You may have heard it alleged that some Michigan precincts have been found to have had turnout in excess of 100%. There’s a teensy weensy little problem with that theory, and I’ll let John Hinderaker of the far-right Powerline elucidate:
Here’s the problem: the townships and precincts listed in paragraphs 11 and 17 of the affidavit are not in Michigan. They are in Minnesota. Monticello, Albertville, Lake Lillian, Houston, Brownsville, Runeberg, Wolf Lake, Height of Land, Detroit Lakes, Frazee, Kandiyohi–these are all towns in Minnesota. I haven’t checked them all, but I checked a lot of them, and all locations listed in paragraphs 11 and 17 that I looked up are in Minnesota, with no corresponding township in Michigan. This would have been obvious to someone from this state, but Mr. Ramsland is a Texan and the lawyers are probably not natives of either Minnesota or Michigan.
Evidently a researcher, either Mr. Ramsland or someone working for him, was working with a database and confused “MI” for Minnesota with “MI” for Michigan. (The postal code for Minnesota is MN, while Michigan is MI, so one can see how this might happen.) So the affidavit, which addresses “anomalies and red flags” in Michigan, is based largely, and mistakenly, on data from Minnesota.
This is a catastrophic error, the kind of thing that causes a legal position to crash and burn. Trump’s lawyers are fighting an uphill battle, to put it mildly, and confusing Michigan with Minnesota will at best make the hill steeper. Credibility once lost is hard to regain. Possibly Trump’s lawyers have already discovered this appalling error, and have undertaken to correct it. But the Ramsland Affidavit was filed in Georgia just yesterday.
Laughter. It seems like every time a conservative makes a legal move, it’s another candidate for the 2020 Presidential Election Blooper Reel. Seriously. See this Word Of The Day for more. See the results of their court challenges, even in front of Trump-appointed judges. See Dr. Scott Atlas’ crazed recommendations.
And that last one should clue every American in that incompetency isn’t confined to the Trump legal team, it’s a pandemic fully in its own right, infecting the far-right with the belief that amateurs such as Jared Kushner, Donald Trump, most of the GOP elected officials, can just do this sort of thing off the cuff.
They are proving that their only real competency is in marketing (see professional GOP marketeer Frank Luntz, who last I noticed seemed a bit aghast at the monster he’s helped create) and bullshitting. Or is that redundant?
But don’t worry, Powerline proves that they remain convinced that the Democratic Party is just as bad as themselves:
A postscript: has Mr. Ramsland inadvertently stumbled across evidence of voter fraud in Minnesota? I seriously doubt it. The venues in question are all in red Greater Minnesota, not in the blue urban areas where voter fraud is common.
Hinderaker, if you’ve got proof then present it in court. Maybe you can save Minnesota for Trump! (Says this Minnesota political independent in sickly horror.) Otherwise, just can it. And sell it as soda. It might taste good, but …
