Did Trump Lose in 2020?
October 21, 2024
Everywhere you turn these days, the mainstream media wants to ask a Republican candidate whether Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. It's an obvious gotcha question intended to embarrass and/or corner whomever is being asked.
Here's the answer: Joe Biden was declared the winner. Joe Biden took the oath of office. And Joe Biden has occupied the White House for the last four years.
But that's not really the question the mainstream media is asking. What they really want to know is if the Republican being interviewed believes Biden received a sufficient amount of votes to be declared the winner.
Here's that answer: No single American counted all the votes nor ascertained the veracity of those votes. I didn't. You didn't. We're all forced to rely on others to conduct those operations and report the results. It's basically an honor system writ large, and we're all asked to have faith in it.
Ya Gotta Have Faith
In 2020, I lost some faith in that system because certain individuals with oversight over the counting and reporting in Pennsylvania put their thumbs on the scale. Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar, along with other partisan election officials across the state, began gaming the system during the 2020 primary by allowing unmanned drop boxes which were not authorized by any law.
The games continued throughout 2020. Boockvar issued numerous questionable directives to county boards of elections right up until the eve of Election Day, actions which all benefited Democrat candidates and Democrat-heavy counties. She quickly pulled the trigger on certifying the vote, and presided over the vote of Pennsylvania's presidential electors with a gleeful smirk behind a Covid mask.
In early 2021, she lied during testimony about 2020 before the House State Government Committee. And then she resigned, ostensibly over her failure to properly advertise a constitutional amendment, a simple ministerial duty.
Other election officials in certain counties also pressed their thumbs on the scales at every opportunity throughout 2020. Some were taking advantage of Boockvar's directives; others acted of their own volition.
Other Mitigating Factors
In addition to those actions in 2020, Boockvar's predecessor Pedro Cortez granted several dozen left-leaning non-profit organizations the ability to register voters electronically in 2015 via a direct Web API connection to the state's central voter roll system. This despite the state maintaining a robust online registration system of its own. A voter can be registered electronically without providing any form of ID.
That ability was later expanded to include allowing those same organizations to "help" a voter apply for a mail-in ballot. Because these organizations were using an application of their own creation, it is not out of the realm of possibility for them to capture the data from those they register for use at a later time. Draw your own conclusions here.
Further, a 2019 attempt by the Auditor General (a Democrat) to audit Pennsylvania's voter rolls was thwarted by the Department of State. That report was scathing. And it should be noted that Pedro Cortez also resigned his position as Secretary of the Commonwealth under mysterious circumstances in 2017.
All these factors led me to have diminished confidence in the announced vote totals in Pennsylvania which led to Joe Biden being declared the winner in 2020. I am still unsure. I did not personally count all the votes, nor did I ascertain their veracity. But neither did you. We are all asked to simply have faith in the system.
My faith was shaken in 2020. Perhaps yours wasn't. It's highly likely that your level of faith is dependent upon your support of the outcome in 2020. That's human nature, but we should all be concerned about opportunities for our vote to be cancelled out by an illegitimate voter.
The Aftermath
The months immediately following that election were the most hectic of my life. I spoke with hundreds, if not thousands, of people from all walks of life about it. I went down many rabbit holes, many of which were just dead ends or nothingburgers.
I did join legislative colleagues in dozens of actions aimed at securing and ensuring election integrity, both before and after the election. I documented those in a letter to Vice President Mike Pence on December 23, 2020. That letter was also submitted to the National Archives, President Trump, and all members of the US House and Senate.
On January 5 2021, I voiced an objection on the House floor in Harrisburg to the process of having the statewide election results reported to a joint session of the General Assembly. I stand by all those actions in my effort to jealously guard the authority of the General Assembly to establish election law.
Did Trump Lose the Election?
Did Trump legitimately lose the 2020 election in Pennsylvania? I do not know. Neither do you. Neither of us counted all the votes nor ascertained their veracity. Some people in charge of that here in Pennsylvania were putting their thumbs on the scale all along the way. That's enough for me to assign a permanent asterisk to the reported 2020 election results.
Yes, there were court cases but the vast majority of them were thrown out on procedural grounds rather than substance. Honestly, I don't think there is enough time between a November election and a January inauguration to fairly adjudicate everything that transpired in 2020. We need to create a more transparent election system where the public can easily confirm the veracity of what election officials report.
But most importantly, four years have passed and Biden's disastrous presidency cannot be undone. As such, the question itself is moot.
You may view that election outcome differently, but you don't have any more certainty about it than I do. And neither does any smarmy or smug mainstream media figure. Keep in mind that many of those media figures were also responsible for delivering the establishment's fear-porn rhetoric during Covid. We now see how that turned out.
What Will 2024 Bring?
A lot of things have changed since 2020. There have been some updates to Pennsylvania's election law. We don't have Covid around to obfuscate the election process. The Department of State is refraining from issuing shockingly creative directives.
The courts seem much more reluctant to chime in with confusing rulings. Some different individuals are now in charge of counting the votes and ascertaining their veracity across the Commonwealth. Counties have four more years of experience under their belts. And people are generally paying much closer attention.
As individual voters, we can only each cast our ballot and submit it to be counted. Once that ballot leaves our hands, it's a matter of faith. It always has been a matter of faith. My faith was shaken in 2020, but I'm holding out hope that it won't be shaken in 2024. I am keeping a keen eye open with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Here is the only thing I'm certain of: the best way to ensure that your vote is not properly counted is for you to not cast it. I encourage you not only to make a definitive plan to vote, but to encourage every member of your family, every friend, and every workmate to cast their vote as well. Too many elections are decided by those who fail to vote at all.
Here's hoping for universal confidence in the results reported after the polls close on November 5th, to help to Make America Great Again.
Final Caveat: I can only speak to issues regarding elections in Pennsylvania. I cannot speak to issues in any other state. If Pennsylvania had gone to Trump in 2020, the Electoral College would have still gone to Biden if every other state remained the same. But in 2024, it looks like Pennsylvania very well could be THE deciding swing state. All the more reason for Pennsylvanian Republicans to be sure to cast their ballot and have their voice heard.
