Voter Fraud vs. Election Theft: Scott Walker’s Wisconsin Re-election

by Jim Fetzer with Richard Charnin

If political parties did not lie, steal, cheat and control vote counts, they might never win elections. And the mechanism that enables them to fake votes, steal elections and dominate Congress, alas, also allows our own government to bring us Sandy Hook, the Boston bombing and other forms of abuse, including pilfering our pensions and looting our bank accounts.

In the past, Democrats earned reputations for “machine politics” in cities like Chicago. But today, the advent of electronic voting machines whose company owners–including some Republican candidates themselves–are tied to the GOP has turned election theft into a science: they can steal whole states at a time!

The method the GOP has been using to steal elections has been cracked here in Wisconsin. Suspicions it had been stolen using voting machines have been confirmed by statistical analysis with charts that show how it was done.

You have to look at what happened in your own state.  The combination of critical thinking applied to developments in this state contrary to the final poll from Marquette School of Law together with statistical studies have revealed how they did it here–in mathematical detail.

Scientific reasoning can assist with our orientation by assisting us in sorting things out by comparing alternative hypotheses to determine which can best explain the available evidence. Wisconsin is an exemplary case study.

When you have a puzzling outcome, such as the re-election of a governor who has been a complete disaster (turning down $800 million in federal funding for high speed rail, taking another $800 million from public school education, declining federal money for Medicaid expansion–which is shifting $100,000,000 onto the backs of Wisconsin taxpayers every two years–who ran a terrible campaign and who lost two debates to his opponent, who brought some of the most stellar Democrats in the nation to her support, including Michelle Obama (twice), Bill Clinton and the President of the United States), you really have to take a second look and consider alternatives that otherwise might seem implausible.

Inference to the Best Explanation

The principle that applies in these cases is known as “inference to the best explanation”, namely: what hypothesis, if it were true, would confer the highest probability on the available evidence? The measures of support they provide are likelihoods, where hypotheses with higher are preferable to those with lower. That JFK was killed by a conspiracy, that 9/11 was an inside job and that Wellstone’s death was no accident all have likelihoods that are overwhelmingly greater than their alternatives:

Once you understand how to reason about puzzling events, you will find you have emancipated your mind to think more clearly about mundane matters, such as the likelihood that Gov. Scott Walker beat Mary Burke in his reelection campaign. The GOP loves to talk about voter fraud, in which one voter votes more than once or in the wrong district, which is virtually non-existent in the US but has served as a distraction from the more serious issue of election theft using electronic voting machines.

Following the campaigns in Wisconsin, which pitted Mary Burke, a successful business woman, against Scott Walker, the incumbent governor who had done so much to damage the state, I was stunned when the final poll released by the Marquette School of Law had a surge for Walker, which led to an extended exchange with GOP partisans.

But my suspicion that something was afoot has now been confirmed by an expert on the theft of elections, the statistician Richard Charnin. As this case perfectly illustrates, circumstantial evidence can be more powerful than direct proof, where we are not likely to have a confession from a programmer who helped to steal this election for Walker anytime soon.  We have a cancer in the body politic that has to be excised. I begin with an article from The Capital Times (13 December 2014).

Gambling with democracy: Did Burke beat Walker, after all?

By Jim Fetzer

In the new era of electronic voting machines, polls have assumed an increasingly important role in attempting to understand political developments. But when the final poll from Marquette before the Nov. 4 election showed a surge for Walker, I was taken aback. Had the Marquette poll shown a surge for Burke, that would have made sense — and even the margin of 50-43 percent seems about right. The final tabulated election result of 53-46 percent also sounds about right — provided the outcome had favored Burke.

The race had been neck and neck prior to that final poll. What in the world could have happened to “fire up” Walker’s base? I can’t think of anything. His debate performances were perfunctory at best; he frequently dodged questions — when the panelists tried to pin him down it was to no avail. His second performance was notable for implying he would serve out his term, when everyone knows he is running for president in 2016 and that he is making his bones to pacify the most right-wing elements of the GOP.

When Burke ran against the governor, I was impressed by her ability to manage the complexities of a campaign. She did better than Walker in the debates and was supported by visits from some of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, including Michelle Obama (twice), Bill Clinton and even the president of the United States. The best Walker could do was bring in another scandal-tainted governor, Chris Christie, whose presence was unlikely to make a difference.

Burke ran a very strong campaign, where the efforts of her opponents to attack her on grounds of plagiarism — when recycling position statements is common practice in politics — was a nice example of grasping at straws. Walker had nothing better to use against her. And the stories appearing in the Wisconsin State Journal were uniformly unfavorable to Walker, including new releases about the “John Doe” investigation and snubbing pre-school program funding. Turnout was high at 2.5 million, which historically favors Democrats and may be a record for a mid-term election.

Voting machine “malfunctions”

If Walker was not making the sale, what could possibly explain his victory? In Wisconsin, about 90 percent of ballots are cast on paper and counted by optical scanners, 5 percent are cast on paper and counted by hand, and 5 percent are cast and tabulated on touch-screen equipment.

We tend to assume that optical scanners are reliable, but that turns out to be more a wish than a reality, as “a glitch” discovered in Stoughton revealed. Brad Friedman, a well-known critic of electronic voting, writing in the “Brad Blog,” tells the story: “Wisconsin paper ballot scanners failed to count 1,000s of votes in ‘Citizens United’ ballot referendum:

Popular, oft-malfunctioning computer tabulator used in WI, many other states, tallied just 16 votes out of 5,350 cast in Stoughton, WI.

Though some 5,350 voters are known to have voted in the city of Stoughton in Dane County, Wisconsin on Tuesday, just 16 of those voters were interested in voting in a local ballot referendum calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to help overturn the infamous Citizens United decision — at least according to the results reported by paper ballot optical-scan computer tabulators there.

Both touch screen and optical scanners are easy to control. A 2008 study at Princeton showed that, using simple tools, a different program could be installed in voting machines “that steals votes from one party’s candidates, and gives them to another.” The specific machine they were testing, the Sequoia Advantage, is still being used in at least six states by some 9 million voters. And whether or not it was used in Stoughton, the principles for manipulating vote counts are the same for touch screen and optical scanners alike.

The Stoughton case could be corrected, because there were paper ballots for a recount. But with touch screen machines, recounts are impossible because there are no paper ballots to compare with the tabulated totals. That makes recounts impossible, no matter how strong the indications that something is not right, which makes them un-Constitutional on their face.

Could it happen here?

Are there any good reasons to think election theft happened here? Brad Friedman, Robert Fitrakis and Bev Harris are well known for their research on election theft. The most extensive studies of Wisconsin have been by statistician Richard Charnin, as he reports online in “The exit poll smoking gun: ‘How did you vote in the last election?” (Click on it to see the complete table.)

In Europe, exit polls are used to determine who won, and the tabulated vote merely serves to confirm it. But the opposite is the practice in the U.S., where the exit polls are revised to conform to the tabulated vote. That means we have no way to verify whether our elections are being stolen using touch screen or optical scanning machines, which is all the more worrisome because their owners have strong ties to the GOP, which research by Bev Harris, Victoria Collier and others has confirmed.

As Charnin explains, the unadjusted exit polls have been forced to match the recorded vote in every presidential election since 1988. The Democrats won state and national exit polls by 52-42 percent, but won the recorded vote by just 48-46 percent. The probability of a discrepancy on this order of magnitude is around one time in trillions. “The exit polls were right. The vote counts were wrong,” Charnin writes. “It’s as simple as that.”

(a) The Recall Election

Consider Charnin’s assessment of the Walker recall election. In 2008, Obama won Wisconsin with 56.2 percent as his recorded vote. But he had 63.3 percent in the unadjusted exit poll, which is far beyond the 2.5 percent margin of error. The exit poll data are therefore strong evidence that election fraud sharply reduced Obama’s true vote.

Thus, Charnin observes, “In 2010, Walker won by 124,638 votes with a 52.3 percent share. In 2012, he won the recall by 171,105 votes with 53.1 percent. But the True Vote Model (TVM) showed that he needed 23 percent of Obama returning voters to match the recorded vote. That is extremely implausible — and a red flag. It’s further evidence that Barrett won the election.”

(b) The Governor’s Race

In 2014, Charnin reports, Walker won with a 52.9 percent share. The exit poll was forced to match the bogus recorded vote by cutting returning Barrett voters to just 35 percent of 2014 voters, compared to Walker’s 50 percent. The 15 percent differential is much higher than the 7 percent Walker-recorded margin (8 percent discrepancy) and the 6 percent Barrett True Vote margin (a 21 percent discrepancy).

“When the returning voter mix is changed to a feasible Barrett 45/Walker 41 percent outcome,” he concludes, “Burke is the winner by 52.3-47.3 percent. The ‘How Voted in 2012’ crosstab vote shares are missing for Other (3 percent) and New Voters (DNV 11 percent). This is highly anomalous and another ‘tell’ that Walker stole the election.”  Charmin’s spreadsheet can be found here.

What can be done?

We have three methods of counting votes with vastly different levels of confidence:

(1) cast on paper and counted by hand: the highest confidence as well as least expensive with no technology to go wrong;

(2) cast on paper but counted by optical scanners: quasi-confidence, since counts can be but seldom are verified by ballot comparisons;

(3) cast by touch screen with no paper ballots: lowest confidence, where it is not even possible to compare counts with non-existent ballots.

Those who have been elected using electronic tabulators are not going to be disposed to abandon them for more reliable methods. But the people should insist on the use of paper ballots and hand counts. A referendum to abolish the use of those machines would be an appropriate measure [NOTE: but not counting the vote by machine]. This would not be the first time that elections have been stolen in America. Why gamble with democracy?

The Devil’s Advocates

 

As luck would have it, I was invited to appear on “The Devil’s Advocates”, a popular show in Madison, on Monday, 15 December 2014, to discuss my evidence that the election had been stolen using electronic voting machines. The discussion following my interview was especially notable for the observations confirming that the election had been stolen, especially for the report that, as the vote increased in Milwaukee, the percentage of the vote for Walker increased.

Here is my appearance on “The Devil’s Advocates”:  my appearance on “The Devil’s Advocates” and the second hour of discussion on the show.

Two days later, I was invited to come to the studio for an interview by Mitch Henke, another popular show host, where several GOP supporters called in to contest my analysis. Here is my interview on “The New Mitch Henke Show” (17 December 2014). I was able to reiterate key issues, including that there had been an historic turn out with some 2.5 million voters, where it is well-known that large turn-outs favor Democrats. None of them had a serious argument to defeat what I was explaining, which has now been confirmed in spades by Richard Charnin.

Wisconsin 2014 Governor: Cumulative Ward Voting Indicates Fraud

by Richard Charnin

The 2014 Wisconsin Governor Cumulative County vote share analysis for all units/wards is available in a spreadsheet for viewing. Vote shares are sorted by increasing ward size for each county. The graphs look strikingly similar to the equivalents in the 2012 recall (especially Milwaukee and Racine). This indicates that the 2012 vote theft strategy was repeated in 2014. If it worked in the recall, why change it? Cumulative vote graphs for the largest counties are located adjacent to the unit/ward vote counts.

In Milwaukee County, Walker vote shares increased as a function of Unit/Ward size. The increase can be considered as evidence of fraud. One would expect that the lines would be nearly parallel after 90,000 votes. But even parallel lines could indicate constant fraud throughout the county. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Most strikingly, as the vote increased, the percentage of the vote for Scott Walker increased:]

A good analogy is a baseball player’s batting average. The BA will fluctuate greatly in the beginning of the season due to the small number of at bats. But the BA becomes less volatile as the number of at bats increase – an illustration of the Law of Large Numbers.

The counties that look the most suspicious by the upward slope of Walker shares in large units and wards are Ashland, Brown, Kenosha, Dane, Eau Claire, Jefferson, Milwaukee, Racine, Sheboygan, Winnebago, Waukesha. Of course, a flat line could indicate fraud is uniform throughout the county

 

This spreadsheet can be used as a reference. It will be be enhanced in the near future. Let me know what features you would like to see. View the voting data and graphics in the sheets: Adams-Menominee and Milwaukee-Wood. Compare the 2012 recall cumulative county vote trend analysis to 2014.

What does it mean?

As votes come it, we have new samples to add to old samples, where the expected temporal outcome as more votes come in would be an extension of the early pattern (allowing for statistical variations). As Charnin observes, “The counties that look the most suspicious by the upward slope of Walker shares in large units and wards are Ashland, Brown, Kenosha, Dane, Eau Claire, Jefferson, Milwaukee, Racine, Sheboygan, Winnebago, Waukesha.” Look at Milwaukee and Racine above for especially egregious examples of how this was done.

Such outcomes are not only statistically anomalous but prove that the election was being stolen using electronic voting machines. As I have observed, large turnouts historically favor Democrats. Mary had received support by some of the most luminous figures in the Democratic Party: Michelle Obama (twice), Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. There was every reason to expect a surge for Burke, not for Walker.  My suspicion that something was wrong with the Marquette poll has been substantiated in spades by Charnin’s studies.

Notice that Charnin also detected skullduggery with regard to the recall election, where Scott Walker was the first of three governors subject to recall to have survived. It was not because of his boyish charm and smooth talk but, once again, appears to have been the outcome of the theft of an election using electronic voting machines. I have submitted a request for an investigation to the Government Accountability Board (GAB), which consists of six retired judges, who are elected by the people. Six months have passed with nothing coming of it.

In a performance typical of a petty tyrant, he is moving to have the GAB appointed by the governor without having to select names from a pool of impartial candidates. That that would compromise its aim and function of maintaining electoral integrity and ethical conduct by the government and therefore would constitute a blatant conflict of interest does not matter to him. Like others who act to advance the interests of the members of their group, no matter what effects they may bring for the people, Scott Walker instantiates the most despicable of all moral philosophies. We have to excise the cancer.

Richard Charnin, author of  Proving Election Fraud: Phantom Voters, Uncounted Votes and the National Exit Poll (2010), has also done statistical studies of the unnatural deaths of witnesses to the assassination of JFK.