OPINION:
Former President Donald Trump is on a roll, but his campaign could get run over.
The Republican nominee is on message. He pledges to restore prosperity, retame inflation, reseal the border, refight crime and resurrect global tranquility. America was better off when Mr. Trump’s “peace through strength” policy bolstered European harmony and catalyzed the Abraham Accords. Under Vice President Kamala Harris’ “war through weakness” doctrine, Russia’s bombs blast Ukraine, and Iran’s missiles rock Israel.
GOP running mate J.D. Vance’s commanding debate performance last week dazzled voters and razzled his Democratic rival, Minnesota Gov. Tim “Knucklehead” Walz. Mr. Trump leads Ms. Harris on social media engagement, and the Republican ticket is rising in swing states.
Mr. Trump’s progress, however, could evaporate thanks to a hazard as invisible yet as potentially lethal as carbon monoxide.
This election outcome could be decided by one or two toss-up states captured by a relative handful of problematic mail-in ballots. Unlike normal ballots, which precinct workers personally hand to and collect from actual voters, mail-in ballots have no chain of custody.
County clerks and even independent printers haul truckloads of ballots to U.S. Postal Service sites. Letter carriers deliver them as addressed.
Most of these ballots find actual voters, but others reach questionable or even unqualified locations, directed to phantom voters who have moved away, died or never even existed. Left-wing nongovernmental organizations harvest, complete and submit these ballots at election offices. They deposit them in unsupervised drop boxes. This “one-time-only” measure — implemented during 2020’s COVID-19 horror — has become as unshakable as lampreys.
A small number of bogus ballots might be a minor nuisance. Unfortunately, their abundance could cost Mr. Trump the White House.
A new organization called Common Sense Elections harnesses robust fractal computing to reconcile voter rolls with property tax records, postal change-of-address forms and other government databases. What the organization discovered in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin should trigger Klaxons at Trump-Vance headquarters and the Republican National Committee:
• Across these states, 660,290 mail-in ballots are tied to registered voters who permanently moved to other states. These absentees number 68,983 in Georgia (far exceeding President Biden’s 2020 margin of victory of 11,779 votes), 262,488 in Pennsylvania (which Mr. Biden scored by 80,555) and 42,043 in Wisconsin (Mr. Biden’s by 20,682).
• Voters who moved to other in-state counties total 457,310. These include 65,857 relocated voters in Michigan (which Mr. Trump won in 2016 by 10,704 votes) and 169,083 in Pennsylvania (which Mr. Trump secured then with 44,292 votes).
• Electors who moved and left no forwarding address: 146,160.
• Those linked to invalid addresses total 663,514. Pennsylvania features 346,505 such “voters.”
• Voters recorded at commercial sites: 4,914. These reflect, among others, voters at Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport and a vacant lot at 9145 Mann St.
• A staggering 916,100 voters are enrolled with missing or incorrect apartment numbers. This boosts the odds that postal workers will leave unclaimed ballots in lobbies or mailrooms, where harvesters can retrieve and abuse them.
• These screwy ballots total 2,848,288 — in just these six states and involving these six anomalies. Deeper and wider scrutiny yields graver worries.
The good news is that Common Sense Elections’ technology identifies these suspicious destinations. It then asks county clerks not to send them mail-in ballots. The organization also monitors ballots that are filled and returned. It flags those that arrive from fishy addresses and advises election officials not to count them.
Those who insist on tabulating bogus ballots could face litigation.
Election integrity activists who inspected Wisconsin’s voter lists via Common Sense Elections’ information-gathering sued on Sept. 30 to require the state’s election officials to verify the registrations associated with 143,742 eyebrow-raising addresses.
On Sept. 26, Common Sense Elections’ allies sued Georgia’s GOP secretary of state. They want Brad Raffensperger to address 162,037 registrants who seemingly switched counties or completely exited the Peach State. If so, the plaintiffs want such registrations declared inactive.
Austin, Texas-based ballot security expert Jay Valentine launched Common Sense Elections. He exposes “addresses such as a Walmart, bank, 7-11, or a college dorm room where the student graduated 12 years ago — all yielding ballots that NGOs gather and vote.”
Mr. Valentine’s group hopes to make elections great again by rallying the nation around its website’s battle cry: StopBogusBallots.com.
• Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor. He is assisting Common Sense Elections’ movement to stop bogus ballots.
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