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In my largely rural section of New York, a case is unfolding in which Republicans in Rennselaer forged absentee ballot applications (once spelling the name wrong) and voting. What I don't think has received sufficient media attention is the likelihood that the conviction that Democrats steal votes will be used to justify similar Republican efforts in 2022. I see no evidence that Democrats anywhere are mounting the kind of protections needed from the army of election "checkers" the GOP is planning to field. (And I'm still convinced that there weren't some of these activities in Republican areas that were never audited in 2020.)

Glad that your COVID bout is leaving you well enough to keep writing. Feel better (and Happy New Year).

ned schneier

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Thanks, Elliott, and Happy New Year. A couple of observations. 1. All politics are local. This means that X% of Republicans doesn't help us count or forecast the state by state vote. 2. This page https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/05/1059828993/data-vaccine-misinformation-trump-counties-covid-death-rate tells us that GOP counties are losing more people to Covid than are non-Trump counties. Can we count the number of GOP votes lost and count the number of Democratic votes suppressed/lost per congressional district and per state? Probably, but I haven't done the work yet. Here's a pull quote: "94% of Republicans think one or more false statements about COVID-19 and vaccines might be true, and 46% believe four or more statements might be true. By contrast, only 14% of Democrats believe four or more false statements about the disease."

Happy New Year.

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