"Disproven," A Review. It Surprises.
The cover of two-time Rhode Island gubernatorial candidate Ken Block's new book, coupled with a foreward by Georgia's Secretary of State, makes you think it's anti-Trump. Nope.
Unless you work in the field of election forensics or paid unusual attention to the 2020 presidential post-election challenges and histrionics, you’ve probably never heard of Ken Block.
Neither had I, and I’m very knowledgeable about campaigns and elections (but not a “professional”). But when searching for a “pro-Trump” election “reform” expert who also happened to have a new book coming out, his “Disproven—My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign” caught my eye. I was looking for someone to fit that bill on behalf of the Stubblefield Institute for Civil Political Communications (Shepherd University, WV), which I co-chair.
We’re always looking for engaging programming. Mr. Block and his book fit the bill very nicely.
The book was published earlier this month, and I just finished it. It is riveting, relatively quick to read, and accessible for those engaged in elections. Those interested but not experts on elections will find it more than interesting, especially his chapter on being served with three subpoenas and the subsequent invasive and often lazy, if frequently wrong, media coverage just because he was associated with the Trump campaign. So typical. I know you’re surprised.
Ken Block’s book subtitle is unique: “The data that shows why he lost and how we can improve our elections.” It may well be the longest book subtitle in recent history, a testament to the depth and breadth of his research. I enjoyed this book very much.
I might have chosen a different title. Not because it’s wrong. It just doesn’t accurately reflect what he says in his book. “Unproven” would have been better because that’s what he says about the Donald Trump campaign’s sometimes-wild election assertions about massive ballot fraud in 2020, which is better reflected in Chapter 19’s title: “Can Trump’s claim of massive mail ballot fraud be disproved? No.” Yes, I know there’s a difference between mail ballot fraud and general voter fraud. But not much.
As for the foreward by Georgia’s controversial Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, I wish Mr. Block had chosen someone else. “Trump world,” which could learn a lot from this book, will immediately reject anything with his name on it. Raffensperger, after all, too quickly caved to sign a consent decree to ease voting by mail restrictions from a legal challenge by Democratic charlatan and lawyer Marc Elias, a loathsome operative whom a federal court has sanctioned for his “lack of candor.” Not even superlawyer and Republican Paul Clement, who represented the Democratic slimeball, could rescue him.
And those who buy it because they think it’s an “anti-Trump” book will be sorely disappointed.
In his five-part tome, Block instead weaves through his frustrations with the cacophony of Babel-like divergent, contradictory, and often impossible-to-navigate post-election data in a tight three-week time frame to challenge the election with documented evidence. Our decentralized election system - set up that way, for better or worse, by our framers - made it challenging, if not possible, to make determinations that would pass legal muster. Each state has a different election system, from information and access to voter rolls to how ballots are handled. North Dakota, for example, has no voter registration. Period. I suppose that’s okay in a state with six people (okay, more like 784,000 people).
Part I of his 291-page book focuses on how the Trump campaign hired him and how he navigated the plethora of often-wild assertions about vote fraud in states like Arizona and Pennsylvania. My takeaway is that the lack of accessible evidence and the wild goose chases that desperate Trump officials put him on made his Trump-prescribed mission impossible.
Part II of the book focuses on another set of data that shows Trump lost not by fraud but by “leakage” or “bleeding” in several countries. It also focuses on the five swing states that will largely determine the 2024 election: Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Trump narrowly won those states in 2016 and lost them narrowly four years later. As Block points out, none of that leakage can be attributed to fraud.
Block's analysis shows that Trump’s margins shrunk in all but the most rural “red” counties in each state. The larger the “red” county, the more “bleeding” occurred. Trump narrowed his margin of defeat in many “blue” counties, but not enough to make up for the difference. Block argues that it’s hard to attribute that to fraud, and he’s right. Especially when the silos of election information vary so widely that they’re impossible to compare, much less assimilate and analyze.
“And finally, I thank the professional staff of the Donald J. Trump for President Campaign for their efforts to learn more than they ever wanted to know about data analytics, voter data, and the truth about the role of voter fraud in the 2020 election. You enabled a straight-up assessment of voter fraud to be conducted, and you communicated the findings of no fraud to the top of our nation’s government. This is one of the more remarkable things I reveal in this book, and you deserve credit for your actions.”
Ken Block, acknowledgments, “Disproven”
In Parts III and IV, Block discusses improving our Rube Goldberg elections system. First, we have an “infrastructure problem.”
“The Constitution makes the implementation of voting the responsibility of the states. As a result, we have a loose network of thousands of computer systems that implement our federal elections. We do not have a single national voting or voter registration system. Of course, our nearly 250-year-old constitution was written well before anyone could imagine computers.”
Block, who created Rhode Island’s “Moderate Party” and ran twice for Governor, complains that state laws impede the ability of alternative political parties to take root. We should ask Robert F. Kennedy and the cacophonous “No Labels” movement how they’re doing in getting established and on ballots. They’re having significant challenges. Block has a point, especially when an increasing percentage of Americans are looking for alternatives to the major party nominees in 2024 they don’t want.
Block aims for various states that hinder access to statewide voter files or, like Alabama, charge exorbitant fees to copy them ($37,000). States are also wildly divergent on the data they keep, some with full dates of birth, some only with birth months and years if that. It’s hard to match that lack of data against other databases to see if people are “double voting,” both at “home” and again at a second home in another state. It happens, but it’s hard to prove.
Block is not a fan of “Ranked Choice Voting.” Neither am I, except for political party nominating conventions with multiple candidates. It’s confusing and too complicated for many voters. He’s more pro-mail ballot than am I; we agree on a need to replace “signature verification” with a less subjective system.
He wanders into the thicket about the need to develop a new system to replace Social Security numbers. Given the amount of internet fraud and incursions, I fully agree. I share his view on “ballot harvesting,” or as I call it, “ballot trafficking.” Fewer people, not more, should handle ballots. There should be strict limits on who can deliver someone’s absentee ballot. He doesn’t address the issue of Zuckerbuck-funded drop boxes, including private-funding of elections. We agree on eliminating single-party voting, which Pennsylvania eliminated just in time for the 2020 elections. Oklahoma should follow suit.
I remember distinctly Democrats in Oklahoma exhorting their supporters to “stamp the rooster ‘till the feathers fly,” referring to the symbol next to the Democratic party on ballots. Elections are about individual candidates, not parties, Block argues. Again, I agree.
The US Election Assistance Commission is a federal agency created about 20 years ago as part of the “Help America Vote Act.” It was designed to help states clean up their bloated voter rolls and streamline election administration. The Commission has helped, but it can do so much more. We do need cleaner voter rolls and more streamlined elections.
Block wanders into things like redistricting—he hates partisan redistricting. I'm sorry, Ken, but the Constitution gives that responsibility to state legislatures, partisan or not, and the result of such commissions is a mixed bag. They seem to have worked in California, but one person winds up with “tie-breaking” power in New Jersey. He spends a lot of time dealing with “dead voters,” people who cast early votes but die before “election day.” His solution is to limit early in-person voting to two weeks and give dead voters their final tribute to democracy. I’m all for limiting “election season” to two weeks. In my Commonwealth of Virginia, it’s 45 days, which is insane.
I was disappointed that he didn’t address the issue of states like Pennsylvania and California counting votes for weeks after ballots are due. California, for example, just this week completed counting from its “Super Tuesday” primary on March 5th. Most states finished counting within 24 hours, with minor exceptions for military and overseas balloting. This hurts confidence in our elections. I believe all ballots MUST be received by the election day to be counted, with no exceptions.
Although the book will probably not make the New York Times bestseller list, it is a significant contribution for those interested in free and fair elections. Four stars.
interesting post. states are where it is at. 45 days is too long for early voting. In Virginia, we have a pretty good system--but infrastructure is always a challenge, and can always be improved.Author of Fighting Political Gridlock: How States Shape Our Nation and Our Lives,
This is a very well-written review. I agree that the Trump campaign never proved fraud. Whether that was because he had the Keystone Kops as the face of his attorneys or not, we will never know. But there is little doubt that the Democrats successfully took advantage of COVID to change the rules in some places to encourage the turnout of their low-propensity voters. And that certainly affected places like Philadelphia, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Detroit.