The Fatally Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries

Democracy Lost: 

A Report on the Fatally Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries

The title is a 96-page report, sources included, from EJUSA. No, I had not heard of EJUSA, either, until I read a comment by CM-TX on the Treehouse blog here. (If you are planning to work the polls, this report will be of particular interest to you.) The parts of the report that I read through struck me as responsibly researched and digested. In brief, 

Election Justice USA (EJUSA) is a national, non-partisan team of seasoned election integrity experts, attorneys, statisticians, journalists, and activists. The circumstances surrounding Arizona’s presidential primary on March 22nd, 2016—widely acknowledged as one of the most disastrous election days in recent memory—were the lightning rod that catalyzed the formation of EJUSA. Throughout the course of the 2016 presidential primary season, EJUSA has emerged as a leader in the fight for honest elections, pursuing legal action in several states in an attempt to counteract specific forms of targeted voter suppression and election fraud.

Unfortunately, Ohio turns up in the document word search 15 times. Here are two relevant sections:

OHIO Attorney Bob Fitrakis has filed a lawsuit against Edison Media Research asserting that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders actually earned more pledged delegates in the primaries than were shown by the results. The suit seeks the release of raw exit polling data which documents dramatic differences between exit polls and electronic vote totals in eleven states in the 2016 presidential primaries. Exit polls have been adjusted to fit electronic vote totals since 2004, when they appeared to show Kerry winning against Bush. At that time, Karl Rove (then an assistant to George Bush) developed a theory to explain the alleged unreliability of exit polls. After citizens on the internet began to notice wide discrepancies in this election, the exit poll sponsors, The Media Consortium and Edison Media Research, canceled exit polls for all remaining states in the primary season. The lawsuit demands that media organizations release the raw data for the 2016 exit polls for the first time.

. . .

Of ten places where exit polling has missed by more than 7% (South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, Mississippi, Ohio, New York, California), seven are states where all or the majority of election jurisdictions are using machines ten years old or greater. For six of these seven states (excluding California which only included an early voting poll with a very large discrepancy of 14- 22%) the average initial exit polling miss is a whopping 9.98%.

Bear in mind, this report analyzes the Democrat Party primary voting. I vote in Cuyahoga County, I mark my choices on a paper ballot that is fed into a scanner for tabulation. At least in that case, there is a paper trail that can be used to reconcile votes cast with final results. That will not be the case in many other counties. Scary.

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Under-reported or ignored by the media at the DNC

Photo credit: YouTube: 

"Hundreds Of Sanders Delegates WALK OUT Of DNC And Launch Protest In Philly Streets(VIDEO)"

Breitbart reporter Patrick Howley filed a report on the recently concluded Democratic National Convention. If parts of his report are news to you, it’s because many in the legacy/ lamestream/ mainstream media didn’t cover it. Here’s a snippet (and notice all the empty seats in the above photo):

Floor Walk-Out

The walk-out by Bernie Sanders delegates immediately after the roll call vote was arguably the most significant act of defiance on the floor in recent convention history.

This reporter observed the carefully planned walkout from the grandstands a couple sections over from Bernie’s balcony, where he was busy getting feted for his silver medal. The commotion on the floor got started around the time Bernie’s brother Larry was toasting their late parents. My Breitbart News colleague Joel Pollak was on the packed convention floor texting me the protesters’ next location: the media center.

The protest at the media center was intense. Pro-Bernie agitators stormed through the glass doors while at least a hundred more crowded around inside. These were some of the top protest organizers on the Left at the top of their game (and negotiating with the police to avoid arrests).

The media center (which was just a big tent with no complimentary Wi-Fi) was completely shut down. How interesting that the top left-wing protesters in the country would choose the mainstream media’s encampment as the site of their surprise assault!

The mainstream media did not know how to handle this chaos aimed directly at them.

The rest of the Breitbart report is here. 

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Do the math, Senator Cruz

 photo credit: youtube

Desperation. From The Daily Caller:

Sen. Ted Cruz’s abrupt suggestion he might reenter the Republican presidential race went up in smoke Tuesday night as he suffered a crushing defeat against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Nebraska’s GOP primary.

Cruz suggested if he were to win in Nebraska and saw a “path to victory” at the convention, he would consider restarting his presidential campaign, despite dropping out last week after being beaten badly in Indiana.

“We launched this campaign intending to win. The reason we suspended our campaign was that with the Indiana loss, I felt there was no path to victory,” Cruz told radio host Glenn Beck. “If that changes, we will certainly respond accordingly.” (RELATED: Cruz Says He Won’t Run Third Party)

Such notions were almost immediately crushed in spectacular fashion Tuesday night, as early results showed Trump racking up almost 60 percent of the vote in Nebraska, about 40 percentage points ahead of Cruz at 19.5 percent. Ohio Gov. John Kasich was in third with about 14 percent of the vote.

Although no polling was conducted in the state, it was seen as a potential Cruz victory prior to him dropping out. But if Nebraska ever was a Cruz state, it stopped being one the moment he dropped out as GOP voters instead flocked to the party’s presumptive nominee.

Cruz also suffered a massive defeat in West Virginia’s primary, though that defeat was more predictable.

Nebraska’s 36 delegates are awarded on a winner-take-all basis, meaning Trump will take another big step towards the 1,273 delegates he needs to lock up the Republican nomination on the first ballot.

The delegate chart after yesterday's primaries:

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New York Primary math

art credit: ddrichswier.com

In case you missed it, here’s the bottom line from elections.ap  on the GOP race for the nomination:

Donald Trump is now the only Republican candidate with any chance of clinching the nomination before the convention.

Ted Cruz was mathematically eliminated Tuesday after Trump's big win in the New York primary.

Trump won at least 89 of the 95 delegates at stake. John Kasich won at least three and Cruz was in danger of being shut out.

There aren't enough delegates left in future contests for either Cruz or Kasich to reach the 1,237 delegates needed to win the GOP nomination. Their only hope is to block Trump and force a contested convention.

The AP delegate count:

Trump: 845.

Cruz: 559.

Kasich: 147.

Is Tea Party Patriots going to continue to endorse Ted Cruz, whose only shot at the nomination is to somehow influence the first vote at the convention, whether by dishonesty or outright theft? (I don’t think Cruz would stand a chance in a contested convention; he’d be thrown over in favor of other more “electable” candidates. Romney? Ryan? More of the same ole same ole…)

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GOP elites to Republican voters: Drop Dead

cartoon credit: niftyatheist.com

CNBC reports (h/t Gateway Pundit):

Political parties, not voters, choose their presidential nominees, a Republican convention rules member told CNBC, a day after GOP front-runner Donald Trump rolled up more big primary victories.

“The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That’s the conflict here,” Curly Haugland, an unbound GOP delegate from North Dakota [and a Republican convention rules member], told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. He even questioned why primaries and caucuses are held.

Haugland is one of 112 Republican delegates who are not required to cast their support for any one candidate because their states and territories don’t hold primaries or caucuses.

Even with Trump’s huge projected delegate haul in four state primaries Tuesday, the odds are increasing the billionaire businessman may not ultimately get the 1,237 delegates needed to claim the GOP nomination before the convention.

This could lead to a brokered convention, in which unbound delegates, like Haugland, could play a significant swing role on the first ballot to choose a nominee.

Most delegates bound by their state’s primary or caucus results are only committed on the first ballot. If subsequent ballots are needed, virtually all of the delegates can vote any way they want, said Gary Emineth, another unbound delegate from North Dakota.

“It could introduce Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, or it could be the other candidates that have already been in the race and are now out of the race [such as] Mike Huckabee [or] Rick Santorum. All those people could eventually become candidates on the floor,” Emineth said.

And at Politico we see that (h/t HotGas)

Former Speaker John Boehner said Paul Ryan should be the Republican nominee for president if the party fails to choose a candidate on the first ballot.

"If we don't have a nominee who can win on the first ballot, I'm for none of the above," Boehner said at the Futures Industry Association conference here. "They all had a chance to win. None of them won. So I'm for none of the above. I'm for Paul Ryan to be our nominee."

Wading into the GOP nominating battle for the first time since leaving office last fall, Boehner said that "anybody can be nominated" at the convention in Cleveland this summer.

The GOP establishment / elite (GOPe) couldn’t breathe life into the Jeb! campaign. Then they tried to push Marco Rubio as the Jeb! surrogate and that maneuver failed. Gov. Kasich’s job in the race was to deprive any momentum candidate of the 66 Ohio winner-take-all delegates. Kasich succeeded, but otherwise it is now a two-candidate race. Neither Cruz nor Trump is acceptable to the GOPe. So we are seeing the GOPe preparing to force a brokered convention. And it's now out in the open.

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