OTTAWA COUNTY ELECTION AUDIT On election night 2020, it looked as if Trump was headed for a commanding re-election. He achieved one of the largest vote gains of any sitting President in history, improving on his surprising 2016 victory by 11,237,659 votes (by comparison, that’s more that Ronald Reagan's increase of 10,552,242 in 1984 when Reagan won re-election by a landslide). Trump had comfortable leads of several hundred thousand votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona. Then, without warning and for several hours, the vote counting in all of those states mysteriously…stopped... When the vote tabulation machines started back up again in the wee hours of the morning, Biden saw MASSIVE vote increases in key counties in all of those swing states. Eventually Biden secured enough votes to squeak out election victories in all of those states: Michigan by 154,188 votes (2.8%); Pennsylvania by 81,660 (1.2%); Wisconsin by 20,608 (0.6%); Georgia by 11,779 (0.2%); and Arizona by 10,457 votes (0.4%). Now it could be that all of these margins of victory for Biden were legitimate and 100% honest, with no scheming or fraud at all. But considering the fishy circumstances (pauses in counting, ballots pulled from under tables at midnight after election observers leave, "mail-in" ballots that are pristine and unfolded, truckers told to transport boxes of ballots across state lines, etc.), the more investigation & auditing that we can do, the better. Rather than repeating the line that “everything was fine,” we should leave no stone unturned, and examine every possibility of cheating. Because nobody in America should support cheating, no matter who our preferred candidate is. So, I would LOVE to be able to investigate the ballots in all of those swing states, and participate in election audits. But I have a family. And a job. And limited resources. And limited time. Luckily, I was able to participate in the OTTAWA COUNTY election audit today (Monday 12/14/2020). It was my first time observing the audit process, and I am very grateful to County Clerk Justin Roebuck and his staff for welcoming me, answering my questions, and putting up with me looking over their shoulders and eavesdropping on them all afternoon. I walked away with a very high degree of confidence in the Ottawa County election staff’s desire to conduct transparent, honest elections. They clearly take pride in running a clean, honest election. And they have very high standards for the post-election audit. I can honestly say if all the OTHER elections in Michigan were run by people such as these, we could all be confident in our election results, at least the aspects overseen by the county officials. Kudos to Justin Roebuck & Company for a job well done! The purpose of an audit (whether it be an election audit like this one, or a FINANCIAL audit conducted by an accountant) is to take a representative SAMPLE of data, record any DISCREPANCIES, and then EXTRAPOLATE to the wider set of information based on the audit results. Sample. Record Discrepancies. Extrapolate. It’s basic mathematics combined with logic, critical analysis, and the mind of a skeptic. An auditor’s job is NOT to explain away discrepancies, nor to simply certify the status quo. Instead, the auditor’s job is to ask questions, dig into the numbers, attempt to predict how the information could be manipulated, record discrepancies, and then dispassionately report the results. This goes for election audits (like the one I witnessed today), as well as FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING audits (which I have some background in). Note - The portion of the Ottawa County election audit I witnessed today was for Ferrysburg Precint 1. The Ottawa County team will examine 9 more precincts later this week, but I will not be able to attend those sessions due to my work schedule. I am still hoping to conduct an independent audit of election results in GEORGETOWN TOWNSHIP (where I live), but so far I have not been granted access to that paperwork. OTTAWA COUNTY ELECTION NUMBERS 169,917 = total number of ballots recorded in Ottawa County 2020 -- (93,883 were recorded as “absentee” ballots and 76,034 as "in person" on election day) 100,913 = total number of votes recorded for TRUMP in Ottawa County 64,705 = total number of votes recorded for BIDEN in Ottawa County 3,096 = total number of votes recorded for 3rd party presidential candidates in Ottawa County 1,203 = total number of ballots with NO vote recorded for president 2,144 = total number of recorded ballots examined from Ferrysburg Precint 1 Thus our SAMPLE SIZE for the audit was 2,144 recorded votes. DISCREPANCIES DISCOVERED DURING THE AUDIT (1) The VOTE TABULATOR MACHINE recorded 2,144 votes in our sample, but the HUMAN BEINGS conducting the audit could find only 2,135 APPLICATIONS to vote. A ballot is not legal unless it has a corresponding APPLICATION. Thus there were 9 votes recorded by the machine tabulator that were not backed up by a legitimate ballot application (0.4% of the votes recorded). (2) The VOTE TABULATOR MACHINE recorded 2,144 votes in our sample. But the HUMAN BEINGS counting the ballots counted 2,143 paper ballots. This number was verified 2 times during the audit. Thus the machines added 1 out of 2,144 votes, or 0.05% more “recorded votes" than actual paper ballots. (A possible explanation is that 1 paper ballot was lost or destroyed somewhere in the process, but was not recorded as such.) (3) The VOTE TABULATOR MACHINE recorded 998 votes for BIDEN. The HUMAN BEINGS counting the paper ballots counted 997 votes for Biden. They verified this number 2 times. Thus Biden’s vote count was OVER-REPORTED by the machines by 1 out of 998 votes, or 0.1%. (4) The VOTE TABULATOR MACHINE recorded 1,093 votes for TRUMP. The HUMAN BEINGS counting the paper ballots counted 1,094 votes for Trump. They verified this number 3 times. Thus Trump’s vote count was UNDER-REPORTED by the machines by 1 out of 1,093 votes, or 0.09%. Summary of Discrepancies 0.4% of the recorded votes did not have a corresponding APPLICATION to vote. 0.05% of the recorded votes did not have a corresponding PAPER BALLOT. 0.1% of Biden’s recorded votes did not have a corresponding PAPER BALLOT. 0.09% of Trump’s PAPER BALLOTS were not recorded in the final reported tally. EXTRAPOLATION The extrapolations of any audit must be considered carefully. Obviously, the larger the SAMPLE SIZE is, the better your data will be, and the more reliable the extrapolations will be. Our sample size was only 1 precinct out of 105 in the county, and only 2,144 recorded votes out of 169,917 for the entire county (1.3% of the recorded votes). Obviously, I would like to have a larger sample size, but I was not in charge of the sample, or the precinct chosen, or the timing of the audit. I was merely an observer. Thus I have to work with the data I have been given. So… If we extrapolate out to the COUNTY level, we can conclude that as many as: (1) 680 votes were recorded, without a legitimate corresponding APPLICATION. (2) 85 votes were recorded, without a PAPER BALLOT to back them up. (3) 65 votes were recorded for BIDEN, without a PAPER BALLOT to back them up. (4) 91 votes for TRUMP were missed by the tabulation machines. Since Biden has been declared the winner of the race, our EXTRAPOLATION is only relevant if we assume all of the discrepancies we discovered favored Biden, and hurt Trump (obviously #’s 3 and 4 had to be that way…for purposes of creating a range of possibilities we must assume that #’s 1 and 2 also favored Biden). This would mean that Biden’s total votes were OVER stated by 830, while Trump’s were UNDER stated by 91, for a total discrepancy in Biden’s favor of 921 votes, or 0.64% of the total vote. This would be the most extreme possible outcome from the data we collected. Obviously if the audit team is able to locate the missing paperwork, or if a larger sample size contains no new discrepancies, the extrapolations would decrease in severity. Even if we extrapolate these number to the WHOLE STATE of Michigan (a dangerous thing to do considering how small our sample size is), it would not be enough to change the results in and of itself. Biden’s vote total would be REDUCED by about 36,000. And Trump’s vote total would be INCREASED by about 2,400. Biden’s margin of victory in Michigan would drop from 2.8% to 2.2%. HOWEVER, it is interesting to note that a change as small as this WOULD be enough to change the results in 3 states: Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona…which is a sobering example of how narrow Biden’s “victory” was, and how important it is to examine the election paperwork. And even MORE interesting…if Biden didn’t really win those 3 states, then he would only have 269 electoral votes; not enough to win. The presidential race would then revert to a state-by-state vote in the House of Representatives. Which TRUMP would win, as the Republicans currently have more state delegations than the Democrats. That’s right folks. A few “minor” discrepancies such as the ones discovered in the Ottawa County election audit today could have flipped the election of a U.S. President. Think about that for a while… Anyway...again a big thanks to the staff of the Ottawa County Election office. I look forward to reporting more results if & when I am able to examine the paperwork from Georgetown Township.