We have learned, over the past decade, that Trump often projects what he is doing, what he has done, or what he intends to do, on others. We have heard his nonstop claim that the 2020 election was rigged since the day it was decided. Even now, his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says that the 2020 election, which he lost, was rigged. Apparently it is a job requirement to agree with his delusions and lies.
There are people who suspect the 2024 election was rigged to enable Trump’s re-election. I am one of them, though I have no evidence, just a gut feeling that the American electorate would not re-elect a twice-impeached convicted felon and sexual predator who campaigned on a platform of hate, divisiveness, and lies. But that’s just me. Time and again, Trump thinks, acts, and speaks like a mobster, so why would he not cheat to win? Winning means redemption, revenge, and riches. He never accepts losing.
A CIA whistleblower claims that the voting machines were programmed to produce a Trump win. He believes that Harris and Walz won, and it was not close.
During their week of breaking up, Elon Musk said several indiscreet things about Trump. Among them was a tweet saying that Trump would not have won without him, and that Republicans would not control the House without him. Was he referring to his gift of $300 million to the campaign? Or, did he mean another kind of help? Did Trump spill the beans when he said that no one understood the voting machines in Pennsylvania better than his close friend Elon?
An investigation of voting irregularities in Rockland County, New York, was initiated a few months ago. Some districts in Rockland posted surprising results in a few districts. Governor Kathy Hochul won one district by hundreds of votes, but Presidential candidate Kamala Harris received zero votes. An MIT professor claimed that the vote reflected bloc voting by Orthodox Jews, but others questioned his analysis. The judge will decide whether to proceed in late September.
A side note: I was a member of a federal commission created after the debacle of the 2000 election to make recommendations for improving elections. The commission was bipartisan, chaired by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. One of our recommendations was that the federal government should pay the cost of replacing existing voting machines with electronic touch screens. We made this recommendation after reviewing all existing and proposed machines.
Interestingly, the most accurate voting machine tested in 2001 was the one in New York City, known as a mechanical lever machine. The voter enters an enclosed space, closes a curtain behind her, pulls individual little levers for the preferred candidates, then records the vote by pulling a large lever that also opens the curtain, and exits. Every vote is cleanly and correctly registered on paper. That machine had 100% accuracy but it was considered antiquated. It was likened to an old-fashioned cash register that would soon be replaced by touch-screen technology.
Congress adopted some of our commission’s recommendations, including the purchase of touch-screen technology and allocated $350 million to states that agreed to buy the new machines.
Some members of the commission–including me– were concerned about the possibility of hacking. Hackers had demonstrated that there were no electronic machines, no matter how sophisticated, that were secure. But our doubts were dismissed. There was no reversing the inevitable march of progress.

An analog machine more accurate than a hackable screen? Of course! Make the wheel square: it’s the inevitable march of progress. Gave us a felon/perp/nincompoop for president! Isn’t progress wonderful?
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I have said from day one that Musk helped him win. Musk had the access and the knowledge and he controls much of the communication airspace.
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Dear Diane, I had 3 people pursue this post. One, my husband, has a bit of knowledge of programming. But if understanding the argument requires knowledge of programming, that leaves most people unable to follow the argument. That is a red flag to me. I couldn’t find any useful information about Adam Zarnowski except claims that he was a CIA officer, and this: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2954889/. Also, this flag is very red – Zarnowski writes about the “hanging chads” as if they were the actual cause of low Democratic votes in Florida in the year 2000. The hanging chads meme has been debunked thoroughly. Chapter 9: Findings and Recommendations
| | | | Chapter 9: Findings and Recommendations
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Recommendations
1.1 The U.S. Department of Justice should immediately initiate the litigation process against the governor, secretary of state, director of the Division of Elections, specific supervisors of elections, and other state and local officials responsible for the execution of election laws, practices, and procedures, regarding their contributions, if any, to the extraordinary racial disparity in the rate that votes were rejected, through their actions or failure to act before and during the 2000 presidential election, in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended. Appropriate enforcement action should be initiated to ensure full compliance with the election laws.
1.2 The Civil Rights Division in the Office of the Florida Attorney General should initiate the litigation process against state election officials who violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, and/or Title IX of the Florida statutes through their actions or failure to act before, during, and after the November 2000 election. Based on the results of the investigation, appropriate enforcement action should be initiated to ensure full compliance with the election laws.
This writer says what I say – too much unverifiable stuff. And he does go very deeply into the details. https://generik.substack.com/p/did-the-nsa-audit-the-2024-election “In short, Adam Zarnowski is a complicated figure. He appears earnest in his convictions and genuinely experienced in clandestine matters, yet he is also operating without the usual corroboration that bolsters whistleblower accounts (for example, Edward Snowden released actual documents; Zarnowski offers assertions and interpretations). His expertise in human trafficking and extremist networks gives him a certain gravitas when he speaks of corruption and covert dealings. But when it comes to election technology and audit processes, there’s no evidence he has any special insight beyond what citizen researchers have compiled. Therefore, our evaluation must lean more heavily on the factual elements (like ECO 1188) and known history, and less on Zarnowski’s personal authority. His claims serve as a catalyst for examining real issues – they should not be taken on faith alone.” And Snopes says nah. Inspecting report on ex-CIA whistleblower who allegedly said NSA audit proved Harris won 2024 election
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| | | | Inspecting report on ex-CIA whistleblower who allegedly said NSA audit p…
A Substack article claimed Adam Zarnowski, a former CIA agent, was involved in an NSA audit of the 2024 election… |
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Martha Ture Mt. Tamalpais Photographyhttps://mttamalpaisphotos.com The greatest joy in the world is in restoring the earth.
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This reminds me of the election in Europe where a candidate received more votes than registered voters. This result was perceived to be the result of a bit flip.
I don’t live in New York State. In Missouri we have the option of a paper ballot. Are there no paper ballots for Rockland County?
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https://verifiedvoting.org/whats-this-rumor-about-rockland-county/
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As I said previously, it is likely that Hasidic Jews in Rockland County bloc-voted for Trump because of his alliance with Netanyahu.
But most people in Rockland County are not Hasidic Jews.
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I’m skeptical of this story too. There is no independent varification that Adam Zarnowski an ex-CIA agent.
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I do believe NYS has the paper scantrons that were fed into the Machines. So their is a paper record for 2 years in NY
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New Yorkers should ask Gov. Hochul to pursue an audit before the two years are up. The governor is determined to fight “fire with fire” in New York in response to the Texas gerrymandering.
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The case is in Court lets see what the Judge does before we go Trumpian. If the judge requires an audit than all ballots in the state should be impounded by Laticia James the attorney general. If the local audit shows irregularities the entire state should be recounted by hand. And no resources should be spared in doing a fast count
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Diane Ravitch has now gone fully into fever swamp territory, the left-wing version of the MAGA crackpots who believe that Trump actually won in 2020. That you cannot grasp why Trump won in 2024 shows how hermetically sealed you are in the left-wing bubble. De facto open borders, high inflation, and extremism on DEI and transgenderism are just a few of the reasons why such a politically weak candidate as Trump won what should have been a landslide election for a sensible, genuinely moderate Democrat, i.e. not the nitwit Kamala Harris.
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The article specifically refers to irregularities in the Rockland County, NY voting results. Kathy Hochul (D) was elected in this county, but Kamala Harris (D) received ZERO votes. You needn’t be either a statistician or a conspiracy theorist to know that this anomaly merits a closer look.
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Even if every Hasidic Jew in Rockland County voted for Trump, there are many Democrats in the county and its districts who are not Hasidic Jews.
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The majority of voters in Rockland County, where I worked for over three decades, are not Hasidic Jews. Rockland is a diverse county near NYC where lots of civil servants and business people that work in NYC reside. This year every single school district except East Ramapo passed its school budget. Minus the greater Spring Valley area, it is known for being a liberal county.
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A few of my Rockland County friends have told me that they had voted for Harris. How can there be zero votes for Harris?
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The article says that 4 *precincts* in Rockland County had zero votes for Harris, not the county as a whole. At least one of those precincts is heavily Hasidic.
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Most people accept that precinct #35 where most of the Hassidim live and voted in a bloc resulted in a zero vote for Harris. What the litigants are questioning why some other precincts in the Town of Ramapo including western Ramapo which is more rural and non-Hassidic also had no votes for Harris, and the results do not align with some affidavits from some of the voters. There’s an ongoing investigation into the results of the 2024 presidential election due the alleged discrepancies. However, any lawsuit will not change the results of the election.
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It does make one feel better to think Trump only won by cheating. Proof of such a thing will be much harder, unless Musk or Trump himself, in his dotage, pulls back a curtain.
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I have a different gut level take on the matter. Like most gut level beliefs, there is a sort of basic truth behind it.
First, Republicans have been trying to win control of the House with 35% of the vote since they realized that was the only way to keep power. Hence their gerrymandering and voter expulsion tactics.
Second, voter apathy skews toward the far right, since their tea party roots make guiding their base more effective. So any information that increases voter apathy helps them.
Rumors of rigged elections might energize the far right, but it does the opposite for the potential Democratic voter, who is much more diverse and prone to not being able to make it to the polls for a variety of reasons.
Because of these things, election fraud and rumors of fraud are good for Trump and his new party, which seeks to rule with a sizable minority as its supporters. To Trumpism, devaluation of the vote is a good thing, a resigned, apathetic voter helps him at this point.
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Abbott has used AI to create five extra seats in the House. Texas extremists are openly trying to cheat to gain control of the House.
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Roy and Retired Teacher are typical commenters on this blog: very uninformed and very partisan. As the link below shows, the national popular vote totals in 2024 for U.S. House elections were 51.86% Republican, 45.14% Democratic, the rest other candidates. That is, NOT 35% for Republicans.
Gerrymandering has been used by both parties. illinois and California are disproportionately Democratic in the U.S. House due to gerrymandering that occurred before 2024.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections
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I remember those old fashioned curtain voting booths. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s not replace them until we have a system that is better in every way, not just cheaper or lighter to haul.
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I’m with Diane on this, only not just because of a gut feeling, but due to the behaviors of the malignant narcissist which suggested that even before the election, he was certain that he had it in the bag.
He acted like he didn’t have to work to win, even though his crowd sizes were not huge, there were many empty seats, a lot of people left early and he listened to music and danced so much –more than he talked about new policies. I thought his behaviors indicated that he really thought of himself as an actor/entertainer (albeit with no talent) who just needed to schmooz with audiences to keep their attention.
Who does that –right up to election eve– when they are a serious contender for POTUS? Someone who knows very well what’s going on behind the scenes, I think…
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ECE,
My reaction too. He was smug and unconcerned in the closing weeks of what was supposed to be a close campaign.
Someday an insider will write a book explaining everything. I hope I live to see it. I have a high opinion of the American public.
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“March of progress”? Just four years after your being on the post-2000 election commission, we had this – again – involving Dumbya https://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2005/06/what-went-wrong-ohio-conyers-report-2004-presidential-election. Who knows what’s been going all those years since, to the present day. The tried and true ways are fine with me.
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See Greg Palast’s work on election tampering, before, during and after elections.
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In New Jersey, Harris won the popular vote with 2,220,713 to Trump’s 1,968,215. The percentage was 51.97% for Harris and 46.06% for Trump.
Harris won NJ’s 14 Electoral votes.
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Thanks to the original “gut feeling” expressed in this post followed by the many other speculative comments here, I now have a much better (even more tolerant) understanding of how Trump convinced so many of his followers (including the Jan 6 mob) that the 2020 election was clearly stolen. How is the unsupported speculation expressed here different? How does it not further lower confidence of all voters, which plays into an autocrats hands? I continue to have confidence that my vote counts and that there is no hard evidence of widespread fraud that affected the election results either in 2020 or 2024. A starting point for defeating Trumpism is to accept that a majority of voters didn’t like the Democrat alternative, to figure out why, and then to do something about it. On the other hand, my confidence in what I read in this blog has taken a big hit.
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Ralph, I certainly did not intend to lower your confidence in the voting system. I apologize for that. Maybe it’s just me, but Trump proved himself to be incompetent in his first term. This time, he’s putty in the hands of far-right extremists. He’s appointed a Cabinet of utterly unqualified people who are loyal to him. He has created a parallel military that snatches people off the street and sends them to countries they do not know. He’s attacked law firms, news media, universities, science, museums, culture. Rachel Maddow said last night that we now live in an authoritarian state. Did we vote to destroy our democracy?
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I saw a YouTube in the Spring, regarding this subject.
A statistician/reporter for Reuters was being interviewed. His take was that Trump did not NEED the voting machines to be rigged. The existing voter suppression laws (new and old), postal service difficulties (systematically underfunded since Trump’s first term), gerrymandering, etc were more than good enough to turn the election in his favor.
I can’t find the link, though…which is unfortunate. He was all about numbers. Not opinion. He’s a statistician. His job is to get it right. Avoid lawsuits. Report the facts. All the figures he cited were from government records. Town, city, state, federal.
I did find an editorial that mirrors many of his findings, though. The author comes through as more biased…but many of the facts are there. The fact that the findings are so similar to the Reuters reporter makes me believe the info. It’s disturbing:
https://sdvoice.info/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won-here-are-the-numbers/
I’ll see if I can find the YouTube, as well.
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Thanks so much for this! A lot of us suspected that something hinky went on, but didn’t know exactly how it was done. Massive voter suppression makes sense, because it’s a right wing desire that goes back decades, at the least, to Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation, who in 1980, famously said “I don’t want everybody to vote…” (See below)
So the GOP was listening and figured out how to pull if off with different strategies and increasing effectiveness over time.
Thanks to a very astute statistician keeping keeping tabs on this matter, we can see it turned out that much of it was done in plain sight, too. And they’re still doing it today, such as with the massive gerrymandering in TX going on now so that they can steal the House in 2026… Ugh!
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Sorry, the link got cut off somehow, so here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw
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I was familiar with many of the strategies employed, but I had not known about the “Poison Postcards.” I don’t recall getting one, but I probably would have thought it was just junk mail, too, and not responded –rather than something that, if ignored, could result in such dire consequences. Democrats should be warning voters about that ploy!
I can see now why the malignant narcissist was so overconfident about his chances of winning, since surely he would have known what so many of his peeps were up to –including Brian Kemp of GA this time around…
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Wow!
I repeated myself
i repeated myself
😦
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Diane, I’ve been meaning to mention: Up top, at the end of your first paragraph, you wrote, “Even now, his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says that the 2020 election, which he won, was rigged.” Did you mean to say the 2024 election, since he actually lost the 2020 election and won the 2024 election?
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You are right!!! I’ll fix it.
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I see that, thanks so much! (I make similar mistakes, too, and often wish I could edit when I catch them after the fact!)
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