Anatomy of a Red State
Topic: Elections
Author’s Note: My comprehensive 2024 election analysis outlines the intricacies of every state all the way down to the county level and ranks them relative to one another as to how much manipulation was likely in the presidential race in November, which Donald Trump won.
Red states and blue states are the way they are because of the laws the states have. This piece focuses on how the Trump states look in the books, which largely dictated how they turned out.
I have rated each state on one of four concern grades – Lowest, Marginal, Elevated, and Highest. Those ratings can be found here or within the posts evaluating any individual state or region. Likewise, I have also accounted for eight major demerits:
· Automatic Voter Registration
· Ballot Harvesting – whether permitted by law, or widely practiced
· Excessive Mail-in Voting – whether universal, notable, or no-excuse
· Prolonged Counting – normally due to excessive mail-in voting
· Ranked Choice Voting
· Same Day Voter Registration
· Unique Corruption – arbitrary and understood through extensive research
· No Voter ID
A final consideration was also made as to whether I thought focused manipulation was present in the 2024 results in a given state.
This is how the Trump states shook out with regard to the assessed demerits above:
The cleanest states Trump won in 2024, which had zero demerits between them and no concentrated indication of election manipulation were:
· Alabama
· Arkansas
· Indiana
· Kansas
· Kentucky
· Louisiana
· Mississippi
· Missouri
· Nebraska
· North Dakota
· Ohio (rates Marginal because it exceeds minimum electoral vote threshold for Lowest)
· Oklahoma
· South Carolina
· South Dakota
· Tennessee
The dirtiest states Trump won despite significant cheating (which had or attempted major down ballot theft), and their respective demerits in parenthesis:
· Nevada (8)
· Pennsylvania (6)
· Michigan (5)
· Wisconsin (4)
Arizona was nudged out of the Top 10% (Grade of 4 - Highest Concern) thanks to the presidential trend moving hard to the right in all 15 counties but has down ballot issues related to lack of transparency, broken chain of custody, and excessive mail-in balloting that shrouds the outcome of the U.S. Senate race there in doubt. Alaska and Utah run bad elections but the outcomes in those states (save for the failure of Ranked Choice Voting repeal in Alaska) do not warrant a higher grade for either.
The Demerits Pound for Pound:
Automatic Voter Registration
25 of 31 Trump states (80.6%) do not operate Automatic Voter Registration. Notably, many Trump-won states had major voter roll purges before the 2024 election, like Iowa, Texas, Florida, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. You can observe the nationwide split in the graphic below:
Ballot Harvesting
22 of 31 (71.0%) of Trump states do not permit or severely penalize ballot harvesting and likely have little of it practiced thanks to a variety of factors, including lack of population density in many of the interior states.
Excessive Mail-In Voting
25 of 31 (80.6%) of Trump states have relatively little mail-in voting when considering the practices of all states. Only two Trump states are universal mail-in voting (every registration gets a mailed ballot) states – Nevada and Utah – and Nevada’s corruption was enough to stop Sam Brown from flipping a U.S. Senate seat.
Prolonged Counting
Only 5 of 31 (16.1%) of Trump states took a substantial amount of time to count ballots, and North Carolina is the only one of the five without excessive mail-in voting. Their delayed counting ensured the outcome of the State Supreme Court race went to the incumbent Democrat.
Ranked Choice Voting
Only Alaska operates RCV, which was up for a repeal that narrowly failed while caught in the vice grips of a prolonged count with excessive mail-in voting. Several states banned Ranked Choice Voting in the 2024 election.
Same Day Voter Registration
23 of 31 (74.2%) Trump states do not permit same day voter registration, which varies in its level of severity. Wisconsin is the most impacted, while some interior Republican states notice little difference.
Unique Corruption
I tagged 8 of 31 (25.8%) Trump states for the arbitrary designation of unique corruption, which ranges from Texas willfully allowing its largest counties to violate its own statutes to Michigan’s top law enforcement officials threatening election workers and citizens for bringing up claims of election manipulation.
No Voter ID
29 of 31 (93.5%) Trump states had Voter ID requirements (mostly with photo requirements) in the 2024 election. Only Nevada and Pennsylvania went to Trump among states with no identification requirements.
2024 Election Manipulation
This is my assessment of concentrated election manipulation in the 2024 race, whether assessed or documented. 8 of 31 (25.8%) states won by Trump appear to contain noticeable manipulation, especially within the decisive battleground states of Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, which all received a Grade of 4 – Highest Concern.
Conclusion
Trump states overwhelmingly have:
· No Automatic Voter Registration
· Restrictions against Ballot Harvesting
· Tighter controls over mail-in balloting (not universal)
· Fast counts
A relatively clean voter roll (or better yet, no voter roll like North Dakota), with strong restrictions on mail-in ballot requests, plus transparency leading to fast counts is likely to align with a Trump-won state.
With just 53 demerits assessed over 31 Trump states, the Trump states average just 1.7 demerits per state.
Seth Keshel, MBA, is a former Army Captain of Military Intelligence and Afghanistan veteran. His analytical method of election forecasting and analytics is known worldwide, and he has been commended by President Donald J. Trump for his work in the field.
We REALLY need to fix Nevada ASAP!! The down ballot trickery is killing us.. I sincerely hope Trump finds an important place to utilize your skills.
So Great sir!