[guest post by Dana]

This comes straight from the Trump sore loser playbook: If you are defeated it can only be because the election was rigged:

[Republican candidate Larry] Elder, the leading Republican candidate to replace Newsom if the recall is successful…said he believes the “shenanigans” would be similar to those that happened during the 2020 election, in which President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump. There was no evidence of widespread election fraud in that election.

“What I believe is that no matter what they do — and I believe that there might very well be shenanigans, as it were in the 2020 election — no matter what they do, so many Californians are angry about what’s going on” that he will win anyway, Elder said, citing anger around crime, homelessness and quality of public education.

…

Elder — echoing claims made by Trump during and after the 2020 election, as well as comments about the California race from right-wing media — has started to question the possible election results, telling supporters that his campaign is ready and willing to file lawsuits and pointing them to a campaign website portal that allows people to report possible issues.
“We have a voter integrity board all set up – most of these are lawyers,” Elder said Wednesday. “So, when people hear things, they contact us. We’re going to file lawsuits in a timely fashion.”
…

“The 2020 election, in my opinion, was full of shenanigans,” Elder said this weekend on Fox News, another outlet that has helped spread falsehoods about election integrity. “And my fear is they’re going to try that in this election right here and recall.”

Elder was sticking to the same message this morning when answering a direct question about whether he would accept tomorrow’s election results:

“The leading Republican candidate would not commit to accepting the results of the election” pic.twitter.com/qyMGyqoKD8

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 13, 2021

Of course Trump himself has also pushed the rigged election nonsense:

“It’s probably rigged,” Trump said, repeating complaints about mail-in ballots he raised in 2020. “The ballots… are mail-in ballots… I guess you even have a case where you can make your own ballot. When that happens, nobody’s gonna win except these Democrats. The one thing they are good at is rigging elections, so I predict it’s a rigged election.”

Note: These is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in California elections. The 22 million ballots California county elections offices have sent to every registered voter are checked and verified to ensure each person only votes once and that only active, registered voters cast ballots. Officials also check to ensure the signature on each mail ballot matches the one on file with the state.

Anyway, President Biden is scheduled to speak at a Gov. Newsom rally in Long Beach tonight. It’s anybody’s guess whether he’ll boost Newsom’s numbers, but certainly, everyone on both sides of the aisle is keenly aware that it’s not just California’s governorship that is at stake here…

UPDATE: Oh come on!:

Republican Larry Elder appealed on Monday to his supporters to use an online form to report fraud, which claimed it had “detected fraud” in the “results” of the California recall election “resulting in Governor Gavin Newsom being reinstated as governor.”

The only problem: On Monday when the link was live on Elder’s campaign site, the election hadn’t even happened yet. No results had been released. And Elder was still campaigning to replace Newsom as governor.

“Statistical analyses used to detect fraud in elections held in 3rd-world nations (such as Russia, Venezuela, and Iran) have detected fraud in California resulting in Governor Gavin Newsom being reinstated as governor,” the site reads. “The primary analytical tool used was Benford’s Law and can be readily reproduced.”

The site added on Monday afternoon a disclaimer saying it was “Paid For By Larry Elder Ballot Measure Committee Recall Newsom Committee,” with major funding from Elder’s gubernatorial campaign.

–Dana

Hi there. It’s me. Any reports of my demise, if there were any, were premature.

I have spent the last several weeks in a trial, of a case I have had for six years. On Friday, the jury delivered a verdict. (Yes, I’m happy with it.)

This has been an all-consuming enterprise. I missed a vacation with my family. I did not write here or read anything here. I did not keep up with news. I did not go to church. I barely talked to anyone. Many days, I did not sleep more than four hours.

My sleep schedule has been wildly thrown off. Although I am theoretically back to “normal” I woke up before 3 today and decided to shower, have coffee, and start work. Might as well!

Another thing I did not do is write a newsletter. I feel guilty about that, because some people pay for the better stuff, and I have delivered nothing for weeks. The best I can do is offer a refund, and jump back on the horse this week. Email me for a refund for the time I have missed, and it will be cheerfully done. I will send the same offer by email to subscribers.

I thank the guest bloggers for their contributions, although sad to say I have not read them for a while. When you get four hours sleep for multiple nights, it saps your ability to do things like read excellent blog posts . . . or, well, to do anything not critically necessary to the mission.

Did I miss anything over the past several weeks?