs making 232. Trump’s path to victory lies in overturning the counts in the following states. He can get there with various combinations of 3 (with PA) or 4 (without PA)

ARIZONA (11) – 14,000 lead

• Biden’s lead continues to shrink as ballots are slowly counted in Arizona. The regular count may yet give it to Trump. If not, the mandatory recount will focus on mail-in ballots that went more for Biden so any rejection of improper ballots will more disproportionately come off his total.
• The Trump campaign and the RNC have sued Maricopa County Elections for the problems of the over vote machines mentioned in point no. 9 above and for the fact that the disenfranchised voters have yet to have a proper ballot be done to make up for the election day mistake.

GEORGIA (16) – 11,000 lead

• Georgia has a very thorough re-canvas procedure and this time Republican inspectors, sometimes absent in the Democrat heavy countries in and around Atlanta in the initial count, will be present to challenge invalid votes and have them discarded.
• Apparently counting in Democrat heavy Fulton County ended at 1030pm on election night and all poll watchers of both parties were asked to leave but the count recommenced in secret at 1am with no Republican poll watchers invited back. Anomalies like this will be challenged in court cases soon to be filed.
• There are over 8,000 military ballots still left outstanding in GA, ballots that normally heavy favour Trump.

NEVADA (6) – 38,000 lead

• The Nevada GOP have made a criminal referral to the Department of Justice for voter fraud of 3,000 out of state residents voting illegally in Nevada but this number likely will expand to 6,000.
• Nevada’s voting is dominated by Clark County incorporating metro Las Vegas and the County election supervisor is a Democrat who refuses to investigate allegations of voter irregularities that run the gambit of the list above until after counting finishes. This is being litigated.

PENNSYLVANIA (20) – 43,000 lead

• There have been multiple issues in multiple counties in PA and various of the fraudulent activities listed above were prevalent. Philadelphia has been a hotbed of voting irregularities for decades.
• Republican PA House speaker has called for a full audit of votes before certification.
• The lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign and RNC against the PA Secretary of State and 7 selected Democrat heavy counties in Federal District Court today alleges breaches of the Equal Protection Clause for selectively allowing rejected ballots to be cured in Democrat heavy counties and yet preventing such conduct in Republican heavy counties. The unequal treatment extended to allowing Democrats to view the count in GOP heavy counties and preventing Republican observers from overseeing the count in Democrat heavy counties. In Allegheny County (covering metro Philadelphia), a staggering 682,000 mail-in ballots were allowed to be counted with NO Republican observers present.
• Late ballots: this is the subject of the lawsuit filed by the Republican Attorney Generals Association with 10 State Attorney Generals filing amicus (support) briefs. PA State law stipulates that mail-in ballots must be receive before 8pm on the day of the election. The PA Democratic Party filed suit in October seeking a 3 day extension of this rule and the PA Supreme Court upheld this rule change. The GOP appealed to SCOTUS claiming that only the legislature can change election law, not a court but SCOTUS was tied 4 – 4 due to the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and so the lower court ruling was left to stand but Chief Justice Roberts, sensing this would be a likely post-election flashpoint, instructed the PA election officials to separate out all ballots received after election day and NOT count them. It turns out that because PA election officials (the PA Secretary of State is a Democrat as is the Governor) failed to abide by the SCOTUS segregation ruling, the GOP had to get Justice Alito to reiterate the segregation ruling only days ago. We are talking about 400,000 late received ballots the majority of which went to Biden and a large number of them were counted when it may turn out that a subsequent case that likely will end up at SCOTUS, now with a 5 – 4 true conservative balance (Roberts has become a swing vote), could rule that the late ballots already counted must come off the vote totals for each candidate. Some estimates put the Biden/Trump split on these ballots at 90/10 and so any disallowed late ballots will disproportionately affect Biden’s total.
• 100,000 people voted in person on election day (voters who voted in person on election day favoured Trump heavily) whose votes were held aside as provisional ballots to be counted later.
• Biden’s margin is just above the automatic recount mechanism however the PA Legislature is controlled by the GOP in both Houses and they can order a recount as can SCOTUS.

WISCONSIN (10) – 20,000 lead

• Wisconsin is another state that Trump was leading handily on election night then suddenly at 3am next morning, 100,000 Biden votes were dumped into the system giving Biden a narrow lead. Wisconsin’s recount rules are very stringent, and the tight margin will trigger an automatic re-canvas. The ability of a WI re-canvas to flush out illegal votes was most dramatically illustrated in a 2019 special election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. On election night the Democratic candidate was ahead by 350 and after the recanvas, the Republican held the seat by 7,000 votes thanks to the re-canvas.
• The heavily Democrat counties near the city of Milwaukee and Madison (featured earlier) with absurdly high voter turnout that are statistically impossible will be closely scrutinised. Democrats claim this came from same day registration allowed on election day, but the WI law requires that same day registration voters have to have a valid photo ID, a verified signature, AND a witness. Anything fraudulent and not meeting WI electoral law will be flushed out in the re-canvas.

CONCLUSION

There is no denying that election fraud has occurred and across the many of the types of fraud detailed. The crucial question is how large the problem is, i.e. is it large enough to reverse Biden’s leads in key states and then what are the remedies available and will they be effective. No one knows the answer until these things are fully litigated through the hierarchy of courts.

• Disallowing of illegally cast ballots. This is by far the biggest thrust of the litigation of the Trump campaign. If proper vote audits can be conducted and various categories of ballots can be proven to be illegally cast, a court can order those ballots to be taken off the vote total. As stated earlier, a large number of late ballots were cast in the PA election and it is unknown at this time as to how many are now part of the official count and how many can and will be found to be invalid. Because Pennsylvania has the largest number of Electoral College votes of the contested states then all challenges filed by the Trump campaign and the GOP will likely be litigated all the way to SCOTUS. As stated earlier, SCOTUS has already weighed in on the PA situation but did not decide in favour of the PA Republican Party to rule on the legality of late ballots rather they kicked for touch and asked for these ballots to be set aside. That the PA Secretary of State did not entirely do this as instructed prompting the Alito order a few days ago, may send a signal to SCOTUS that the Commonwealth is not taking its attempt at adjudicating this tricky issue seriously and they may be less favourable in a subsequent ruling on the crucial deciding case that surely will soon appear on their docket.
• State Legislatures ultimately write each State’s electoral laws and they formally appoint the States’ Electors when the Electoral College meets. In AZ, GA, PA, MI and WI, each chamber of their Legislatures is controlled by the Republican Party. Already a joint Michigan House and Senate Committee has met in an emergency session to evaluate aspects of voting irregularities including going as far as issuing subpoenas to state election officials to “please explain”. If a Legislature decides that the State’s Presidential election was too fraught with fraud issues and it is not possible to get to the bottom of the irregularities in time, they could declare the election null and void thus subtracting those Electoral College votes from Biden or declare Trump the winner and direct the winning party’s electors to cast the state’s Electoral College votes.
• In the unlikely event of a tie of 269 ECVs each (only possible if Trump wins PA, NV and AZ and Biden holds GA and WI) then the vote is sent to the House of Representatives and each State’s delegation is allowed one vote and the delegation is required to vote in line with the party that holds the majority of Congressional seats in that State. Whilst the Democrats currently hold the House 215 to Republicans 196, Republicans hold a majority of House seats in 30 states and Democrats only in 19 (Michigan is tied 7 each).

The media have anointed Biden the winner and some predictable Republicans have decided it’s all over. Most world leaders have assumed that Trump can’t win and are calibrating accordingly. The hill does seem steep to climb but Trump has faced many seemingly career ending battles and prevailed so it would be foolish to count him out. He is motivated to fight on and the apparatus of the Republican Party in all the key states, the RNC and various popular key GOP Senators are keen to see the appeals, audits and recounts play themselves out and money is no object. If the election fraud is as widespread as some fear, then Trump could flip enough states back to him and eke out 270+ EC votes. If the appeals fail then it will be harder for Biden’s opponents to cry they were robbed of power illegitimately. Frankly, if Democrats have nothing to hide and genuinely believe that Biden won without any vote tampering of any substance, then they should welcome these reviews and audits and patiently wait it out but they seem impatient to move on and have pooh poohed all the challenges. Trump has said if all legal avenues to turn the result his way fail; he will concede and do so graciously.

I will end with this last little nugget. The two most controversial of Trump’s three Supreme Court nominees (Brett Kavanagh – subjected to an unprecedent storm of eventually unprovable allegations of sexual assault and Amy Coney Barrett – controversially confirmed mere days from the election), both were an integral part of George W Bush’s legal team who successfully fought and won Bush v Gore that secured George W Bush the 2000 election!

California is seen as the liberal capital of America, but while they voted 65% for Biden, there were some pretty conservative outcomes on state referenda:

• Rejected by 48% to 52% higher commercial property taxes to fund education
• Rejected by 44% to 56% repealing a ban on affirmative action
• Rejected by 45% to 55% allowing 17 year olds to vote in primaries
• Rejected by 40% to 60% expanding rent control
• Approved by 59% to 41% that Uber and Lyft drivers are contractors not employees
• Rejected by 44% to 56% ending cash bail

Voting to uphold a ban on affirmative action was perhaps the most surprising result.

Yesterday afternoon I did a quick tweet on what would be my dream team for the Biden Cabinet. Most of my tweets get maybe a dozen responses.

This tweet has had over 10,000 replies and retweets!

Within minutes of making it I was getting replies from Democrats in the US telling me how I was wrong. And as they replied, their followers saw it and I’ve now had over 10,000 responses.

One of the things that has puzzled me is how 70 million Americans could vote for Donald Trump. Having now had 10,000 angry Democrats hurl abuse at me, I now understand why so many people voted for Trump despite his manifest flaws. They are the GOP’s best weapon.

To be fair to those responding, not all have been angry. In fact I haven’t even read 2% of the responses. But there has certainly been a lot of abuse. There has also been some excellent humour as people do their own sarcastic dream teams with additions such as Thanos as Secretary of Defence.

Something which has amused me is that this was clearly a tweet of my personal preferences. It wasn’t me saying who I think Biden would appoint, or who I think is in the running. It was purely my personal preferences. But 10,000+ people felt the need to say they disagree in various ways.

As it has got so much attention, I thought I would expand on why I chose the people I did.

State: Mitt Romney

Romney was the candidate in 2012 who said Russia was the No 1 foe of the US, and everyone (including Obama) scoffed and said he was stuck in the 1980s. Romney has been proven right.

Romney was shortlisted to be Trump’s Secretary of State and was the only honourable Republican Senator who voted to convict Trump. Selecting him would be a huge slap in the face to Trump but would be bipartisan outreach to the mainstream Republicans.

The Secretary of State doesn’t set foreign policy. The President does. Most foreign policy is bipartisan anyway. Appointing Romney would work well domestically and internationally. And it would have reality mirror a West Wing episode, which is always a good thing.

Treasury: Lawrence Summers

Biden needs a strong economy for him or Harris to win in 2024. The economy was the one area Trump was seen as better. Summers was Treasury Secretary to Bill Clinton when the economy was booming, and was the last time the US was running a surplus and paying off debt.

Defence: Pete Buttigieg

Buttigieg obviously is up to far more than being Mayor of South Bend. As a former veteran, making him Secretary of Defence would be a good fit. He’d be respected by soldiers as someone who has served. He would also bring youthful energy and vigor to what is a very massive bureaucracy.

Attorney-General: Geoffrey Berman

Berman is the former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York who was sacked by Trump for refusing to drop investigations into the Trump organisation and family.

What better person to head up the Department of Justice than Berman. He would ensure any federal crimes by Trump and associates would be prosecuted, and he can’t be accused of being a partisan hack as he is a Republican who was initially appointed by Trump. If you want to see Trump in jail, Berman is your man – not because he is anti-Trump, but because he believes no one is above the law.

Education: Michelle Rhee

Okay I know this one is a non starter for Biden. The teacher unions would implode. But this was about who I would like to see and Rhee is a former Chancellor of DC Public Schools (appointed by Democrats). She gave teachers huge pay rises in exchange for being able to sack bad teachers. Reading and maths pass rates increased by 14% and 17% under her. If you want to increase literacy and numeracy rates for under-privileged students, I’d pick Rhee.

Homeland Security: Tammy Duckworth

A Democratic US Senator wounded in active service seems non controversial to me.

Trade: Paul Ryan

This seems to be the one that has upset people the most. My rationale is that Biden appears to be pro free trade, unlike Trump who was anti free trade. Biden has said he wants the US to rejoin the (CP)TPP.

Trump has led the Republican Party away from free trade. Ryan was the most prominent person I could think of (as McCain has died) who could lead them back to supporting free trade. In the past trade policy has been reasonably bi-partisan.

DNI: David Petraeus

The intelligence community has been broken after years of attacks from Trump. They need a strong leader who can rebuild them. A former CIA Director under Obama seems ideal. Petraeus isn’t partisan like Brennan. His departure because of his affair and mishandling of classified (not secret) information shouldn’t rule him out from future service

Anyway the above is a slightly longer version of my two minute tweet. I didn’t write it expecting anyone to agree with them. I did it to spark a debate. I seem to have over-achieved 🙂

UPDATE: The Spinoff has an article on this.

Stuff reports:

A post by Wellington City councillor Tamatha Paul referring to public submitters as “absolute knobs” has been removed from Twitter.

Paul made the comment about a group of Mt Victoria residents who were part of a video submission on the council’s draft spatial plan on Wednesday. …

The group appeared on video at the council meeting as part of a submission by Mt Victoria resident Phil Kelliher, who spoke to hundreds of affected residents about the proposals.

“Shout out to these absolute knobs in the bottom right corner who said they enjoy living in Mt Vic cos [sic] the poor people live ‘out there’ and the wealthy people live ‘over here’ and it’s good for networking,” Paul said.

So these ratepayers had taken the time and trouble to make a submission to the Council, and Cr Paul is insulting them in real time on Twitter, calling them knobs.

She also smeared them by claiming the direct opposite of what she said. They were saying they don’t want wealthy and poor people living apart.

In the video, one of the women said she opposed medium-density housing in the suburb because it would lead to unaffordable housing for some people currently living in the area.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea at all, because the people that can afford to live in those [new homes], it won’t be us.

“The more up-building you try to do in the city, the more expensive it becomes.”

She said the current arrangement meant people from all different backgrounds were able to mingle together, but the new housing proposals could create a situation where “the poor people live out that way and the rich people live up this way”.

So the opposite of what Cr Paul claimed.

Paul appeared to misunderstand the comments, and said she took them to mean that the woman wanted wealthy people and poor people to be separated.

She told Stuff on Friday she still believed the comments were arrogant and were an example of “white privilege”.

And to make things worse she smears them again.

Is this really what we want from elected representatives? That if they disagree with your submission, they’ll smear and abuse you on Twitter in real time?

Stuff reports:

The Government’s income tax changes will be legislated before Christmas and come into force on April 1 next year.

Labour campaigned on creating a new tax bracket for income earned over $180,000. The party proposed to tax income earned above $180,000 at 39 per cent.

New Zealand is still in a recession and Labour’s priority is to increase taxes.

Radio NZ reports:

Ministry of Education staff who subverted communications with a school principal after he raised safety concerns about a proposed bus stop, acted “inappropriately” and their behaviour is “extremely disappointing,” the Ministry says.

So what will the Ministry do?

Emails obtained under the Official Information Act show the staff pretended to get in touch with Elsthorpe School principal Sandy Crawford, who had repeatedly invited the Ministry to a public meeting on 9 October, 2019 to explain their proposal to cut the bus service and install a new stop, without success.

In the days leading up to the meeting, the Ministry’s national operations manager of transport Steve Guiney wrote to regional transport advisor Janice Kennerley and another official Lucy Jackson asking Kennerley to give the appearance of trying to get in touch with Crawford about the meeting, while actually trying to avoid him.

This is not a junior official.

He then asked his staff member to prove they had attempted to make genuine attempts to talk to Crawford.

“You must try to reach the Principal/Board … show me a trail of attempts to talk via official means with this principal. I am not at all in favour of you or anyone fronting to discuss policy with people who are ineligible to receive the benefits of at policy,” he wrote.

Kennerley responded she had done just that, by calling Crawford when she knew he was not there.

“As below, I did try Elsthorpe School at 2.13pm but no reply. As per Lucys email, the principal is away at the principals conference so not unexpected.”

So they called the principal when they knew he was away at a conference, so they could claim they had tried to contact him.

Documents obtained by RNZ under the Official Information Act show a dramatic cut to bus services was floated as a way to reduce roll pressures in Taumarunui, where the “majority of students are not attending their closest school”.

In 2015, the Ministry proposed closing or merging several primary schools in the area because they were under-populated, but a community backlash resulted in the plan being quashed.

In July 2019, a Ministry staffer noted that many of the primary schools were still empty because students “are currently supported by the buses to attend their school of choice”.

He proposed reducing the 11 bus services to four or six in order to redirect students to their closest schools which were under-populated.

“Any reduction in bus services will terminate student choice, and will result in students no longer having a way to get to their school of choice.”

“This will be an opportunity to better align the school network in Taumarunui.”

This is equally disturbing. Officials proposing eliminating school bus routes as a way of eliminating student choice!

I’ve been contacted by the family of someone who was in the same row as the positive Covid-19 contact on Air NZ flight 457 on Thursday.

They have been given different isolation instructions from every agency they have interacted with. They are so alarmed as the lack of coherent and consistent advice, that they want people to be aware that we still have systematic failures in our Covid-19 response, as we saw with the lack of front line worker testing.

The sequence of events is:

1. Contacted my MOH and told the traveller in Row 23 (the same row as the positive person) was a casual contact only and did not need to isolate or even get a Covid-19 test! The traveller works in a restaurant, so if he was positive would be at very high risk of spreading it. They not only said he can go to work but that he can continue flying.
2. The employer didn’t want the traveller coming to work without a test so they rang Healthline to ask how they could get a test done
3. Healthline advised that he was in fact a close contact not a casual contact so he must self-isolate for 14 days but the rest of the family (who had been with him him for 48 hours) did not need to self-isolate
4. Then the MOH put out a press release (according to Stuff) saying everyone who sat within two rows of Row 23 must isolate for 14 days and their families must also isolate until they return a negative test
5. They called Healthine again and Healthline said the MOH advice was wrong and the family did not need to isolate or get a test
6. They then called Public Health (part of MOH) and a public health nurse said they should all isolate until they get test results
7. They were then called by a senior doctor in from Healthline to apologise for the inconsistent advice and he confirmed they should all isolate
8. Then they were called back again by the public health nurse and the Healthline doctor and told that they had now classified the traveller as a casual contact due to change of protocol (they were on the other side of the aisle) and none of them need to isolate or get tested!

This is beyond mickey mouse. If someone in the same row as a positive Covid-19 case gets told six different things from different parts of the health system, then something is very wrong.

The family also say that they were never asked any of the following:

• Are you using the Covid-19 app?
• Please wear a mask in public?
• Do you need any PPE?
• Do you live with elderly or high risk people?
• Do you work with food or the public?
• Do you need any assistance?

This mismanagement has been very upsetting to the family, as well as the risk to public health. They have young kids who were told they would have to be isolated from their Dad for 14 days, and were really upset.

I also find it hard to understand why even casual contacts are told they don’t need to get a Covid-19 test. Why on earth don’t they just arrange for all casual contacts to be tested asap?

So again in summary they were told five different things from four different health agencies, all within one day. That shows systematic problems remain with our Covid-19 response.

NB: The family member who gave me this information voted Labour. This is not about politics. It is about concern that the health system is not working as it should.

Something you will hear a lot of is that Trump has been defeated but not Trumpism. What this means is that the Republican Party overall did well enough that it will not treat Trump as a pariah. In fact he may remain the most powerful Republican for the next four years. There is talk he may set up his own TV network or show, or even run again. Of course that may all change as his legal problems grow once he leaves office.

Let’s look at the overall results:

• President: Trump looks likely to lose by around 4% to 5% on the popular vote and around 232 – 306 in the electoral college.
• Senate: There are two run off elections in Georgia. The best result for GOP is 52-48. Worst is a 50-50 tie which would see the Senate flip
• House: No Republican lost their seat. Seven Democrats have. Dems picked up three open seats. Overall GOP up six at this stage.
• States: Democrats have not won a single state legislature off the GOP. GOP won New Hampshire House and Senate and Montana Governorship giving them control of all three parts of Government there. This has a big impact on redistricting after the census

So it appears unlikely the GOP as a whole will turn its back on Trump and Trumpism. They have a decent chance of winning the House in 2022. The Senate may be more challenging for them as they will be defending 20 seats and the Democrats 12.

So what do we mean by Trumpism. It is hard to define but I’d divide it up into three areas – policies, style and authoritarism.

Policies

Trumpist policies which differ from traditional GOP ones are anti free trade, anti military intervention and no concern about deficits or debt.

It is unlikely that the GOP will revert back to its former policy stances, even though some individual politicians will.

Style

It is likely aspiring 2024 candidates will try and follow the Trump style to some degree. By style I mean the highly combative take no prisoners approach where you demonise your opponents and work at getting out your base rather than persuading centrist voters. I expect more prominent GOP politicians will attack the media relentlessly and continue populist rhetoric where all the problems of society are blamed on identifiable groups (illegal immigrants, Antifa, media, etc). I expect the GOP will especially fully fight a culture war against identity politics on the left. This is what most motivates their base.

Authoritarianism

Trump broke numerous democratic values and norms. He sacked the FBI Director for not dropping an investigation. He blackmailed Ukraine to try and smear his opponents. He publicly demanded charges be dropped against his friends and laid against his opponents. He has spent months undermining the legitimacy of elections.

This is the area least likely to be taken up by others in the GOP. They don’t share Trump’s psychological disorders and it is hard to see what Trump did here working for anyone else.

So overall I suspect the GOP will reject authoritarianism but continue to embrace Trumpist policies and a Trumpian combative style to the culture war.

Whether this works will depend partly on how well Biden governs as President and also the final results of the Senate elections. Personally I expect the GOp to win at least one of the Georgia run offs as I can’t see Georgia wanting to hand over both chambers of Congress to the Democrats.

It is interesting to look at which Labour MPs have not been made Ministers, despite having been in Parliament for three or more terms. This suggests they may never become a Minister.

• Louisa Wall, in her 5th term
• Rino Tirikatene, in his 4th term
• Adrian Rurawhe, in his 3rd term

As we have seen a first term MP and several second term MPs becomes Ministers, it is safe to conclude the three above probably never will.

How about the 2017 intake. Let’s look at what has happened to them:

• Kiri Allan – Cabinet
• Ginny Andersen
• Tamati Coffey
• Liz Craig
• Paul Eagle
• Willie Jackson – Cabinet
• Anahila Kanongata’s-Suisuiki
• Marja Lubeck
• Jo Luxton
• Kieran McAnulty – Chief Whip
• Greg O’Connor
• Willow-Jean Prime – Junior Whip
• Priyance Radhakrishan – Minister
• Deborah Russel – Under-Secretary
• Jamie Strange
• Jan Tinetti – Cabinet
• Angie Warren-Clark
• Duncan Webb – Junior Whip

The ones in bold are those who have not got a role in the executive, or are a whip or presiding officer. If Labour gets a third term, some may get there. But there are a lot of 2020 intake MPs who will be keen to get there also.

Stuff reports:

A property management company that got in trouble for a “tone deaf” email to renters at the beginning of the lockdown is under fire again after a letter drop “inviting neighbours to snitch” on tenants.

The letter from Quinovic advised neighbours new tenants had moved into their area and encouraged them to contact the company with “any concerns about the property and its management”. …

The letter drew harsh criticism after it was shared on Twitter on Tuesday.

“We got a letter from slumlord scumbags Quinovic saying that they rented out one of the houses on our street inviting us to snitch on the tenants. More b……. that should be illegal,” the original post said.

I am not a fan of Quinovic. I have heard many horror stories myself, and they are not a company I would ever use as if I was a landlord.

But I’m not sure in this case they have done anything wrong. I think it is useful for neighbours to know who owns or is responsible for a property.

The fact someone on Twitter is outraged about something is now newsworthy. Many people on Twitter are perpetually outraged about pretty much everything.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has clearly won the 2020 presidential election and will be the 46th President of the United States.

Biden has an almost 3% lead in the popular vote and has 279 confirmed electoral college votes. He is on track to win 306 electoral college votes, the same as Trump got in 2016 which Trump described as a landslide.

The key states are:

• Nevada (6): Called for Biden who has a 25,000 lead or 2%.
• Pennsylvania (20): Called for Biden who has a 34,000 lead or 0.51%
• Arizona (11): Called by some for Biden who has a 20,500 lead or 0.63%
• Georgia (16): Not called but Biden has a 7,500 lead or 0.15%

Trump will of course never concede. His psychological disorders make it impossible to do so. In his universe or mind he is always a winner and always the best at everything. Not conceding isn’t a strategy, it is a psychological necessity.

What will be interesting is who will be first to charge Trump after 20th of January. The three most likely are:

• The New York Attorney-General
• The Manhattan District Attorney
• The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York

If Trump pardons himself that will only affect the US Attorney for SDNY.

The focus is now going to go on Biden, as we have a clear result. The remaining lawsuits affect a trivial number of votes and can’t impact the overall result.

It will be interesting to see if Biden names Cabinet appointments now, or waits for the results of the Georgia Senate runoffs. The sort of nominees he can get confirmed will vary if the GOP or Democrats control the Senate.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand’s highest earners will pay almost 25 per cent of all income tax received by the Government under Labour’s proposed top tax rate.

Labour campaigned on a new top tax rate of 39 per cent for people earning more than $180,000. It said that this would raise an extra $550 million a year and affect only the top 2 per cent of earners.

At present, the 3 per cent of earners who receive more than $150,000 a year in income pay 23.5 per cent of all income tax, or $8.67 billion of $36.85b.

NZ Initiative chief economist Eric Crampton said that would increase to 24.7 per cent if the Government was able to claim the full $550m in extra tax.

Some won’t be happy until the 3% have been taxed so heavily they leave.

If this eventuates, then Biden will have won the Electoral College by the exact same margin Trump won in 2016 (which Trump of course called the greatest landslide ever etc).

Let’s look at the four main uncalled states:

• Nevada: Biden ahead by 22,000 votes or 1.8%. Around 9% of votes remaining to be counted. They are mainly from Clark County which is heavily blue leaning.
• Arizona: Biden ahead by 44,000 votes or 1.4%. Around 7% of votes remaining to be counted. Trump would need to win 60% of them to win.
• Pennsylvania: Biden ahead 9,000 votes or 0.1%. Around 5% of votes remaining to be counted. Trump would need to win 52% of them to win. They are mainly from Democratic-leaning counties (Bucks and Lehigh) or heavily Democratic areas (Philadelphia and Allegheny counties)
• Georgia: Biden ahead by 1,600 votes or under 0,1%, with only absentee, provisional and military ballots uncounted. Half the absentee ballots left are from Gwinnett County which is heavily Democratic

It is important to note the vote counts showing Biden ahead in states like Pennsylvania are all from votes received on or before election day. The ballots received after election day have not yet been included so Trump’s lawsuit in Pennsylvania won’t affect the outcome.

Also worth reflecting that the talk of candidates being ahead, and falling behind etc is a bit misleading. The actual number of votes has not changed in the past three days – just which ones have been counted so far. Some states count advance votes first (as we do in NZ) and some states count them last. If Pennsylvania had counted the advance votes first, then the vote count would have shown Biden leading the entire time.

It is not unusual for advance votes and on the day votes to vary. Take NZ for example. National got 30% of election day votes but only 25% of advance votes and 20% of special votes.

So there is no real chance Joseph Biden will not be the 46th President of the United States. It is just a matter of when those last four states are called. Biden wins with Arizona and Nevada alone.

A guest post by Bob McCoskrie of Family First:

Despite starting the campaign with a 36-point lead two years ago (according to Horizon Polling), the YES campaign lost the cannabis debate by 2.3 points (an incredible 38-point turnaround).

This was despite an avalanche of favourable media support which even experienced broadcasters observed as very bias – (“the prominence of the pro-campaigners in mainstream media, the lack of balance”, and “The media in general has featured, to my eye, favourable coverage of why we should be legalising the stuff, as opposed to why we shouldn’t”).

There was also a strong campaign by the Electoral Commission to enrol young voters using the enticement of being able to vote in the dope referendum – a group of voters more likely to vote yes.

And there were accusations of bias by the government. In a paper in the NZ Medical Journal, the academics described the claims in the government pamphlet delivered to all voters as “inflated”, “unrealistic”, and “unlikely to be achievable”.  The BERL report – which the government tried to hide – revealed that pot shops will be as noticeable in number as fast food outlets, and that usage will increase by almost 30%. And government advice – which the government also tried to hide and was forced to release by the Ombudsman – said that “there would almost certainly be unintended and unanticipated consequences of legalising cannabis for personal use”, and that “there is insufficient data to understand the medium- to long-term impacts”

So, with all the inertia behind the YES campaign, why did they still so spectacularly fail?

• they used Helen Clark as the front person. Prime Ministers who have been voted out can express their opinion, but not lead controversial campaigns – especially when they’ve already annoyed people opposing charity concerts being held
• they used Green MP Chloe Swarbrick who comes across as condescending and lectures people. Labelling the opposition as ‘juvenile’ ‘fear-mongering’ and not being mature in their attitude alienates thinking voters. It also reminded people of the extremism of the Greens (which many voters tactically voted to reduce their influence)
• the YES campaign slogans “On our terms” (because it hasn’t worked anywhere else?), “We Do” (sounds like a debate about marriage), “Make it legal” (make what legal?), were vague and boring and didn’t even include the key word ‘”Yes”. The YES campaign was disjointed with no unity and clear messaging – compared to the NO campaign which was clever, clear and edgy – “Too precious to be wasted”, “Say Nope To Dope” (in our humble opinion). 
• the NZ Drug Foundation’s ‘nuclear’ $300k campaign before the official campaign period annoyed the hell out of people – especially when the YES campaign was accusing the NO campaign of having ‘deep pockets’. Labelling NO voters as needing to ‘get mature’ also annoyed people.
• the YES campaign spent more time and energy attacking the ‘messenger’ rather than the ‘message’
• nobody believed the claims that the NO campaign was somehow being bankrolled by American interests – which of course they weren’t 
• the NO campaign peaked at just the right time (when advance voting was about to begin). YES campaigners like Helen Clark were delivering pamphlets after most people had made up their mind
• the majority of voters didn’t believe the narrative that legalisation would reduce harm (it will increase harm), or that it would get rid of the gangs (it won’t), or that young people would be less likely to want to use it (despite adults being able to legally grow and consume it far more freely).
• the “it will make lots of tax money” argument simply didn’t add up – because voters recognised the excess social harms and fiscal costs already experienced with alcohol and tobacco
• arguing that “lots of people doing it justifies changing the law” didn’t work. Otherwise we would need to liberalise the laws around child abuse, family violence, assault, fraud, meth (P) use, drunk driving, shoplifting & sexual assault
• arguing that the “law was racist” didn’t work. Most thinking people realised that bias and racism is a far bigger issue than saying that allowing people the legal right to get wasted & suffer addiction harms will solve the problem. Telling people that if they vote no they’re racist also didn’t help.

• the attempt to legalise smoking cannabis directly contradicted the successful SmokeFree2025 messaging and campaigning
• the YES campaign supporters tried to bring alcohol into the debate, but that actually reinforced the concerns people had about big corporates exploiting communities for profit and addiction, not health 
• neutral voters who tried to engage with YES voters on Facebook were treated like imbeciles and dismissed 

• YES voters trolled the NO campaign pages but, through their commenting style, actually reinforced the perception that cannabis use was not good for the intellect! Threats made against the NO campaign also didn’t help.
• The Patrick Gower documentaries and the movie “Toke” (conveniently timed to air just before the referendum) simply reinforced stereotypes of an unrelatable subculture which turned middle New Zealanders off.

The one thing the YES campaign did get right? 

They used medicinal marijuana as a smokescreen – which fooled a lot of people into voting yes. Exit polling showed that 60% of Yes voters voted in order to make cannabis available for medicinal purposes such as pain relief. This is despite the fact that medicinal cannabis has already been legalised, and the Government clearly spelt out on the official referendum website that “Medicinal cannabis is not included in the proposed law that will be voted on in the referendum.” The silence by the media and YES campaigners around the private members bill of Dr Shane Reti which was drawn just before the election confirms that the YES campaign was keen to use the medicinal aspect to increase the yes vote.

But overall, the YES campaign still blew it.

Some big changes:

• Labour gains one List MP
• National loses two List MPs
• Maori Party gains a List MP
• National loses Northland, Whangarei and Maungakiekie
• Matt King and Denise Lee out of Parliament
• Shane Reti now a List MP
• Maureen Pugh and Nick Smith safe, due to King and Lee losing
• Cannabis referendum lost
• Euthanasia referendum passed

UPDATE:Gerry Brownlee has announced he is stepping down as Deputy Leader of the National Party. So caucus will elect a new Deputy Leader on Tuesday.

Stuff reported:

High-profile runner Anthony Van Dyck has been euthanised after failing to complete the course in the Melbourne Cup.

One of the favourites to give trainer Aidan O’Brien his first Melbourne Cup victory, Anthony Van Dyck was injured during the race.

“It is with sadness that we confirm that Anthony Van Dyck had to be humanely euthanised after sustaining a fractured fetlock during the running of the Melbourne Cup at Flemington,” Racing Victoria’s Jamie Steir said.

In the last eight Melbourne Cups, seven horses have died. Is this humane?

Stuff reports:

Liquidator Damien Grant has been given another chance to make his case to be allowed to continue his insolvency career. …

In a judgment released on Tuesday, the High Court in Auckland overturned the Ritanz decision and required it to be reconsidered.

Grant has credit card convictions from the late 1980s and a fraud conviction from when he was 26 in 1994, for his part in a share-dealing scam. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and served 16. …

Muir said the Ritanz panel had applied an incorrect test when “weighing up” the past convictions against his present career.

All of its significant doubts had a retrospective focus, Muir said.

“At no stage did the panel say that it had significant, or even any, doubts Mr Grant has truly moved on from his criminal past…. The danger, as I see it, in the panel’s approach is that in the case of serious dishonesty offending … a balancing approach may leave the scales permanently weighted against admission. That is not to say that the nature of the offending is not important. Conspicuously it is.

“[If] the door cannot be considered permanently closed to Grant and he is free to apply again in the future, the question must inevitably arise, if not now, when? Is 35 or 40 years of honest commercial and media endeavour really any different in this sense to 27 years?”

I’m very pleased Grant got the decision over-turned. It was an appaling decision.

The court ruling is here, and worth a read. A key point the Judge made is RITANZ seemed to ignore that Grant wasn’t someone trying to become a liquidator, but he had been a highly successful one for the last 12 years. He has been appointed to over 800 insolvencies, and has a staff of 20.

The Judge also pointed out that RITANZ focused hugely on whether having a member with a 27 year old fraud conviction would lower the reputation of the profession, and ignored the possibility having Grant as a member would heighten their reputation, by showing how people can turn their lives around.

RITANZ now has to consider a new application by Grant. I hope they do the right thing this time around.