Next, he had to separate out the Election Day results, so only the early voting columns appeared. And then he had to run a percentage calculator on each of the eleven early voter centers, not just on the total number.
As soon as he configured the calculator, the result leapt off the screen.
McKenzie was running between 62 percent and 78 percent in all eleven early voting centers in Montgomery County. Not a single one showed that Aguilar had made inroads during the campaign. It was as if all the votes had been thrown into a common bin and counted with no distinction for demographics or geography.
That was statistically impossible.
He ran a printout of the results and took it to the office of the State administrator of elections, Lisa Rasmussen. He practically threw the printout onto her desk.
“We can’t put out these numbers,” he said all in a rush.
“Gordon, calm down. What are you talking about?”
He explained what he had found, and why it made no sense.
“But these are the numbers, correct?”
“They are the numbers that have been reported to us, yes.”
“Then unless you have some reason to think there has been an error—”
“But they can’t be correct,” he said.
“That’s just your hunch. Or perhaps, a bias? Have you seen this type of discrepancy in any other congressional race?”
“Actually, yes,” he said.
He hadn’t told Annie about this earlier, but there were other things going on that heightened his suspicions that there could be a problem with the Aguilar race.
“Look at the numbers in CD-7. Congressman Jones is running in the low fifties so far.”
“And?”
“Elijah Cummings used to win that district by well over seventy percent, and Grady Jones is his hand-picked successor.”
“What does that have to do with the McKenzie-Aguilar race?”
“Don’t you see? If Grady Jones is doing poorly—and in that district, the mid-fifties is not good—that would suggest that minority voters are not voting for the Democrat in the huge numbers we’ve seen in earlier elections. If that’s the case in Baltimore, which is over eighty percent minority, it ought to be happening in District 8, which has thirty-five percent Hispanic voters.”
“But it’s not. Is that what you are saying?”
“That’s right. There are also the precinct numbers from Wheaton and from Kemp Mill, an Orthodox Jewish community that is very conservative. Early returns there show that McKenzie is winning both areas with over seventy percent as well.”
“Put out the numbers, Gordon. Just as you received them. Tonight’s results are unofficial anyway, you know that. We’ll have all the memory cards tomorrow so you can run a full audit.”
34
It was just after 9:15 PM when Keith Cobb brought on Jeff Greystone, the CNN correspondent embedded with the Tomlinson campaign.
“Keith, senior sources inside the Tomlinson camp are telling CNN they feel increasingly confident as these new results come in. Nobody doubted the Democrats would win New York and New Mexico. Voters are still at the polls in Nevada, but the Tomlinson camp feels confident from exit polls earlier today that they will win there and possibly also in Arizona. As of right now, they see several roads to 270 for their team, and very few for the president.”
Granger smiled to himself. He had just returned from spinning Greystone in their media suite, and he was regurgitating it almost word-for-word. Good boy, he thought.
Cobb turned from the giant display where he’d been watching Greystone and looked over to Rick Hoglan at the Magic Board. “So, Rick: What more does Governor Tomlinson need to become president-elect?”
“Well, Keith, there are many ways this could happen, as Jeff was just telling us. As it stands now, with North Carolina in the Tomlinson camp, and the West Coast and Hawaii almost certainly going to the Democrats, they need to flip just forty-six more votes out of the 131 from states currently too close to call. In one scenario, Governor Tomlinson can abandon the rust-belt states to Trump except for Pennsylvania, then win three of the five remaining states up for grabs. With Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia, she’s at 277. If she loses Georgia and wins Virginia, she’s at 274.”
“So what about Pennsylvania?” Cobb asked.
“As you can see, the president is predictably winning the rust-belt counties in western Pennsylvania, but with lower numbers from 2016, and he’s holding his own in the Philadelphia suburbs, where Mrs. Clinton won in 2016. The key is going to be the African-American vote in downtown Philly. So far, only forty percent is reporting.”
“So we’ll keep our eyes on that,” Cobb said. “What about Florida?”
“That remains the big one, Keith. The panhandle has gone big for the president as expected. But they are still counting the votes down in Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade counties.”
“What if Trump wins both Florida and Pennsylvania. Is it all over then for the Democrats?”
“No, Keith. Governor Tomlinson can actually lose both Florida and Pennsylvania. But then she’s got to sweep the table of all the other states that are still up for grabs, and that means winning Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Virginia.”
“Alright. CNN’s Rick Hoglan, thank you for that update.”
35
Granger muted CNN when he saw the Fox News alert on the screen: something about crowds of people still trying to vote in Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Scottsdale, Arizona, even though the polls had closed in all of those states.
“Fox News is receiving multiple reports of problems at the polls and, apparently, problems with the vote counting as well,” Galen Beaty announced. “In Michigan, election officials are telling Fox News they have discovered an anomaly with the touch-screen voting machines they continue to use, as do many other states, for voters with disabilities or who otherwise have problems reading and marking their ballot. Scott Ramsey from our affiliate, Fox2 Detroit, has the details.”
The young reporter was standing in front of a rundown brick building with a crowd of people lining up behind a twisted metal fence to get in.
“Galen, it’s chaos out here. Election officials here in Detroit are telling us they have had to shut down more than a dozen of the touch-screen machines they use for disabled voters. Michigan switched to paper ballots in 2018, but because of the Americans for Disabilities Act, they are required to maintain systems accessible to these other voters. But problems arose when thousands of people swarmed inner city polling places demanding to use the touch-screen machines because they could not read the paper ballots. These machines have a function that can speak the ballot to the voter in their own language over a headset.
“You also need to understand, Galen, that Michigan is a voter ID state, and some of these voters didn’t have ID. Now normally, they would be allowed to cast a provisional ballot that would only be counted once election officials have been able to verify their identity. Republican poll watchers have been complaining that there is no mechanism with these touch-screen machines to segregate provisional from regular ballots, so when the results get reported, all those votes will be included in the final count with no way of separating them out later on.”
“I guess this is not the first time Detroit has had problems on Election Day.”
“That’s right, Galen. Everyone still remembers 2016 when more than sixty percent of the Detroit precincts had more votes counted than people who came out to vote. It was so bad they couldn’t do a recount.”
“And yet, Michigan still went for Trump,” Beaty said.
“It did, Galen. And all the exit polls show that it will go for Trump again tonight—unless of course these problems with the voting machines become more widespread.”
Granger made a note to call Navid about Michigan. This wasn’t part of the plan. Per
haps it was just local activists flooding the zone, he thought.
In heavily Republican Scottsdale, Arizona, they had run out of ballots, so lines of increasingly angry voters had formed at the polls. Granger needed to ask Navid about that as well. Arizona was part of the plan. But he had always assumed that Navid was operating under the radar, not with such obvious gimmicks.
“Galen, we’re getting reports from South Florida of a massive turnout for Governor Tomlinson,” co-anchor Kristina Brower said.
Granger leaned forward. This he wanted to hear.
36
The Fox News co-anchor turned to the display where Tammy Dayton of Fox affiliate WSVN was standing in front of the Broward County Government Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
“So, Tammy, what are you hearing?”
“Kristina, the Broward County supervisor of elections is reporting a massive turnout for Governor Tomlinson. So far, and this coincides with exit polling from earlier in the day, it would appear that Broward is going to give Governor Tomlinson a big leg up against the president, perhaps even enough votes to put her over the top in the state of Florida. Now as you know, Democrats out-register Republicans here by almost two to one, and this area is home to one of the most liberal members of Congress: Representative Alcee Hastings.
“You’re talking about the former federal district court judge who was impeached for bribery by the House of Representatives by a vote of 413-3 and subsequently removed from office by the U.S. Senate,” Galen Beaty said.
“That’s right, Galen. Representative Hastings was first elected to Congress in 1992 just three years after his impeachment as a federal judge and has been returned to office with overwhelming margins ever since. His congressional district contains the heaviest concentration of African-American voters in Broward County. And it seems tonight that they came out en masse for Governor Tomlinson.”
Yes, Granger thought. Navid is the man!
“Now behind me you can see a group of protesters—these are actually Republicans. They are protesting because their poll watchers took photographs of the run-sheets from the precinct tabulators that were released a little more than an hour ago and posted them on the internet. Here’s an example of what they found.”
The camera zoomed in on the printer tape, which looked like a cash register receipt, showing a total of 2,146 votes cast.
“The problem, Kristina, is that this particular precinct only has 1,856 registered voters who are eligible to vote.”
Granger jumped up and slapped his hands on the table. This was not how this was supposed to play out. It was supposed to be quiet, no waves, nothing noticeable. He switched his VPN to Belgium and punched in Navid’s number.
“Navid! Turn on Fox News. Now!” he barked.
“Country?”
“Who gives a—. Belgium,” he said.
“Right. What’s the problem? Things are going as planned.”
“Did you plan to have more votes cast than eligible voters?” Granger asked.
“Of course not. That would be an immediate red flag. I mean, that would be, like, voter fraud! Hahahahaha.”
“It’s not a joke, Navid.”
“Sorry. Of course not. It’s just, there’s a lot of crazy stuff going on tonight. Stuff that has nothing to do with us.”
“You think the Russians are interfering with the election results? Hacking the touch-screen machines?”
“No way. They are too dumb.”
“I thought they were the best hackers in the world.”
“They’re good at remote access, sure. But with the DREs, you’ve got to have boots on the ground. You need physical access to the machines. You need somebody to actually open them up to insert a Trojan. The Russians don’t have that.”
“So what’s going on in Broward County?”
“What’s going on in Broward County? Are you kidding me? What always goes on in Broward County! You have a lot of highly partisan Democratic operatives who all want to do their part for God and Country.”
“Freelancers?”
“You could say that, yeah.”
“What if their actions trigger an audit?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that.”
“Why not?”
“Have faith, my friend. Have faith. Does Navid deliver, or does he call for Chinese takeout? Hahahahaha.”
The Fox News anchors now turned to another WSVN reporter, Ainsley Westerrupp, in Delray Beach.
“Galen, Palm Beach County is reporting enormous numbers tonight for Governor Tomlinson. Turnout among registered Democrats is at historic highs, and these voters have come out for their candidate.”
“But are you getting hard numbers? We don’t have them yet up here on the board.”
“Not yet, Galen. But the word we’re getting from Democrat party poll-workers is that their people showed up at the polls. Look at this.”
They aired bits of an interview Ainsley had done earlier just as the polls were closing with an ecstatic middle-aged woman, Marie Schneiderman, who was explaining the reasons for their success. “I gotta tell you, we’ve been working all day long. We get the list of voters who haven’t yet voted, we send it out, and in ten minutes we’ve got a team at their door. Even in the nursing homes. You wouldn’t believe the enthusiasm our voters are feeling for an opportunity to just say no to Donald Trump. It’s a rich harvest,” she said.
Granger heard Navid typing rapid-fire on his keyboard and hung up. He preferred this news to what he’d been hearing earlier.
37
The Crocodile couldn’t believe the numbers that were scrolling across the screen. Grady Jones was still hovering below 60 percent in the Elijah Cummings district, with nearly half of Baltimore precincts reporting. But when the Aguilar-McKenzie race scrolled across the chyron, it showed McKenzie had overcome his early deficit and was now winning with 52.4 percent.
“Boss, this is unbelievable. It’s like somebody just flipped a switch,” he said.
“And that’s with sixty percent of precincts reporting,” Annie added. “It doesn’t look good. But why?”
“Something is very, very wrong here,” the Crocodile went on. “Boss, you remember that young gal from the Cameroun at the Civic Building in Silver Spring?”
“How could I forget her,” Aguilar said with a smile. “She reminded me of Graciella. So happy to vote for the first time, she was literally jumping up and down.”
“She was a registered Democrat, remember?”
“Yeah, she was waving her voter registration card at anyone who would look. Casa de Maryland automatically registered her as a Democrat when they greeted her at the Baltimore citizenship induction center,” Aguilar said. “It’s what they do.”
“But she told us how happy she was to be casting her first vote as an American for you, the son of immigrants, remember? You were her dream come true. She wanted her son to be able to grow up and run for Congress, maybe president.”
“That’s right. And why not?” Aguilar said.
“And when she came back out, she wanted a selfie with you wearing her ‘I voted’ sticker.”
There had been so many people like that woman, the Crocodile reminded them. All the young Latinos who listened to Aguilar’s daily radio commentaries; they, too, were registered Democrats and had told them proudly they had voted for Aguilar.
“I’d really like to see the numbers on this one, boss. Where are the under votes? The Republicans who voted for Trump and blank for Congress? And the split votes: the Dems who voted for you and for Mrs. T?”
“We’re not going to be getting that kind of granular detail until tomorrow, at least,” Annie said. “But the state board of elections has just posted preliminary breakdowns. Look, in Elijah Cumming’s old district, bluest of blue, Trump is winning thirty-six percent of the vote. That’s more than Romney and McCai
n combined,” she said. “Or Trump 2016 and Romney.”
She showed them the state’s numbers for their district. Aguilar was still winning Carroll and Frederick Counties with predictably high margins, 68 percent and 62 percent respectively. But down in Montgomery he was under 30 percent. That was catastrophic. Their projections showed they needed to win at least 43.5 percent in Montgomery to win the district, based on the 2016 turnout and results. In off years, with no president on the ballot, turnout was much lower so it was possible to flip the seat with fewer votes.
“Campaigning matters, boss,” the Crocodile was saying. “Voter contact matters. If these results are real, it means that nothing we did made any difference. None of the ads, none of the rallies, none of the door-to-door and polling place contacts. You must have shaken hands with 5,000 voters at the Silver Spring Civic Building alone, out of what, around 8,300 votes cast during early voting? What are those numbers now?”
“McKenzie wins 73.4 percent of the Silver Spring Civic Building, and between seventy percent and seventy-five percent of all the others,” Annie said. “It makes no sense.”
“Boss, you can’t do all that campaigning without having an impact. It’s just not possible. That’s what politics is all about. These results are basically a carbon copy of the way these areas have voted traditionally.”
“They are also in line with the Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Commission by around one-tenth of one percent,” Annie added.
“Boy, I’d love to hire statisticians like that to run my retirement portfolio,” the Crocodile said.
“Good luck,” Aguilar said. “Nobody gets results like that. No prediction ever holds true to that degree of accuracy. There’s always a standard deviation.”
Aguilar wanted to hear from Brady, to see if he had detected any more anomalies. Meanwhile, Annie went out to talk with Gordon. None of this smelled right.
38
“It’s all my fault,” Gordon said when Annie finally got him on the phone. “When I first examined the attempted intrusion into the voter database, I must have triggered a Gh0st RAT.”
The Election Heist Page 13