03-24-2022, 11:46 AM
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/...22661.html
Good discussion of the "blue shift," that makes elections look fishy.
"...Political professionals may recognize this as the Big Blue Shift in action, with votes from Democratic precincts being reliable latecomers. But it doesn’t take deranged conspiracy-mongering for the average Republican voter to wonder and worry about the repeated experience of going to bed comfortably ahead only to find that just enough votes were cast for the Democrat to tip the scales at the very end.
Atkeson thinks the Big Blue Shift may be muted in November’s elections. “I don’t expect the same sort of magnitude of mail-in voting” in 2022 and 2024, Atkeson says. “The good news” is that over the last year “fewer people have been voting by mail in special elections and city elections.”
Confusingly complex ballots in which multiple precincts cut across the same counties, ill-trained or underperforming poll workers, and peripatetic voters all contribute to the Blue Shift, but that’s not all there is behind the hyperactive legal challenges to votes and voting that have become a standard part of election day – if not election week or election month, given how long the overtime canvass lasts. A stealth provision slipped in to the infamous 2014 “Cromnibus” spending bill encourages a maximum of election litigation, creating the appearance that the winning candidate is the one with the best lawyers, not necessarily the one with the most votes.
Travis Long/The News & Observer via AP
Marc Elias, Democrat lawyer: He helped cram the "Cromnibus" with a boon for election litigators like him.
News & Observer via AP
The law in question earned its nickname by combining a Continuing Resolution, or CR, with an omnibus spending bill. It was two massive appropriations in one. The legislation not only dealt with federal spending, it became a Christmas tree, hung with a dense assortment of unrelated provisions. For example, the Cromnibus made significant changes to campaign finance law, changes that have done much to turn election overtimes into fiercely litigated contests.
It allowed individuals to contribute up to “300 percent of the amount otherwise applicable under this subparagraph." The subparagraph in question was in 52 U.S.C. 30116, which deals with certain limits on contributions to political parties. The new provision quietly tripled what could be donated to parties for holding conventions, for buying and improving party headquarters, and for lawyers’ fees in litigating elections (or as it is put in legalese, “expenses incurred with respect to the preparation for and the conduct of election recounts and contests and other legal proceedings.”)
This has brought in millions of dollars a year for campaign lawyers of both parties. ..."
Good discussion of the "blue shift," that makes elections look fishy.
"...Political professionals may recognize this as the Big Blue Shift in action, with votes from Democratic precincts being reliable latecomers. But it doesn’t take deranged conspiracy-mongering for the average Republican voter to wonder and worry about the repeated experience of going to bed comfortably ahead only to find that just enough votes were cast for the Democrat to tip the scales at the very end.
Atkeson thinks the Big Blue Shift may be muted in November’s elections. “I don’t expect the same sort of magnitude of mail-in voting” in 2022 and 2024, Atkeson says. “The good news” is that over the last year “fewer people have been voting by mail in special elections and city elections.”
Confusingly complex ballots in which multiple precincts cut across the same counties, ill-trained or underperforming poll workers, and peripatetic voters all contribute to the Blue Shift, but that’s not all there is behind the hyperactive legal challenges to votes and voting that have become a standard part of election day – if not election week or election month, given how long the overtime canvass lasts. A stealth provision slipped in to the infamous 2014 “Cromnibus” spending bill encourages a maximum of election litigation, creating the appearance that the winning candidate is the one with the best lawyers, not necessarily the one with the most votes.
Travis Long/The News & Observer via AP
Marc Elias, Democrat lawyer: He helped cram the "Cromnibus" with a boon for election litigators like him.
News & Observer via AP
The law in question earned its nickname by combining a Continuing Resolution, or CR, with an omnibus spending bill. It was two massive appropriations in one. The legislation not only dealt with federal spending, it became a Christmas tree, hung with a dense assortment of unrelated provisions. For example, the Cromnibus made significant changes to campaign finance law, changes that have done much to turn election overtimes into fiercely litigated contests.
It allowed individuals to contribute up to “300 percent of the amount otherwise applicable under this subparagraph." The subparagraph in question was in 52 U.S.C. 30116, which deals with certain limits on contributions to political parties. The new provision quietly tripled what could be donated to parties for holding conventions, for buying and improving party headquarters, and for lawyers’ fees in litigating elections (or as it is put in legalese, “expenses incurred with respect to the preparation for and the conduct of election recounts and contests and other legal proceedings.”)
This has brought in millions of dollars a year for campaign lawyers of both parties. ..."