Oct. 25, 2022 - Epoch Times
14:29
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| Good evening, and before we dive in, I wanted to quickly mention that if you are looking for a detailed overview of the 40 or so midterm races that'll determine who actually controls Congress for the next two years, well, over on Instagram, I've been creating maps of just that, the battleground and toss-up races that'll determine who controls the House, who controls the Senate, as well as who controls the majority of the governor's mansions across the entire country. | |
| If you'd like to check out those maps, you can find them over on Instagram. | |
| My handle is EpicTimesRoman. | |
| And I will continue posting over there as long as Mark Zuckerberg and his regime of censorship, well, until they kick me off. | |
| Regardless, let's dive into the main topic for today's discussion, which likewise has to do with the midterms. | |
| Because you see, despite the fact that the actual official date of the midterm elections is November the 8th, well, many states offer their citizens the ability to vote beforehand. | |
| This is done through either things like mail-in ballots or through in-person early voting. | |
| And it seems like many people across the entire country are taking advantage of this opportunity and indeed voting early. | |
| In fact, according to data that was released by the U.S. Election Project, as of this morning, 7.5 million people have already voted early across the United States, which is a massive increase compared to the last midterm elections that were held four years ago. | |
| Specifically, if we take a look at their online report, which Just Free Reference updates on a daily basis, you'll see that 7.5 million people have voted early, with 1.6 million doing it in person and another 5.8 million having voted early through a mail-in ballot. | |
| Furthermore, what's really interesting to note is that 17 of the states actually released data regarding the party affiliation of the individuals who voted early. | |
| And when we take a look at the breakdown of those numbers, we find that across the entire country, among the people who voted early, at least thus far, 50.4% were Democrats, 30.2% were Republicans, and 19.5% were either Independents or were members of a minority party, such as the Libertarian or the Green Party. | |
| Now, that's not really surprising, as it's very consistent with what we saw in the year 2020, when across the entire country, you had absentee ballots in most states favoring Joe Biden, whereas the results on the actual election day itself typically favored Donald Trump. | |
| Although it is worth noting that when we break down the data a little bit further, it's not the case that early voters are majority Democrat in every single state. | |
| Because when you zoom in and look at, for instance, the state of South Dakota, you'll see that Republicans make up 53% of the early voters. | |
| In Kansas, Republicans make up 49.9% of early voters. | |
| And then there is the interesting case of Arkansas, which only saw a few thousand early voters, but out of them, almost 81% were unaffiliated. | |
| Regardless, though, when you take a look at the aggregate and you take a look at the average across the entire nation, then the overwhelming majority of these early voters are, in fact, Democrats. | |
| That's not surprising. | |
| However, what is surprising, and in fact the most staggering number on that entire report, at least in my opinion, is not necessarily the number of people who have already voted early, but rather the number of people who very likely will join them within the next two weeks. | |
| That's because, according to that report, across the country, a mind-boggling 41.5 million people have requested a mail-in ballot. | |
| 41.5 million! | |
| To put that into perspective, in the previous midterm election, the one that was held in 2018, there was a total of only 27.8 million mail-in ballots. | |
| Meaning that when you compare this year's midterms to the previous midterms, you will find that the use of mail-in ballots has increased by almost exactly 50%. | |
| Now, of course, it's not the case that every single one of these 41.5 million people who requested a mail-in ballot will actually turn in their mail-in ballot. | |
| But based on the large number of requests, as well as the large number of people who have already voted early... | |
| Well, it's looking like this year's midterm turnout will be quite high. | |
| Here's, for instance, what Professor Michael McDonald from the University of Florida, here's what he said on this matter. | |
| It's clear that we are above the 2018 midterm at the same point in time in states where we have comparable data to look at. | |
| We can see these sorts of indicators that would suggest that we're in for a high turnout election, much like we had in 2018. | |
| And 2018 was the highest midterm turnout rate since 1914. | |
| Meaning that we are essentially looking at the possibility of the highest midterm turnout within the last hundred years. | |
| Now, when you look at the breakdown of the states that have already voted early, you'll see that at the very top, with more than one million votes each, are the states of Florida, California, and Michigan. | |
| And right behind them is the state of Georgia, which is likewise seeing record numbers of early voters. | |
| In fact, according to a statement that was released by the Georgia Secretary of State's office just four days ago, Well, this year's early voting has already broken the record that was set in the year 2020. | |
| Here's in fact part of what his statement read in part. | |
| We're extremely pleased that so many Georgians are able to cast their votes in record numbers and without any reports of substantial delays. | |
| This is a testament to the hard work of Georgia's election workers, the professionals who keep our elections convenient and secure. | |
| However, despite more and more laws across the entire nation, Relaxing the restrictions surrounding mail-in ballots, well, there are still groups in this country working to rein in universal mail-in voting. | |
| And some of them are proving successful. | |
| For instance, just three days ago, a judge right here in the state of New York ruled that several of the state's recent mail-in ballot reforms were actually unconstitutional. | |
| Specifically, in this case, State Supreme Court Justice Diane Freestone, she sided with the Republican plaintiffs in a lawsuit that was brought forth last month, and she struck down a law which allowed people to vote by absentee ballot if they happened to fear contracting a disease like COVID-19. | |
| Here's part of what she wrote in her 28-page opinion. | |
| Quote, The framers of the Constitution did not intend to grant and did not grant the legislature carte blanche, meaning a blank check, to enact legislation over absentee voting. | |
| Furthermore, in that same opinion statement, the judge also ruled that the new process that the state of New York set up for quote-unquote canvassing, meaning their process for inspecting and preparing ballots for counting, was also unconstitutional. | |
| Because it violates the candidates, meaning the people who are actually on the ballots, it violates their rights in several ways, including by making it more difficult to raise a legal challenge when there is a question over whether or not a certain ballot is passed. | |
| Now, in terms of what this actually means for the state of New York, as well as for the several hundred of thousands of absentee ballots that have already been issued, I think the Gothamist newspaper wrote a great analysis of the situation, And here was part of their report. | |
| The Democrat-led state legislature approved the new process in a 2021 law meant to expedite the state's notoriously slow procedures for counting mail-in ballots. | |
| It also means the more than 427,000 New York voters, including more than 187,000 in New York City, who have already requested and received their absentee ballots, will still be able to cast their ballots for the November 8th election, regardless of whether they elected to receive mail-in ballots due to fears of spreading illness. regardless of whether they elected to receive mail-in ballots due Currently, 108,000 New Yorkers have completed and returned their absentee ballots. | |
| Meaning, in plain English, that despite the fact that the judge found this practice to be unconstitutional, the people who already received a mail-in ballot can still submit it and have it count, and the people who already submitted it can still have their vote count. | |
| However, regardless of that caveat, as you can imagine, the Republican plaintiffs in this case were pleased with the results of this case. | |
| For instance, Mr. | |
| Nick Langworthy, the chairman of the New York State's Republican Party, as well as the plaintiff in this case, he wrote this in a statement after the judge's ruling was published, quote, The state constitution has been on our side, and we will continue to fight to uphold the will of the voters and to ensure honest elections in New York. | |
| Just like their illegal Hochulmander, which is a play on the word Kathy Hochul and Gerrymander, and their non-citizen voting scheme, Democrats' attempt to rig our elections was slapped down by the courts. | |
| When I took over as chairman of the New York GOP, I promised to usher in a new fighting era that took on Democrats' brazen lawlessness, and this victory is another win for election integrity. | |
| So that was in the state of New York. | |
| But likewise, about 10 days ago, over in the state of Pennsylvania... | |
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| So that was in the state of New York. | |
| But likewise, about 10 days ago, over in the state of Pennsylvania, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Republican challenger, also in a Pennsylvania case involving mail-in ballots. | |
| Specifically, what happened in this case is that last year, a man by the name of David Ritter, He was up by 71 votes over his Democrat opponent. | |
| However, there were 257 mail-in ballots which came in without a date written on them. | |
| And having a date written on your ballot envelope is something that's actually required by Pennsylvania state law. | |
| Pennsylvania state law stipulates that voters are mandated to write the date on the outer envelope of their mail-in ballot in order for it to be valid. | |
| These 257 envelopes did not have a date written on them, and so Mr. | |
| Ritter, citing the state law, tried to prevent these ballots from being processed. | |
| However, at that point, the ACLU swooped in, and acting on behalf of a small group of voters, they filed a lawsuit, urging the court to go ahead and count the undated ballots regardless of state law. | |
| And indeed, despite what the state law actually said, on May 27th of last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ordered the state of Pennsylvania to go ahead and count the undated mail-in ballots. | |
| In explaining the rationale, Judge Theodore McKee, who was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, he said this in part, quote, Congress passed the materiality provision of the Federal Civil Rights Act to ensure qualified voters were not disenfranchised by meaningless requirements that prevented eligible voters from casting their ballots but had nothing to do with determining one's qualifications to vote. | |
| Ignoring ballots because the outer envelope was undated, even though the ballot was indisputably received before the deadline for voting, serves no purpose other than disenfranchising otherwise qualified voters. | |
| This is exactly the type of disenfranchisement that Congress sought to prevent. | |
| Meaning, in plain English, that according to that judge, such a minor technicality could and should be ignored. | |
| And so, because the undated votes were allowed to be counted, Mr. | |
| Ritter wound up losing his election. | |
| However, he appealed his decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, and wouldn't you believe it, a short year and a half later, the court came back and ruled in his favor. | |
| Specifically, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the earlier decision, the one that was made by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. | |
| Here's specifically what they wrote in their brief opinion statement that was published just a few days ago. | |
| Quote, The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit with instructions to dismiss the case as moot. | |
| But here's the big irony in this case, which is despite this opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court, which vacated the earlier ruling, it does not change the fact that Mr. | |
| Ritter lost his election. | |
| It doesn't change those results. | |
| Furthermore, it technically doesn't even stop the state of Pennsylvania from doing it again, meaning that the state could, once again, count undated ballots in the upcoming midterm elections. | |
| The only thing that this U.S. Supreme Court ruling actually achieves is that the earlier decision by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals cannot be used as a precedent in a similar case. | |
| Meaning, as an example, let's say it happens once again that the difference between two candidates rests on a stack of mail-in ballots that happen to be undated. | |
| Well, the election officials in the state of Pennsylvania could still count them, just like they did last year. | |
| However, this U.S. Supreme Court ruling means that the candidate for office could file another lawsuit against the election officials for counting those undated ballots. | |
| And then perhaps, after another year and a half, he can once again prevail in court without any demonstrable change to the actual election results. | |
| Meaning that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals opinion cannot be used as a precedent, meaning the election officials can't come into court and say, hey, you can't sue us because of this precedent. | |
| So he can still sue them, but based on this U.S. Supreme Court ruling, well, what would happen? | |
| He would probably still lose the election, be found to be correct in court, and no demonstrable change will actually happen. | |
| That's just the amazing situation that we're seeing play out in Pennsylvania. | |
| Regardless, though, if you want to read into the specifics of that particular case, as well as the New York case, and also if you would actually like to look at this state-by-state breakdown of early voting, I'll throw all those links and they'll be down into the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And again, all I ask in return is that as you're making your way down there to those links, take a brief detour to smash that like button so this video can be shared out to ever more people. | |
| And also consider subscribing to this YouTube channel as well by smashing that subscribe button. | |
| That way you can get this type of honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed every time we publish it. | |
| Lastly, I should mention that since we're on the general topic of the midterm elections, if you're looking for an honest source of up-to-date midterm election news, basically, on November 8th, well, on the evening of November 8th, after all the polls close, we at Epoch Times and NTD will be doing a joint awesome live stream well into the evening. | |
| We'll probably be up until like 2 or 3 a.m. | |
| doing updated result numbers. | |
| And if you're looking for an unbiased source of news, basically if you're looking for a source of election results that won't call the state of Arizona when only 5% of the votes are in, well, I would highly recommend that you check it out. | |
| You can find it over on Epic TV. We'll be streaming there on November 8th. | |
| It'll be a ton of fun. | |
| If you want to check it out, the link will be right there at the very top of the description box. | |
| And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epic Times. | |
| Stay informed. |
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