Ballot Harvesting is Here: A Captain's 12-Point Commentary

Topic: Elections

Life often positions us awkwardly between desired outcomes and abject reality.  Those who adhere to rigid ideology as a guiding principle are often left disappointed in political matters, whereas taking an honest assessment as to where things rest at the present moment often points us in the right direction as far as future planning goes.  In the linked article in the previous sentence, I used Social Security as an example.  As much as it is a socialist concept with piss-poor administration and subsequent results, no “conservative” running for office would ever consider or message about getting rid of it for the simple fact that too many of their constituents and potential voters are relying on it to get by.  If you’ve read this far, you can probably tell I’m tuning up the band for a hard to swallow pill:

Ballot harvesting is here.

Whether you like it or not – and I know people on both sides of this dispute – it is here for at least the 2024 election.  Before anyone starts questioning where I stand on the ballot harvesting Hindenburg, I have written a justification for a thorough ban of the practice as part of my Ten Points to True Election Integrity, and also explained in great detail why putting a stamp of approval on ballot harvesting as a widespread practice will likely result in electoral doom for the Republican Party and outsider candidates.  There is absolutely zero written evidence out there of any approval of ballot harvesting coming from me.

Now that that is out of the way – I was prompted to write this piece because since the re-tooled Republican National Committee hired Scott Presler to head up legal ballot harvesting operations, and much of the election integrity Internet space exploded in rage and utter horror.  Again, Seth Keshel strongly opposes ballot harvesting – not only on the principled belief that harvested votes are, at best, cheap and seemingly illegitimate, even if taken off of a living, breathing, an registered-to-vote human being’s hands, but also on the grounds that it is a one-way ticket to nowhere and will drum up millions of votes in the form of ballots the Democrats otherwise couldn’t turn out thanks to their shitty candidate field post-Obama, and that party’s hellbent insistence on destroying America’s working class through class, environmental, and immigration warfare, both legal and illegal; however, the RNC and most GOP candidates (where applicable), and roughly half of rank-and-file Republican Party members believe we are going to make up contrived electoral deficits by winding our way through the suburbs and out-harvesting the masters of election corruption at their own game – so, off we go.

I tried to warn people for over two years about what elections reliant upon droves of people rushing around to collect mail-in ballots over a weeks-long early voting period will look like.  Many who read this journal find these talking points useful in explaining the why to those who have not come to grips with just how far off course the last three federal elections have been considering historical standards.  Without further ado, this is my stream of consciousness regarding the inevitable move toward ballot harvesting, perhaps for the foreseeable future.

A Captain’s 12-Point Commentary on Ballot Harvesting

The most offensive notion about the need to “join ‘em” is that ballot harvesting is needed when your side doesn’t get enough votes.  That was the case for the Democrats after 2008, when Obama’s presidency saddled them with not only severe losses in the U.S. House and Senate, but also throughout legislative chambers nationwide.  In all but the bluest coastal enclaves, the Democrats under Obama were going extinct, especially as the age of Trump came to fruition.  In 2020, Trump gained over 11 million votes from his performance in 2016, making him the first incumbent president to gain votes and lose since Grover Cleveland in 1888.  In 2022, Kari Lake nearly equaled Doug Ducey’s 2014 total in which he won reelection as Arizona’s governor by 14 points yet was denied that same office in a truly circus-level performance on the part of Maricopa County.  We are getting the votes.  Getting the votes isn’t our problem – preventing cheating is.

Commitment to ballot harvesting requires a belief that the same people who rigged our elections in 2018, 2020, and 2022 will somehow be tamed by surrendering more ballots earlier, dwindling Election Day turnout and thereby making it easier to concoct the final outcomes of races, especially the close ones (ahem, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada).

One of the main reasons we are here is because Republican legislatures, with Florida’s being a notable exception, have done very little to abolish or curb the practice of ballot harvesting, prompting people to say “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Ballot harvesting, and its requisite corruption, is the root cause behind recent election decisions and suits in Connecticut and New Jersey, even looked negatively upon by Democrat judges.

They know where to find the ballots in a pinch.  You don’t.

Republicans are committed to engaging in ballot harvesting, where legal.  Democrats will engage in ballot harvesting everywhere, and then dare a court to reverse election outcomes, which despite a few local flareups, has not happened on the grandest stages, such as in gubernatorial or presidential races.  In Arizona, ballot harvesting is illegal, but the judicial left went to great lengths in 2022 to ensure no one was permitted to put eyeballs on a single drop box.  What does that tell you?

Once Republicans step into the box and get rolling on ballot harvesting, it is only a matter of time until the practice is legalized everywhere, and with it, moves to expand mail-in voting and further distancing from in-person, precinct-level voting, which is already gone in large red-state metros such as Dallas-Fort Worth and Phoenix.  When that happens, urban centers that lag the rest of the state in percentage of voter roll turnout will be suddenly energized as hundreds of paid activists ransack every project, dormitory, and nursing home in a 100-mile radius, as our tens of volunteers contribute a few hours per weekend fishing for a few stray votes in subdivisions that stood a much greater chance of being cast on Election Day, without advanced notice given to those using sophisticated data and technology to make sure they are never caught flat footed in a critical national election again.  Philadelphia, Detroit, and Milwaukee will become juggernauts on par with Chicago as pertains to their impact on statewide elections.

Ballot harvesting goes hand in hand with mass mail-in voting and is amplified once a state adopts Automatic Voter Registration.  Automatic Voter Registration represents the death of a state’s elections, given that voter registration corruption is the catalyst for fraudulent balloting.  In 2020, Joe Biden won/“won” 18 of 20 states operating Automatic Voter Registration, 243 electoral votes to 9, with just Alaska and West Virginia going to Trump in that category.  Trump won 23 of 30 without it, with Arizona, Pennsylvania (which now has AVR), and Wisconsin (and perhaps Minnesota) yanked out from under him with extensive and laborious electoral surgery required for each.

Election fraud is what is happening during voting activities, stretching from the day people receive mail-in ballots until the count is certified many weeks later.  It is preceded by registration fraud, then mail-ballot request fraud (rendered moot and sidestepped entirely if a state opts to shotgun blast mail-ballots to the entire roll).  The system of election fraud is built upon a foundation of systemic, institutionalized fraud designed to eviscerate transparency from the elections process.  These sub-systems result in the dominant party in a state (Democrats) being able to create “voters” out of thin air and equip them with a ballot that floats around for weeks waiting to be collected (“harvested”) and returned to a drop box.  Imagine how well received a system, stripped of all restraint and controls, allowing Percocet to flood the streets would be, and the demand it would create due to its perceived value.  So things are with all controls removed from our system of elections.

On the other hand, to be fair, I know patriots in captured states who have had limited success in ballot harvesting operations to this point.  Mitch Clemmons from Los Angeles County comes to mind, as does Mike Terry from Clark County, Washington.  In some blue spots, Republicans have won local seats, and even U.S. House seats (as seen in New York and California in 2022); however, I am not certain those seats can be held with more money, resources, and energy invested by those who created the practice of ballot harvesting itself and assume they were won in the first place because other areas deemed more critical received the most bountiful investments.

In some states, patriots have no option but to participate in mass mail-in elections, which is won by the team that collects the most ballots in what amounts to an adult Easter Egg hunt.  This is not my stamp of approval, but rather simple recognition of the timeline of events that got us here.  Early voting wasn’t a matter of convenience until the 1980s, and not even widespread at that point.  Mail-in voting wasn’t a thing until the turn of this past century.  Ballot harvesting wasn’t a thing until California conceived of the idea a little more than a decade ago.  Automatic Voter Registration wasn’t a thing until 2015.  Now that window continues to slide, with Ranked Choice Voting seeping in gradually and active discussions about allowing 16-year-olds and non-citizens to vote being held.  Quasi-elections are a natural consequence of allowing an inch at a time to be taken until our backs are up against the wall.

Conclusion

With nearly four decades having elapsed since early voting became a matter of convenience rather than necessity, We the People are presented a 2024 election in which, like it or not, ballot harvesting will play a major role – just as it did in 2020.  Without the practice, Democrats would struggle to win even 10 states against President Trump this year.  There is a good chance both camps, both those in favor of ballot harvesting and those against it, will lament this article because I have dragged the practice rightfully through the mud while also affirming the reality that it is here, and its widespread arrival will bring about undesirable consequences for the foreseeable future.  I’m not telling you not to do it.  I’m not telling you to like it or even to take part in it.  I am also not signaling doom and telling you we can’t win the 2024 election; this journal is rooted in elections reality:

Ballot harvesting is a loser for America and must be banned at the first opportunity everywhere it is found.

Author’s Note: I have opted to make this article open to all subscribers from the time of publication because it is in response to a critical topic that will drastically alter the state of elections going forward.  It is imperative that readers understand why ballot harvesting destroys what is left of the sanctity of the vote.  If you found this insightful, your subscription as a paid subscriber is greatly appreciated.