Sometimes fraud is so far beyond the pale, so egregious, that it is difficult to accept that it happened. But evidence can be too blatant to explain away, especially when two totally different sources of information confirm the existence of the very same fraudulent activity. Such a convergence of evidence occurred in the 2020 election.

An Anonymous Tip

An explosive allegation was made: In Pima County, thirty-five thousand (35,000) votes had been added to each Democrat candidate in the election, including Joe Biden. The allegation was made anonymously by someone claiming that he or she met with Democrat Pima County election officials on September 10, 2020, where a plan to rig the vote was hatched.

The tipster’s written words were described and posted at a meeting of the Arizona Senate on November 30, 2020. Retired Army Col. Phil Waldron told the Senate members,

“[The tipster] wanted to remain anonymous, but had enough concern that he wanted to send this to the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice,” which he did. (Journalist Sarah Carter saw the email communication.) Here are some words from the email of the tipster, as posted by Waldron at the meeting:

When I [the tipster] asked how in the world will 35,000 votes be kept hidden from being discovered, it was stated that spread distribution will be embedded across the entire registered-voter range and will not exceed the registered-vote count, and the 35,000 was determined allowable in Pima County, based on our county registered-vote count [sic].

It was also stated that total voter turnout versus total registered voters determine how many votes we can embed.

Maricopa [county] embed total would be substantially higher than Pima’s due to embeds being based upon the total number of registered voters.

When I asked if this has been tested and how do we know it works, the answer was yes, and has shown success in Arizona judicial-retention elections since 2014, even undetectable in post-audits because no candidate will spend the kind of funds needed to audit and contact voters to verify votes in the full potential of total registered voters, which is more than 500,000 registered voters.

Confirmation With a “Fishtail”

Thanks to the efforts of former Arizona Representative Mark Finchem and a brilliant analysis by pattern expert Shiva Ayyadurai, we can guess which precincts allegedly received the phony ballots. Finchem obtained precinct-level voting data for Pima County, the county he represented. These data included, by precinct, the number of people requesting mail-in ballots, the number of people returning the ballots, and the votes for each candidate.

Dr. Ayyadurai, a pattern recognition expert, noticed that Pima County’s 2020 election had an extraordinarily high mail-in ballot return rate (about 87 percent) when compared to the national average (71 percent) or the average of other Arizona counties (67.6 percent). Even more interesting was the pattern and distribution of precincts in Pima, when arranged by their mail-in ballot return rates.

The figure below is a little complicated but worth studying. It is not an Ayyadurai graph, but is similar to the graphs in Dr. Ayyadurai's Pima County analysis. Ayyadurai calls it his “fishtail” graph, for obvious reasons. It is a fascinating diagram that seems to confirm massive fraud in the 2020 election.

Here is a challenge: Try to explain why there is a tail on this fish!

A rough approximation of a Shiva "fishtail" graph

The image in the figure is an approximation of one of Dr. Ayyadurai’s “fishtail” graphs. The “head” is on the left and the “tail” is on the right. Plusses represent Biden’s vote as a percentage of other Democrats, and circles represent Trump’s vote as a percentage of other Republicans. I added the “eye” and “mouth” for artistic reasons!

Be careful when reading the graph. The “x” axis is not a timeline: Rather, this graph displays precinct clusters organized by the percentage of their mail-in ballots returned, with lower return rates on the left and higher return rates on the right. What about the “y” axis? You may think it compares the votes received by Trump in comparison to Biden, but that is not the case. Instead, Trump is compared to Republicans in general, and Biden is compared to Democrats in general.

The unnatural pattern in this graph is almost impossible to explain unless there was fraud. There may be a temptation to explain Trump’s apparent loss by saying he was not as popular as other Republicans. However, that was probably not the case. As you can see in the image, Trump had a commanding lead over other Republicans in precincts with average or lower return rates. (And remember: The “average” for Pima -- shown with the vertical line -- was about 19 percent higher than other Arizona counties.) However, when we move to the right side of the graph, into the super-high (and very unrealistic) return rates of 92 percent to almost 100 percent, Trump starts losing relative to other Republicans, and Biden gains relative to other Democrats.

What does it mean? It appears extremely likely that those extra 35,000 votes were dumped into certain Pima county precincts, and/or votes were switched between the two presidential candidates.

Adding in the 35,000 phony ballots is what made the turnout rates so high and caused Biden to win the state. And, as the tipster said, the ballots were spread widely. Those 8 dots on the right side of the graph, from 92 percent to 100 percent, represent over 140 precincts. Forty of those precincts have virtually impossible turnout rates of 97 percent or more, according to Dr. Ayyadurai’s analysis. Imagine: Forty precincts with 97 percent or higher turnout!

More than a year ago, in 2021, I sent a FOIA request to the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. I requested all documents related to the Division’s investigation of the Pima County election fraud allegation. The Division acknowledged my communication and promised a quick response, as required by regulation. However, a response was never issued, despite multiple follow-up requests.

Did the FBI check into this? I doubt it has the time. Right now, the agency is busy trying to distinguish Proud Boys from FBI agents pretending to be Proud Boys.

Joe Fried is an Ohio-based CPA who has performed and reviewed hundreds of certified financial audits. He is the author of the new book, Debunked? An auditor reviews the 2020 election -- and the lessons learned (Republic Book Publishers, 2022). It provides a comprehensive overview of fraud and irregularities that affected the 2020 election.