William Penn is Rolling in His Grave Over Automatic Voter Registration

Topic: Elections

No good deed goes unpunished.  From the looks of things, I am well positioned to retain the title of least divisive voice in the election integrity universe, which would mark the third year in a row I would have earned the fictitious honor barring any unforeseen change in circumstances.  I am something of a lock for that honor, along the lines of Greg Maddux being a shoo-in to win the Gold Glove for pitchers in the National League in the 1990s.

I do not use my platform to go after others rowing the same boat, whether we are talking about influencers, grassroots organizers, or rank-and-file moms and dads attending local meetings and earning their keep.  There is enough division going around without adding fuel to the fire, and strong communication and collaboration is key to resolving disputes centered around the election crisis.  Unlike others, I have never once criticized Scott Presler.  I, like Scott, view new voter registration as a key for winning elections, be they fraudulent or clean elections.  Voter registration is distinctly his claim to fame, and he goes after it with aplomb and tenacity.

None of us are right all the time.  Some of us are right far more often than we are wrong, but we all get it wrong from time to time.  I didn’t think Ron DeSantis would run for President back in February, not a blink of an eye after he ransacked his Democrat opponent in a blowout reelection; now he is out there trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to sack President Trump.  I thought Kari Lake would be at the top of the pile for the Vice-Presidential nod, but now she’s running for Senate.  But I will tell you this – I am not wrong that Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) is a death wish for election integrity that makes stripping the rolls of fraudulent registrations all but impossible.  Remember, President Trump won just 2 of 20 states operating AVR in the 2020 election, blood-red Alaska and torch-red West Virginia (plus one electoral vote from Maine).  Biden won the electoral votes of the remaining 18 states 243 to 9, and now Minnesota, Delaware, Hawaii, and now Pennsylvania have joined the fray.

Presler thinks AVR will somehow get Republicans over the top in Pennsylvania, even though a spectacular effort was required to steal Pennsylvania for Joe Biden in 2020 without the help of AVR.  Democrats have been on a path to extinction in the Keystone State since Barack Obama’s high point there in 2008, when the Democrats still owned the votes of the unions, suburban moms, and benefitted from a record turnout withrecord share of the vote from the racial and ethnic minority voting population.  After a 5-point Republican trend in 2012, Trump flipped the state in 2016 as voters were signing up to vote for a Trumpian GOP.  Trump was so beloved in Pennsylvania that, after his victory in 2016, net new voter registrations in his term favored the GOP by a ratio of 21:1 (241,888 net new GOP voter registrations, and only 11,432 for the Democrats net).  This is why, in consideration of registration by party, incumbent vote gain, and the coalition shift of non-college voters to Trump, I have the rightful winner with a margin of 6.4% minimum in Pennsylvania.  There is a damn good reason it took a week to finish counting in Pennsylvania.  It required a Herculean effort to divert that massive Trump win.

All of this and more awaited Mr. Presler on October 12, on a “spaces” held by the gracious host, Phenomenology.  The gauntlet of yours truly, Shawn Smith, David Clements, Kris Jurski, and others set aside time to discuss the critical issue of AVR, but there was no Scott.  Why am I upset?  I’m not trying to cause division for the sake of division, and I will not spend any energy negating his work in voter registration.  I’m upset because just as he is upset that Ronna Romney McDaniel won’t give him the time of day, those of us trying to hammer home the point that endorsing these corrupt election practices and trying to beat those who are bold enough to rip off elections in the world’s most powerful country in broad daylight (and moonlight) at their own games is going to further disadvantage us in the long run.  We need to air these things out or we will never tackle the election crisis.

Enough justifying.  Let’s look at the numbers in Pennsylvania in the three weeks since AVR has been instituted, in both a present and historical light.