Dispatch writer and fact checker Khaya Himmelman, pictured. She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School and Barnard College.

Dispatch Uses their own Ignorance as Evidence to Debunk Voter Fraud

 

  • Himmelman at the Dispatch chooses several red herrings to address in election fraud fact check
  • Rather than focusing on the main factual claim made in the Gateway Pundit article, Himmelman chooses biased sources to vindicate her opinion.
  • No real evidence is given that 308,000 votes were not dropped the night of the election. 

OUR RATING: #FakeNews. This is what you’d expect on CNN playing to an empty airport.

Indicted Outlet: Khaya Himmelman | The Dispatch | Link | Archive

The primary factual claim made by the Gateway Pundit is that late during the night of the election “there were…5 entries – in and out and in and out and in – netting to more than 308,000 votes for Biden and only 79,000 votes for President Trump – an 80/20 ratio.” [1] Khaya Himmelman “debunks” this claim at The Dispatch by focusing on other aspects of the election night that clearly have nothing to do with the 308,000 number. By using red herrings, Himmelman fails to do any actual fact checking herself. 

Major Violations

  • Superficial Investigation
  • Irrelevant Nitpicking
  • No Evidence to Support
  • Opinion as Fact
  • Lying Headline

The first problem is that Himmelman clearly relies on a superficial investigation and biased sources to support her conclusion. Rather than actually looking into either the raw Edison Data or the National Election Pool, Himmelman sidesteps and says “It’s unclear where this 308,000 number comes from” Which is a way of saying she was too confused to do real work so her confusion serves as evidence. This is the damning evidence that proves the Pundit wrong: Khaya can’t figure it out. The New York Times posts Edison data, and one can very easily find the 308,000 number the Pundit is talking about in the original article. [2] 

Himmelman’s primary source is Gary Scott, general registrar and director of elections for Fairfax County. Scott says the only error he made, or rather the county made, was a little matter of adding an additional 100,000 votes to Biden’s count. First off, this is not at all addressing the claim that 308,000 extra ballots were dumped. Himmelman gives us irrelevant information that has nothing to do with the primary factual claim. Irrelevant evidence amounts to almost no evidence for this particular fact check.

Second, and perhaps the most shameful part of this “fact check” is that Himmelman’s source is so obviously biased. If you were looking into potential fraud in the election, would you ask the director of elections for evidence that they committed fraud? If you asked the Secretary of State “did you commit crimes” and they said “of course not” would you then announce to the world, “case closed! everyone else is lying”?

If there was any wrongdoing when it came to the election, Scott would be one of the first people suspected of wrongdoing. Does asking a potential crook if he’s a crook constitute an “investigation”? 

Is this also what we allow to pass as journalism?

To make things even more egregious, Scott’s “evidence” for why the 308,000 number is “baseless and came out of the blue” is because “the results reported by our office to the Virginia Department of Elections were certified by them and have been undisputed by any reputable group” [Emphasis added]. 

So, the basis for claim of fraudulent ballots being baseless is that a ‘reputable’ group has yet to challenge it?

Let me guess what Khaya considers ‘reputable’: a group that hasn’t contested the election.

“Reputable” clearly involves an opinion and certain exclusionary factors as to who is reputable and who is not. This is opinion masquerading as evidence.

Himmelman’s lack of evidence is startling. Not only does she even fail to address the primary claim concerning the 308,000 dropped ballots, but the other claims she does address lack evidence, too. Her only “source” is Scott, who bases his evidence on the media’ response to the fraud. If the NYT had said Fairfax county had potentially committed fraud, then, I suppose, the accusation would be meaningful? It is the media who decides whether or not something is fraudulent, according to the evidence Himmelman gives us. 

Finally, Himmelman’s headline misrepresents the Pundit’s article. The article brings to the attention of the reader the problem of those 308,000 ballots and the subsequent batches of ballots that had almost the exact same margins. The article never claims that this particular instance of fraud proves there was a Trump landslide in Virginia. It only brings doubt to the high margins that Biden won in comparison to the margins Hillary Clinton won in 2016. The question is where the 308,000 number came from and why Biden so greatly outperformed Hillary. This is lost in Himmelman’s article, and her headline implies that the Pundit, on the basis of just these 308,000 ballots, believes Trump would have won by a landslide in Virginia. 

Not only did Himmelman misrepresent the conclusions of the Pundit article, she couldn’t even disprove her own version of the Pundit article. This is journalistic malpractice

OUR RATING: #FakeNews. This is what you’d expect on CNN playing to an empty airport.

Bibliography:

1 ] https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/02/308000-ballot-drop-fairfax-county-virginia-election-night-biden-one-ballot-drop-73-countys-results/

2 ] https://vimeo.com/484086368

3]  Statistical improbability of Biden turnout in Montgomery County: https://needtoknow.news/2020/12/the-statistical-improbability-of-biden-winning-more-votes-than-trump/

4 ] Evidence consistent with the possibility of electoral fraud in vote counts in Montgomery County, PA Part 1: https://www.revolver.news/2020/11/explosive-new-data-from-rigorous-statistical-analysis-points-to-voter-fraud-in-montgomery-county-pa/

5 ] Evidence consistent with the possibility of electoral fraud in vote counts in Montgomery County, PA Part 2: https://www.revolver.news/2020/11/one-possible-fraud-scenario-montgomery-county-pa/



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