Rs made gains in state legislatures in 2020. Even where manual audits are conducted, they rarely include state races. 😢

“Ds spent big to take control of state legislatures but lost their key targets. Now they’ll be on the sidelines as new maps are drawn”

ES&S downplays problems w/ its voting machines. To know what occurred, we need public records requests. @RGarella did one in 2019 & found that, “‘poll workers & technicians reported issues with the new machines at more than 40 % of polling locations,’...1/

...[in Philadelphia], yet the voting machine vendor ES&S said that ‘it was ‘simply inaccurate’ for anyone to imply there were widespread issues.’” 2/

Although the GOP wants everyone focused on Dominion, it is ES&S that for years has arguably caused the most concern among election-integrity advocates and experts. I wrote about these concerns in detail here. 3/

Stacey Abrams’s group, Fair Fight Action, created this document detailing concerns with voting machine vendor ES&S, which had the Georgia contract before Georgia switched to Dominion. 4/

Look what happened on ES&S’s watch in Georgia in 2018. The situation w/ ES&S & these vanishing black votes was under congressional investigation when a court ordered Georgia to replace its old touchscreens in time for the 2020 election. 5/

2000: Rs block manual recount after memory card is found to have inexplicably deleted 16k votes from Gore’s total on a Diebold machine in Volusia county; no other races were impacted. Bush declared victorious by 537 votes. History forever altered. 1/

Bev Harris later shows that a convicted embezzler had joined Diebold as its Sr VP & largest shareholder in Sept 2000. His crimes involved sophisticated computer tampering. Media yawns. 2/

Harri Hursti later shows that Diebold memory cards can be hacked without detection by subtracting votes from one candidate and adding the same number of votes to the other candidate. Documentary featuring the Hursti hack is nominated for an Emmy. Media yawns. 2/

Clint Curtis later testifies to the House Judiciary Committee that Rep. Tom Feeney (whose district included Volusia a former running mate of Jeb Bush, had asked him to design a vote flipping program for the 2000 election in Florida. Media yawns. 3/

2002: Congress passes Help America Vote Act, providing billions of dollars for new voting machines to replace punch card systems. The Bill allies money to be spent on expensive new paperless touchscreens, which make manual recounts impossible. 4/

@AlexandraChalup "As MAGA World’s hopes for an election redo have slipped away, an equally improbable idea has begun to percolate among Donald Trump’s most bitterly disappointed followers: secession." 12/21/20 h/t @AlexandraChalup 1/

2/"Texas GOP chair Allen West floated the idea of a new union of 'law-abiding states,' and Texas state Rep. Kyle Biedermann—previously best known for dressing up as “gay Hitler”—pledged to file a bill in Austin to put the question of Texas secession to voters."

"Rep. Randy Weber also posted pro-secession material on his Facebook page, becoming the first official in Washington to advocate for disintegrating the U.S. Trump’s most reliable media supporters have likewise spread the idea nationally." 3/

"Rush Limbaugh, recent recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, this month claimed the country was suddenly 'trending toward secession.'" 4/

"Actual secession in the U.S. remains, for the moment, something outside the realm of feasibility." 5/

I lost faith in the US govt to tell me the truth re: election security when Comey & @EACgov testified that it wld be really hard to hack an election bc voting machines supposedly don't connect to the internet, & an expert explained on C-Span this was BS.1/

2/ Here is one of Halderman's C-span videos.

3/ It was like a death. Never in my life would I have thought my government would lie about something like this. Or, alternatively, be this incompetent. I spent the next three years feeling like I need to try to micromanage the situation bc I didn't trust them anymore.

4/ I know some people think it's bad for me to say this because it undermines voter confidence in elections. But guess what? I started out as an ordinary voter. This is what I found out. And I was horrified. There has been no reckoning for the lies.

5/ Reality Winner, who tried to bring a dose of reality to the situation, remains in prison. I do not trust our government re: election security. I just don't. They have never told us the full truth about 2016. They don't even try to be transparent.

Met a Brazilian-American Lyft driver from San Diego who passionately attacked the racism of Republicans, then switched to passionately defending Bolsonaro.

If I were Thomas Friedman, I could tell you what this means.

Met a Haitian-American in a restaurant who said he'd always vote for Democrats because of the immigration issue, but that he has conservative beliefs too. "I don't want to pay for someone's abortion!", he declared.

Met a Latino Lyft driver from San Jose who said that while he was liberal, California was getting too liberal for him and he was considering moving to San Antonio.

Again, not being Tom Friedman, I am unable to offer any commentary on the political and policy implications of these conversations.

I guess my only thought is that political opinions are pretty complex and multidimensional, out there in the real world.

(end)

*The Evidence Collection*

There is overwhelming evidence of election fraud. Therefore it is the duty of the Executive, Legislative, & Judicial branches to throw out the fraudulent votes & to honor their oath to protect & defend the Constitution of the USA.🇺🇸🦅

A list below.🔻

1/ Navarro Report: The Immaculate Deception - Six Key Dimensions of Election Irregularities -

2/ Analysis of 3,000 U.S. counties shows Joe Biden received 5.6 % more votes in counties using Dominion Voting Systems (Video) -

3/ Antrim Michigan Dominion Voting Systems Forensics Report -

4/ Evidence Grows: ’20 Election Was Rigged -

At my office in Congress I have an original ballot of Mandela’s election as reminder to never take democracy for granted. After yesterday’s senate vote, I turn back to Mandela’s first speech when released from prison 31 years ago this week. Here’s what we can learn (THREAD)

GRACE: “I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all.”

Robbed of 27 years of his life, no one would have faulted Mandela if he emerged from prison with anger. But instead, with his first words of his first speech in decades, he chose grace. 2/13

HUMILITY: “I stand before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people.”

Mandela was revered by millions as a leader of conscience. But in his second sentence, he made sure to set the tone for humility and service. No individuals stand above the people. 3/13

SOLIDARITY: “I salute the working class...religious communities..the endless heroism of youth.. the mothers and wives and sisters of our nation”

He focused on the contributions of the many and showed respect to those often overlooked. He showed the vitalness of coalitions. 4/13

URGENCY: “Our struggle has reached a decisive moment.”

Mandela used the speech to set the tone for the work ahead. His release was not the climax, but instead just the possibility of change. No assumptions could be made of what comes next. 5/13

NEW w/@akarl_smith: Republicans see an opportunity to begin winning back the suburban voters they lost under Donald Trump's presidency by capitalizing on widespread frustration with pandemic life and directing it at an old enemy: Teachers

New NRCC Tom Emmer told staff as soon as he took over to go all in on schools: "It's the teachers unions that want to keep the schools closed. Dems are ignoring the science, and they're standing with their special-interest donors instead of the students."

Going after public sector unions is a throwback to the last time the GOP was locked out of power in DC in 2009/2010 and it's a message that every faction in the party can get behind -- with the potential for crossover appeal to indies and some Dems.

The politics have changed since circa 2009, when the school reform movement was at its height w/ broad bipartisan support, including from the Obama admin.

Now, support for unions is at a nearly 20-year high and teachers unions favorability has gone up a bit during Covid, BUT...

But the frustration over shuttered schools is real and Republicans think they can channel that anger into a grassroots uprising to drive a wedge between suburban voters and the Democratic Party.

"This is the suburban-parent revolt," said Corry Bliss.