There is a Cheat Machine out there.

It worked in the 2020 general election and it's no doubt gearing up again for another run. The only question is, will it work twice?

Four years ago, after the results of the presidential election finally came in, it was obvious there were problems and inconsistencies with the process. Dead voters, bogus residencies, midnight ballot dumps in crucial swing states that magically propelled one candidate over the other in just a few short hours, 2,000 mules, video evidence of poll workers running ballots through scanners multiple times, etc.

A lot of people took those instances as evidence of massive voter fraud, while a lot of people dismissed them as evidence of the mere anecdotal. Either way, I don't think those matters were given adequate consideration because they were never properly adjudicated, as cases were thrown out by judges across the country. The Supreme Court never involved itself, though I think it should have, because this is far more important than who uses what bathroom, and Attorney General William Barr washed his hands of it about 30 days after the election, hardly enough time to give it its due. (Even a lawyer for your average murder trial gets a year to hash through the evidence and prepare.)

So these instances of irregularity have always bothered me, but because there's really no way to get around the "anecdotal" nature of this, one is left to conspiracy theory, cynicism, or abject despair... which may be the point of the whole thing anyway.

But it disturbed me to the degree that I wanted to find some sort of clearinghouse for the whole matter. Where could one go to find data revealing what actually happened four years ago? Where could one find an aggregate collection of data uncontaminated with opinion, bias, or any other point of view apt to skew an average citizen's quest for accuracy?  And after some thought and rumination, I found a place I’d not immediately considered before, a place that just might give me some valid information and a little peace of mind. 

I found the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Census Bureau is not really known for anything but data. Raw data. Who was born, who has died, who has children, who does not, and so forth. The Bureau is trusted by the likes of Ancestry.com, the Selective Service, and the curators of the largest genealogical database on earth, the Mormon Church.

So. What could the Census Bureau tell me about the results of the 2020 presidential election? Well, it told me quite a bit.

It told me that Joseph R. Biden received 81 million votes, and it told me that Donald J. Trump received 74 million votes. Three million people also voted for the Communists, the Greens, or themselves. O.K., what else did it tell me? Well, it told me that at the time of the 2020 election, there were 168 million registered voters. So, I got out a pencil and a pad of paper and did me some flyover country cipherin.' My remedial math skills are not very good, but this was not much of a challenge.

81+74+3=158 

158 is 94% of 168. (I had to use an online percentage calculator for this, because again... poor math skills.)

But, Hmm...

So, just using very rudimentary data provided by the Census Bureau, we can see that for the first time in American history our voter turnout has finally rivaled that of the old Soviet Union, Communist China, and Casto’s Cuba. Huzzah… I knew someday we'd finally catch up.

Now, the Census Bureau is not known for making mistakes, but if these figures are not merely wrong but catastrophically wrong, then we oughtn't have a census bureau at all.

So this is what there is:

A written synopsis of the 2020 election on the Bureau’s website states that voter turnout was 67%, but for some reason this is not included as a data point in their table of percentages for the last 100 years. 

However, in more recent decades, say from 1960 to 2016, the average turnout has risen to 62% with the pinnacle being 63% in 1964. Since then, we have turned out in numbers below that. Until the last general election, that is. 

Either because America loved Joe Biden with a passion or hated Donald Trump with the same, the electorate apparently kicked in the doors to the polls and stampeded en masse to vote in never-before-seen numbers. But again, such figures while possible, are not especially plausible. Sure, one could attribute mail-in voting procedures -- put in place to address Covid -- as a cause for the jump (and notice none of these procedures have been revoked back to normalcy now that Covid is no longer a thing), but then we are still left to wonder about that annoying 94% turnout rate that the Bureau’s data actually reveals after you do simple math. This is a 33% increase over just the previous election’s numbers and nothing close to the 67% turnout rate claimed in the Census Bureau’s written synopsis.

Perhaps they did not think it likely someone would actually check the data and do the math. I would hate them to think we are that stupid and I admit I am not that smart, but again, the Census Bureau is located in Washington, D.C. and I live in the middle of a corn patch called St. Louis, Missouri. It's conceivable there is bias against Yokels.

Just for fun, and for historical context, the average voter turnout for the United States according to the Census Bureau between 1920 and 2020 is a fairly anemic 48%. That's a 100-year trend that really hasn't gotten more robust over time. 

So having seen this data and digested it, I suppose I have to admit that I am officially an Election Denier. But I do not know what else I can be. I don't want to admit that our electoral process is compromised, but I don't see how it is not. And so this brings me to Kamala Harris and the Great Democrat Cheat Machine.

Very smoothly, Kamala Harris stepped into the role of presumptive nominee when the carcass of old Joe from Scranton was shoved to the side of the road. And with his last gasp he endorsed the vice president. Immediately she began setting records for donations, Hollywood jumped for joy and the media cried about her many accomplishments. 

"Who doesn't love a yellow school bus, right? Can you raise your hand if you love a yellow school bus, right?”

“It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day.”

“…when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time in terms of what we need to do to lay these wires... And there is such great significance to the passage of time when we think about a day in the life of our children."

"We will work together, and continue to work together, to address these issues… and to work together as we continue to work, operating from the new norms, rules, and agreements, that we will convene to work together... we will work on this together."

She’s so smart!

No she's not, but she is ambitious and willing to trade integrity for power. That thought balloon floats above Willie Brown's head like a zeppelin. So I believe she will still draw many voters back to the booth if only through the sense of relief that comes with, “whew!” at least she is not Joe Biden... Maybe I'll vote now after all!

So it could be a close race despite Trump’s resurgence in the polls. And really, that is all the Democrats need. A reasonably close race. Because if Harris runs within 10 points of Trump on election night, it will be analogous to the 88 mph they need to get the Cheat Machine spooled up and blasting down the track before it evaporates in a plasmic cloud, rocketing us all into Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, (I confess that I envision this Cheat Machine as a DeLorean.)

So strap in and hold on tight, folks. Either way it’s going to be historic if not fatal. 

Image: AT via Magic Studio