Unanswered questions about the election
I’m aware that many of you are concerned that the 2024 election may have been rigged. I sympathize with this concern. However, I do not believe it was.
Nevertheless, I think certain questions need to be answered. That is why I favor a hand recount. As long as there is the smallest lingering doubt about the election, we need these questions answered definitively, if only for relative peace of mind.
But first I need to point out that there is no human event, no matter how innocent, that is not subject to the claims of conspiracy theorists. For example, you say you went to the grocery store? So where are your grocery store receipts? What’s that you say, you never keep receipts? How convenient! Well, I suppose your credit card statement will clear this up. What’s that you say, you paid cash? How convenient! And so on, ad infinitum.
Also, one of the most absurd claims that conspiracy theorists make is that they don’t believe in coincidences. That statement is ridiculous on its face. If there were no coincidences it would be one hell of a coincidence. What they really mean is they reserve the right to recruit coincidences to their side as “proof” that their conspiracy theory has merit. Not only is this dishonest, it’s evidence of how truly weak their body of evidence is.
Even so, when apparent coincidences pile up, it’s fair to ask questions about them and important to clear them up. In the case of the election, several questions have arisen and are being asked on social media. One question concerns Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system and what role, if any, it played in the election.
For example, some questions persist: why was election data uploaded to Starlink, and why was one of the satellites destroyed by reentry some five or six days after the election? The answers, as is often true about breathlessly asked questions, are typically mundane.
First, no election data was uploaded to Starlink. All of the swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — have election security protocols to ensure voting equipment is never connected to the internet during ballot tabulation. All election data is encrypted and transmitted directly to the tabulator. There is no “rogue code” lurking in the tabulation machines, and were it otherwise it would be ridiculously easy to spot.
Second, satellite destruction by reentry is a common, almost daily occurrence. The Starlink satellite in question was decommissioned in early August. So it wasn’t even in use during the election.
Another question routinely being asked is, how is it possible that the total number of votes cast do not reflect the record number of recent new voter registrations? Well, for one thing, just because you’re registered to vote doesn’t automatically mean that you will. Taylor Swift inspired hundreds of thousands of young people to register to vote. Unfortunately, much of their enthusiasm didn’t last. Come the day of the election many didn’t bother to vote, or forgot to.
Another question is, how is it that Kamala was filling stadiums while Trump sometimes couldn’t fill auditoriums? Well, that’s a good question. The momentum certainly seemed to be with us. That’s a question that would be resolved by a hand recount.
Another question, why is it that Trump won all the swing states yet Republicans did poorly in swing state Senate races? For one thing, ticket-splitting — when voters choose a Democrat for one office and a Republican for another -– still happens. Also, incumbency can help candidates win re-election. For example, two swing states saw Democratic incumbents keep their Senate seats: Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin and Jacky Rosen in Nevada. Their achievements in office and voters’ familiarity with them might have helped them. Even so, early in the voting it looked as if Tammy Baldwin was losing, but she rallied and came back to win. Ironically, her opponent, a scumbag named Eric Hovde who barely even lives in Wisconsin, is clutching his pearls and screaming that the election was “rigged.”
Whatever the case, many of these questions, and others I haven’t mentioned, could be resolved once and for all by a hand recount. It would be expensive, but so what? Our final peace of mind shouldn’t have a price tag.
Besides, when I think of the shrill and stupid Trump-inspired Republican refrain, that the 2020 election was stolen, and when I recall that they staged a violent and deadly insurrection at the Capitol thanks to this conspiracy theory, I believe we are owed a simple hand recount. Republicans have ranted about the 2020 election being “rigged” nonstop ever since. One quiet recount followed by acceptance of the results will teach them how civilised people do it.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.