IN THE fallout from the November 3 US Presidential Election, numerous credible allegations of voting irregularities have arisen in the form of sworn affidavits and other evidence. 

The current allegations of voter fraud come after four years of efforts to oust President Donald Trump from office, first through the false Russia collusion narrative, then through impeachment. 

Below we provide an overview of some of the information currently known. 

BALLOTS

Universal mail-in ballots: This year, universal mail-in ballots were widely adopted by States for use in response to the Coronavirus. Previously, a voter would have to request an absentee ballot and have a witness verify their identity to be able to vote by mail. This year, however, nine States and the District of Columbia mailed out ballots to everyone on their voter rolls, while others suspended the witness requirement.

Easing of mail-in restrictions: Progressive groups in many States sued to ease security features for mail-in ballots, such as signature and witness requirements and, in some cases, to allow ballots to arrive after the election.

Poll watchers obstructed: Poll watchers in States such as Pennsylvania and Michigan said they were not allowed to properly observe the ballot counting. In some instances, they were told to stand so far back they required binoculars to observe what ballot counters were doing. Some poll watchers were forced to stand outside. In some instances, ballots were handled in rooms to which they had no access. Other poll watchers said they were denied access despite having proper accreditation. According to Rudy Giuliani, lawyer to Trump, in Pennsylvania alone there were more than 682,000 mail-in ballots that were entered “that were not observed by any single Republican”. One Philadelphia poll worker said the vast majority of mail-in ballots were processed “15 to 200 plus feet from us”. The poll worker said “it was impossible for any observer to see what the workers were doing with any type of specificity” and “observers were not able to challenge any decision or determination being made on the processing of ballots”.

98 per cent for Biden: In a sworn affidavit filed in Georgia, a poll watcher with 20 years’ experience says she was surprised to find batches of “pristine” ballots during the State’s recount and noted that “markings for the candidate on these ballots were unusually uniform”. The poll watcher estimated that of those ballots, “approximately 98 per cent constituted votes for Joseph Biden”.

Perfect black bubbles: Several poll workers in Georgia said in sworn affidavits that during the recount, they saw ballots with “perfectly made” bubble selections. “They all had a perfect black bubble and they were all Biden select,” the observer stated. According to the observer, as workers went through the ballots, Biden’s name was called over 500 times in a row.

No signature verification: Poll workers in both Michigan and Georgia said that no effort was made to verify the signatures on the envelopes of mail-in ballots. In Detroit, a poll worker said in a sworn testimony that she was told not to ask for identification when voters arrived to vote in person.

Tens of thousands of ballots arrive overnight: Tens of thousands of unsealed, unsecured ballots arrived in vehicles with out-of-State licence plates in Michigan’s Wayne County at 4.30am the morning after Election Day, according to a sworn affidavit of a poll worker. “I specifically noticed that every ballot I observed was cast for Joe Biden,” the poll worker said.

Ballots counted multiple times: Seven witnesses in Michigan say in sworn affidavits that they saw the same ballots being run through tabulation machines multiple times. One Republican challenger saw a stack of 27 ballots – with the ballot numbers covered with tape – being run through a tabulator on five separate occasions.

Backdating of ballots: A City of Detroit election worker signed an affidavit saying she was instructed to back-date mail-in ballots and not to look for any deficiencies in the ballots. In Pennsylvania, an analysis of the voter database shows that 51,000 ballots were marked as returned just a day after they were posted out – an extraordinary feat, given US Postal Service delivery times – while nearly 35,000 were returned on the same day they were mailed out. Another 23,000 had a return date that was earlier than the sent date.

Votes counted after deadline: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled on September 17 that election officials could accept all mail-in ballots, including absentee ballots, up to three days after the November 3 election. However, on November 6, US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ordered Pennsylvania election officials to segregate ballots that arrived after election day.

Votes cast for people who had moved out of State: By comparing data to the National Change of Address database, analyst Matt Braynard and his team identified hundreds of thousands of people in six contested States (Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada) who had moved out of State yet still had their vote cast in their name in that State. Georgia, for example, had 138,221 such people.

PO boxes listed as home addresses: Braynard’s team identified, based on voter registration data, voters who registered using a post office box but attempted to disguise the box number as an apartment or suite number. Just in Georgia, his team found 1000 such people.

Unusually low ballot rejection rate: An affidavit by Benjamin Overholt, an expert in applied statistics and research methods at the University of Colorado, notes that there was a 0.15 per cent rejection rate in the 2020 general election, compared to a 0.28 per cent rejection rate in 2016, 0.20 per cent in 2018 general and 0.28 per cent in the 2020 primary.