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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe "bullet ballots" give me hope
In the 2024 election there were an inordinate amount of "bullet ballots" in which the voter voted for Trump and no one else on the ballot. Some people think this was a way to "fix" the election for Trump. I do not ascribe to that notion. I have a different take.
In some states, the "bullet ballots" were as high as 7%. The fact that so many were confined to the swing states, I believe, was as a result of the heavier advertising and focus of both campaigns.
But here is where my hope comes in. My theory is that the "Trump only bullet votes" are a direct result of a personal cult, rather than a political movement or ideology. These morons voted for Trump, only for Trump, and have little or no interest in politics. As a result, other than Pennsylvania, the down ballot Democrats were quite successful, especially in the statewide races.
To me, this means when Trump is off the ballot, the cult will return to their basements and under their rocks, and we will have a much more receptive electorate for Democrats in 2026 and 2028.
tritsofme
(18,504 posts)But I think you definitely make valid points, many of these people wont come out and vote without Trump on the ballot.
Celerity
(46,178 posts)Please provide actual links to real evidence showing 7% of the votes being 'bullet ballots' or 'drop-offs' (as in the down ballot votes dropped off, not as in a the ballot was dropped off by the voter) in a state.
And no, a link to Spoonamore claiming it with, again, no links from his end, is not valid proof.
In fact, Spoonamore claims 11 per cent of NC ballots were 'bullet ballots', again with no evidence given from his end.
TIA
Pototan
(2,014 posts)The Data
The key data raising concerns that a hack may have been deployed is the number of bullet ballots which exist for Trump in swing states. Bullet ballots are when voters vote for one candidatein this case the Presidentand dont fill out the rest of the ballot. Every year, in every stateincluding in the past two elections Trump ran inthe percentage of bullet ballots is around 1%. This trend has stayed consistent in the 43 non-swing states in the 2024 election. However, the percentage of bullet ballots is not just anomalous in swing states for Trump this yearit is off the charts.
According to one of the open letters, in Arizona, Trumps percentage of bullet ballots totaled 7.2%. In Nevada, 5.5%. In comparison, bullet ballots for Trump in Oregon, Utah and Idahothe three states which border Arizona and Nevada, with equally fervent Trump voterscount for less than 0.05% in each state.
https://www.planetcritical.com/p/cyber-security-experts-warn-election-hacked
MichMan
(13,156 posts)onenote
(44,620 posts)Second, a bullet ballot is a ballot where there are multiple races but the voter only votes in one of them. In Nevada, to pick one example, the number of ballots cast in the presidential election, as published on the state's official election site, was 1,484,840. The number of ballots cast in the Senate election was 1,464,728. That means that no more than 20,112 more votes, or 1.35% of the total number of votes, could have been cast in the presidential election but not in any other election. Which makes it all but impossible for the number of ballots cast only in the presidential race to be 5.5% of Trump's total 751,205 votes.
As others have pointed out, Spoonamare's numbers are plucked from thin air. He offers no explanation of how he came up with them because there is no way he could have come up with them.
Celerity
(46,178 posts)from your link:
here is the hyper-link from my high-lighted part
https://substack.com/home/post/p-151721941
It is Spoonamore, and he himself provides no hard evidence.
Do you really think that the Harris team would not be ALL OVER THIS if it was remotely true?
Here is the newest post from Spoonamore, where he attacks the Harris team and gets into some other (one of them rather bizzare, which I highlight) claims as well (again with no links, no concrete evidence for some of them):
https://substack.com/home/post/p-151923500
brush
(57,471 posts)Just encourage bullet ballots on X-formerly twitter and Truth Social and leave the rest to them. They'll take it from there.
trump and Johnson's little secret, with Musk in on it to pump it out to magats on social media?
Could very well be, if the dictator with total immunity allows another election.
stopdiggin
(12,817 posts)to cast a ballot ... Last I heard anyway. So the fat Republican advantage gained by encouraging this practice on social media ... ?
Ya' done lost me.
soandso
(1,155 posts)I posted this as a thread on the 18th so numbers may have changed a little but it should still be pretty accurate:
This comes up several times a day with the assertion that swing states had far more ballots voting for president (presumably Trump) only and skipping the rest of the ballot/voting top of the ticket exclusively. So, I finally took a look and posted the following in another thread where it's not really going to been seen much. I'm reposting here for anyone interested:
I took some random states, some swing states and some not, and compared the difference between the number of votes for president to the number of votes in their senate races. I used Decision Desk for the latest totals.
California
Presidential Votes: 15,104,778
Senate Votes: 14,638,283
Percentage Difference: ((15,104,778 - 14,638,283) / 15,104,778) * 100 ? 3.09%
Arizona
Presidential Votes: 3,378,651
Senate Votes: 3,337,566
Percentage Difference: ((3,378,651 - 3,337,566) / 3,378,651) * 100 ? 1.22%
New Mexico
Presidential Votes: 923,319
Senate Votes: 903,201
Percentage Difference: ((923,319 - 903,201) / 923,319) * 100 ? 2.18%
Minnesota
Presidential Votes: 3,242,938
Senate Votes: 3,186,151
Percentage Difference: ((3,242,938 - 3,186,151) / 3,242,938) * 100 ? 1.75%
Wisconsin
Presidential Votes: 3,415,154
Senate Votes: 3,387,420
Percentage Difference: ((3,415,154 - 3,387,420) / 3,415,154) * 100 ? 0.81%
Washington
Presidential Votes: 3,845,914
Senate Votes: 3,752,419
Percentage Difference: ((3,845,914 - 3,752,419) / 3,845,914) * 100 ? 2.43%
Texas
Presidential Votes: 11,559,607
Senate Votes: 11,269,112
Percentage Difference: ((11,559,607 - 11,269,112) / 11,559,607) * 100 ? 2.51%
Pennsylvania
Presidential Votes: 7,025,367
Senate Votes: 6,953,319
Percentage Difference: ((7,025,367 - 6,953,319) / 7,025,367) * 100 ? 1.03%
Virginia
Presidential Votes: 4,482,075
Senate Votes: 4,436,419
Percentage Difference: ((4,482,075 - 4,436,419) / 4,482,075) * 100 ? 1.02%
Ohio
Presidential Votes: 5,647,668
Senate Votes: 5,585,865
Percentage Difference: ((5,647,668 - 5,585,865) / 5,647,668) * 100 ? 1.09%
As you can see, the swing states did NOT have a greater %age difference in top of the ticket and down ballot. In fact, it's California (blue state) that has the greatest discrepancy and Wisconsin (swing state) the lowest.
https://decisiondeskhq.com/results/2024/General/President/
https://decisiondeskhq.com/results/2024/General/US-Senate/
Botany
(72,473 posts)
. program to cache votes with a third party candidate as a place holder and then so
later on those votes could be called in so as to assure a win for w. These bullet ballots
which very might have been produced electronically and linked to a registered voter who
had not voted and then could be called in as needed by Musk and friends.
Silver Gaia
(4,841 posts)in your OP has sorta been hijacked in this thread... but I like what you actually tried to say is your takeaway from this story. And I agree. It is a hopeful way of looking at things.