We need to talk about voting, part 1 of 3
Data analysts are finding anomalies in the 2024 election results.
TL;DR:
Data analysts have discovered anomalies in the 2024 election results suggesting vote manipulation.
SMART Elections and Election Truth Alliance are among those leading the analysis.
We hope you will learn more, and if you are persuaded that something is amiss, share that information with friends and family, especially anyone you know in swing states.
Indivisible Mobile is going to work with Indivisible groups in the swing states to urge an audit of the 2024 election results (and to keep an eye on the 2026 midterm elections too!).
The full article begins here.
A functioning democracy requires free and fair elections and universal franchise. Although American democracy has staggered along for almost 250 years now, the United States has never had truly free and fair elections, and has never approached genuine nationwide suffrage. The voting rights we do have, and for which people have struggle and died, are currently under attack in the most open and cynical way we have witnessed since the Jim Crow era. Elections CAN save us, but not if Republicans succeed in stealing and rigging them the way they are attempting to right now. Democrats, progressives, liberals, independents and anyone who cares about living in an equal and just society need to fight back right now, and with every (nonviolent) weapon at our disposal. But first, a look back at the 2024 election.
Part I: The 2024 Presidential Election
Trump and his MAGA followers spent so much time shouting about the 2020 election being rigged (not to mention storming the Capitol to “stop the steal”) that it feels very awkward to say that there is something fishy about the 2024 election…but there is something fishy about the 2024 election. I’ve been following the work of two organizations in particular, SMART Elections and the Election Truth Alliance, who have been studying the data, and their findings deserve our attention.
SMART Elections is a nonpartisan project broadly concerned with “improving security, providing public oversight, and advocating for fair and accessible voting.” The Election Truth Alliance is a non-partisan, non-profit group of volunteer data analysts and cyber professionals formed in December 2024 when “concerning trends emerged” in the voting patterns in the 2024 US Presidential Election. It is important to note that neither group began with the premise that something was wrong with the 2024 election and then went looking for “proof,” and they didn’t, as Trump often does, just wildly assert that black is white and up is down and that immigrants are eating cats and dogs.
Instead, their data analysts and statisticians observed patterns in the voting data that did not look like patterns made by actual humans actually voting.
I am not a data scientist or statistician (or even very good at math), but I’ll attempt to explain.
“Drop-off” Voting
If you identify as a Republican, you are likely to vote for the Republican candidate for president—the presidential candidates are always at the top of your ballot—and then for multiple other Republican candidates down the rest of the ballot. Likewise for Democrats. It is very unusual for voters to cast a vote for their party’s presidential candidate but NOT for the party’s Senate or House candidate or other major down-ballot candidate.
But in 2024, that’s what happened: many more ballots were cast with votes for Trump and Trump alone than were cast with more usual voting patterns of Trump PLUS any Republic senate or congressional candidate as well. Because of Trump’s unique hold on his supporters, maybe that makes sense. Voters go into the booth to vote for Trump, and “drop off” before filling out the rest of their ballot.
However, the reverse (a “negative drop off”) happened on the Democratic side: many more ballots were cast with no presidential candidate chosen, but with votes cast for other Democratic candidates down ballot.
These patterns were particularly evident in swing states.
The number of ballots cast for Trump but with no vote cast for a major down-ballot candidate averaged 5.58% in the swing states, amounting to a total of more than 750,000 votes for Trump. At the same time ballots cast for Democratic candidates but NOT for Kamala Harris averaged -1.48%, amounting to a total of almost 190,000 otherwise Democratic ballots that did not include a choice for president. In five of the swing states, the drop-off margin was greater than the margin of victory.
It is also worth noting that 88 counties flipped from blue to red in the 2024 election. Zero counties flipped from red to blue.
The last time such a thing happened was 92 years ago (although it was the reverse, with zero counties flipping from blue to red) in the depths of the Great Depression when Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Herbert Hoover. Even in the 1984 presidential election, which Ronald Reagan won with 49 states, 525 electoral votes, and almost 60% of the popular vote, some 30 counties flipped from red to blue.
Is any of this proof of anything? It is not. It might not even amount to evidence. But it is statistically highly improbable.
And there’s more.
“Russian Tail”
The Russian Tail,” so-called because it is often seen in Russian elections which the international community knows to be rigged, is a pattern that shows an unnatural surge in vote distribution. It is easier to show than to tell what constitutes a Russian Tail. In the 2024 parliamentary election in the country of Georgia, the conservative populist Georgian Dream party was declared the winner. Here’s what the voting looked like:
In urban precincts, a scatter plot shows normal voting patterns; the number of votes rise for both candidates as turnout increases.
But in rural counties, anomalies appear. The mass indicating one candidate’s votes shoots up and to the right, while the other’s falls off disproportionately.
Now let’s take a look at the 2024 U.S. presidential vote in Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, which includes Pittsburgh. Here are the mail-in votes:
And here is in-person voting on Election Day:
There’s that pattern again: after a certain percentage of turnout, the number of Trump votes zoom up and to the right, and Harris votes drop off. And Harris WON Allegheny county, but she lost overall in Pennsylvania, which gave its 19 electoral votes* to Trump.
Some caveats: I am relying heavily on a small number of sources here, although I will say I have personally met someone whose spouse is an analyst with Election Truth Alliance, for what that’s worth. And while a recent court case brought by SMART Elections in Rockland, NY having to do with “drop-off” votes was allowed to proceed by the New York State Supreme Court, that case was dismissed on the basis of lack of legal standing and other legal requirements. SMART Elections has filed an appeal.
It is less than a year now until what might be the most consequential midterm elections in American history. We absolutely must make sure that they are free and fair. But what can WE do, here in Alabama?
First: Check it out for yourself. Go to SMART Elections and Election Truth Alliance and see what YOU think about their analysis.
Second: If you find the data compelling, share what you have learned with others and invite THEM to see for themselves as well.
Third: If you have friends or family in the so-called swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, PLEASE encourage them to learn about these organizations and what they’ve found, and ask them to spread the word as well.
Fourth: Consider helping Indivisible Mobile work with other Indivisible groups in those swing states to urge them to educate their members and voters in their state about these anomalies from 2024, and to begin a push for an audit of that election.
And watch this space for more information and calls to action!
*Trump carried the election by less than 2.3 million votes, but was awarded 312 electoral votes by the Electoral College. But that is a topic for another time.
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