I avoid deeply engaging with conspiracy theorists and other liars for the same reason I don’t engage with drunks: nothing good can come from reasoning with the unreasonable. But I want to make one more note about SD Canvassing, the largely anonymous group hosting a Big Lie rally at Al Novstrup’s go-kart palace in Sioux Falls next Monday.
SD Canvassing’s sloppy website opens to this home page:
This anonymous group claims to be interested in “Election Integrity in the State of South Dakota.” But they can’t even find an image of a South Dakota polling station, let alone any evidence of a lack of integrity in South Dakota elections. Check out all the Britishisms in their banner image:
Craven Arms is a nice little civil parish in Shropshire, England, formed in 1987 with the merger of Stokesay and Halford. As indicated by the poster at the right of the above image, these blue automatic doors open into the Craven Arms Community Centre (note the spelling) and Library. The placard at the upper right appears to indicate the Centre is part-financed by the European Union—nice of the Continent to do that favor before Brexit! Note the other clear indications that this photo comes from Mother England: offence, queue, times with hour and minutes separated by periods instead of colons, date written as “the 3rd June” instead of “June 3rd”, and the ad for Slimming World, the British version to Weight Watchers.
If I were to engage these conspiracy theorists, I’d propose my own theory that this image of a British polling station proves that SD Canvassing is a Tory cabal seeking to restore the monarchy. This image is at least as hard evidence—an actual photograph used by the actual group on its actual website—as any of the unsupportable math fantasies they propose.
But hey, as I said, I don’t engage conspiracy theorists.
“Myth: The John Birch Society is nothing more than a group of conspiracy theorists.
Fact: By definition, a conspiracy exists when two or more persons work secretly for an evil or unlawful purpose. Given the state that America is in today, one could argue that an unconstitutional agenda is no longer secret, but in the open for all to see. Those that [sic: who] continue to work against the Constitution do so brazenly, continuing to make promises and entitlements to citizens that the country cannot afford while committing future generations to crushing debt and ever decreasing prosperity at the expense of liberty.” https://jbs.org/about/facts/
Now comes the Mike Lindell Cyber-Symposium dog-and-pony show with John Bircher Mike Hyde and Douglas Frank:
https://thenewamerican.com/tag/cyber-symposium/
The first thing I noticed was the incorrect polling times. In SD the polls are open from 7am-7pm local time. We don’t allow working people that much time during non-working hours to cast their ballot.
I hate obvious dips**ts, and these election conspiracy fools prove every day they are big in the pooping and double dipping department. We have them in Wisconsin, too, wasting tax dollars on Inspector Clouseau-style “investigations.”
You can’t get any nuttier than these poor deluded souls, and you are sane to not bother interacting with them. I, however, am not sane. I love to give the Wisconsin dipsy doodles the business. To rational folks pointing out the Britishness of the polling place in that screen shot is enough to demonstrate how faked up the whole conspiracy theory is. But to the deluded, that screen shot is likely to convince them that Christopher Steele held a meeting at Sanna’s with a living Jim Abouresk and a dead George McGovern to mess up the election results in Soo Foo. It never ends with them. It just gets loonier.
Good eye, Nick! Perhaps we can extend the conspiracy: SD Canvassing is trying to spread false information about when the polls are open in hopes of tricking people into showing up too late to vote!
Interesting the that British give their people more time to vote that we Yanks do.
Cory, you might reconsider addressing some conspiracies. Follow the money. The Dallas Morning News did. (paywall)
They discovered its easier to buy a republican politician than to buy a gun.
Here’s a watered down version: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/14/russian-oligarch-andrey-muraviev-indicted-linked-to-trump-donors.html , unfortunately it fails to link to the republican politicians who took the Russian money and influence as does the DMN article.
Then there is the, Foundations of Geopolitics, published 1997 and a text in Russian Academy of General Staff. It’s a blueprint for the Russian subjugation of Europe. In parts: “Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics”. Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible.
It describes the UK: as an “extraterritorial floating base of the U.S.”, should be cut off from Europe. (Recall Russian money and propaganda supported BREXIT, so advancing this Russian objective.)
There is much more. Glance at: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t0q70d/i_think_i_found_russias_geopolitical_playbook/
Many connected the dots, from retired General Wes Clark to author Seth Abramson (The Ten Hardest Truths About the War in Europe, published 10 March). And recall that Moscow did not sanction ANY republicans . . . coincidence . . . only for the naive.
Well Nick, tea time gives the Brits a little more time to vote. Now if our polling place was a bar and they stayed open until two…… Houdeks would have been perfect, everyone would vote.
I watched a video of these folks’ presentation posted on a Lincoln County interest group on FB (moderator is Ernie Otten’s wife). First thing I noticed and commented on was the presentation was hosted by a church. Commented churches are not supposed to be engaged in political activities. Thye group is actually from MN, head organizer a true Trumpist/conspiracy theory dude. One thing that stood out in the presentation was their insistence that SD is much, much easier place to cheat at the polls to MN. I commented to the effect that “So, blue state MN is a more difficult place to cheat in an election to deeply red one=party ruled SD, eh?”
I’m pretty sure anyone can rent space in a church in off hours….
Well…were it not so serious it would be a huge joke….these people are lost in a “Spy vs. Spy” world of intrigue and eighth grade drama, suitable for Mad Magazine…they can’t let go or they would lose their bearings and end up on the hopeless ward of a treatment facility. Facts don’t matter but the fact is that two days after the election, Trump strategist, pollster and Fox News inhabitant Mary whatever her name is Conway (the blond babbler) met with Trump and told him he had lost the election for these reasons…He had lost his fire…he just repeated buzz lines from his last campaign and did little new to attract new voters to his campaign…second, his handling of Covid was a disaster and he lost twenty per cent of Republican women (mostly suburban) who had voted for him in 2016…his base constituency was too threatening to attract undecided voters who went to Biden rather than join his crowd. Trump rejected her advice, only saying that he was sticking to his story as, if he wavered, he would lose his base.
I attended the free event, it was open to all political parties – SD Canvassing is a nonpartisan group. They spoke had a slide presentation based on FACTS from their own experience from canvassing door-to-door with the SD Current Voter Roll to selected homes in Minnehaha County (homes with 5 or more registered voters) – over 90% time homeowners reported there were people on the list who did NOT live at that address for years – even as much as 8 years, or was it 11 years? Regardless, there were much more fact finding election analomies. This group is also taking action so that our state and local officials are accoutable to upholding current election laws. SDCanvassing.com. Period.
Theresa, I don’t see any refutation here of the debunking of the false math the speaker is spreading. Do you have any documentable evidence supporting the Big Lie? And did you see Senator Novstrup at the event?
Perhaps that canvassing was done at a mailbox place, otherwise, it’s a bunch of hooey. More dark money from oligarchs to protect the oligarchs that use our banking systems to steal from taxpayers.
Soon they will say that it was the Indians who did it, so predictable.
In Wisconsin the nutcases have pointed out the same “facts” that Theresa V. Pesce points out above. These “facts” have been explained in Wisconsin from a number of different reasons:
(1) Some are addresses of congregate housing (eg., assisted living facilities, group homes, student housing). In such instances you often get multiple people registered at the same address.
(2) Some are addresses that have rapid turnover in tenets, and their voter registration hasn’t caught up to their new address. Often this happens with people who don’t vote very often.
(3) The list that canvassers use are not the up-to-date poll book. I can’t say how SD works, but in WI, there is list of registered voters that is far larger than and different from the list at each of the polling places.
I am not going to debate the comments of those attempting to discredit my comment. I stated the facts – your opinion is NOT going to change the Honest and Verifiable Facts 🇺🇸