4/16/2021 The Patriot Talon's Election FAQ

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The Patriot Talon Nov 18, 2020 9 min read

The Patriot Talon's Election FAQ

Chandler Gibson • Editor-in-Chief

The Talon got a couple of interesting

emails last week, two, actually, and they
made me think about the current political
climate, and peoples’ beliefs around the
election. These emails made a number of
claims about the current election, despite
the fact that the featured story in the
newsletter was a new episode of The
Screech, our weekly news roundup
podcast.
Original artwork by Dove Lott.

Reading these emails, a kind of hate mail

attempting to disprove widely-known facts about the electoral process and the current
political landscape, I realized that while it would have been easy to fire back with a sarcastic
and biting response that told them they were wrong, there was an opportunity for education
here to cut through all the political noise.

This is The Patriot Talon’s Election FAQ.

These emails came from UT Tyler employees - faculty and staff - and therefore the names
have been removed to protect their privacy. The content, however, has not been edited.

Both emails were sent to us by @uttyler.edu email addresses - University emails - making
them public information under the Freedom of Information Act, the Texas Public Information
Act and The University of Texas System’s own policies.

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Just to clarify before moving forward, this is not to insult the senders of these emails, their
intelligence or their beliefs. Their emails are an example of the larger misconceptions around
the current election, and how cramming the process historically into one grand election night
has not exposed the general public to the larger voting process, which is on full display this
year due to the increase in mail-in voting.

A letter to the editor, sent in response to the subject line of our Talon Newsletter.

This email makes a number of claims, and I’m going to break them down individually. Some
of them are incorrect, and some are correct, but just need a little more context.

“NO MA’AM, MR. BIDEN DID NOT DEFEAT PRESIDENT

TRUMP.”

Technically, yes, this is correct. It is the tradition of media outlets, like CNN, ABC, Fox, The
New York Times, The Associated Press, to project the winner of each state, and therefore
the electoral votes needed to win the election. The truth in their projections comes from the
fact that they use real voting information from the states themselves, and interviews with
people surrounding it (think, state-level Offices of the Secretaries of State).

They do not, however, certify the election, which is done by a federal agency, the General
Services Administration. The GSA is currently under tremendous pressure by a bipartisan
team, that is, Democrats and Republicans, to certify the election in favor of Joe Biden and
Kamala Harris, according to Politico.

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Over 99% of the vote has been counted, and it’s not a very close election.

In fact, even at the time of the previous newsletter, when we received this email, the GSA
was still under pressure to certify the election, which is generally done on or immediately
after Election Night.

So, with the information from the states’ governments confirming the announcement, and the
projections of almost every other news organization at the time, it more than meets our
threshold of accuracy.

“THE LAW SAYS THE PRESIDENT MUST CONCEDE &

PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS NOT CONCEDED AT THIS
TIME.”

Actually, this is mostly false. There is no law requiring the President of the United States to
concede his campaign.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, it’s just a tradition started in 1896 with then-candidate
William Jennings Bryan sending a telegram to President-Elect William McKinley. No
president since then, even during the 2000 election with Bush and Gore’s Supreme Court
delay, has refused to concede.

It doesn’t affect the workings of the Electoral College, merely just a friendly tradition to signal
the campaign is over.

As for the second part, that’s true. President Trump has not conceded. In fact, he has
blatantly attacked the integrity of American democracy, calling this election a fraud, and
frantically assuring us he won by millions of votes. Here’s an example, just from the other
day.

He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to
go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2020

It’s entirely possible that President Trump may never concede, will never admit publicly that
he lost. He’s the candidate that ran his campaign on winning, and hating losers, so admitting
defeat simply isn’t part of that brand.

“THE CONSTITUTION REQUIRES ELECTORS TO MEET

IN THEIR RESPECTIVE STATES & VOTE FOR
PRESIDENT AND VP. THIS IS THEN SENT TO THE
SENATE FOR A FINAL COUNT.”

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This is pretty much true. Without getting into very much of the procedural dumpster fire that
is the Electoral College, the electors are selected from within the respective parties,
Democrat and Republican, generally, and they meet in their states, voting how the popular
vote plays out.

Now, we have what is called a Winner-Take-All system, which means that if you win the
popular vote in your state (unless you live in Nebraska or Maine, who use a different system)
you win all of your state's electoral votes, according to information by the National
Conference of State Legislatures.

For Texas, that would be 38. We have 36 representatives in the US House and 2 senators -
so 38 electoral votes.

For the second part, it’s sent to all of Congress, not just the Senate. The House and Senate
have to receive the certified election results by the fourth Wednesday of Dec. (which is Dec.
23, 2020 this year), and, according to The National Constitution Center, a special session of
Congress is called on January 6th to do the final acceptance of the results.

This is mostly ceremonial, because there isn’t a likely situation where raising election issues
to remove a state’s votes from the count would significantly affect the results.

Removing two or three states from Biden’s projected count still means he wins.

“SEVERAL STATES ARE STILL COUNTING ‘LEGAL’

BALLOTS OVER 5 MILLION BALLOTS AS A MATTER OF
‘FACT.’ AN ELECTION ‘FRAUD’ IS BEING LOOKED AT
NOW.”

This is fragmentally true. While some states are still counting ballots (most states actually
count ballots well after election day, we just don’t see it usually), the legality of these ballots
is found to be generally agreed upon as being so.

I can’t speak to the five million legal ballots figure, because I’m not sure where that figure
specifically came from, so that might be correct. I’m also unclear exactly in this context what
constitutes a legal ballot versus an illegal one.

The election fraud element of this is the most interesting for me, because while the majority
of the Republican Party (and even Rudy Guliani) have been echoing President Trump in his
baseless claims of voter fraud, according to The Washington Post, the states, the federal
government, and even major news organizations with robust investigation power have found
no evidence of it. In fact, they all found the opposite.

“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in
any way compromised,” reads a Nov. 13 statement by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency, a subagency within the Department of Homeland Security.

In retaliation for his honesty, President Trump fired Chris Krebs, the security official leading
the department that was created by one of Trump’s own executive orders.

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“FINALLY, THIS ELECTION IS NOT OVER UNTIL GOD

SAYS IT IS OVER.”

I’m not really sure how to address this one.

“THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO THE ‘FACTS’ AND NOT

THE [HEARSAY] OF THE LEFT FAKE MEDIA. I WAS
TAUGHT BY [UT TYLER] TO RESEARCH THE FACTS.
HAVE A GREAT DAY.”

Maybe it’s the quotation marks throwing me, but I’m not sure if this is sarcasm or if this
faculty member is literally calling college students “left fake media,” but I sure hope I get
some “left fake media” money soon.

Have a great day, as well!

The next email was actually sent to me while I was working on a story only including the
previous one, but it also brought up some really interesting points, as well.

Another email sent later in the week in response to our Talon Newsletter.

“REGARDING THE FOLLOWING WRITING BY YOU OR

YOUR STAFF I WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT THAT THIS
IS A MAJOR CONTESTED ELECTION AND THE TALON
IS SHOWING GENUINE BIAS IN PROCLAIMING THIS AS
FACT.”

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The first part of this is right. It is a contested election, although the severity of the
contestation is debatable. With a couple of recounts going currently or scheduled, the results
aren’t finalized yet. Be that as it may, judges are ruling against or throwing out lawsuits filed
by the Trump campaign relating to voter fraud and election issues due to a lack of evidence,
as read in this article by The Hill, just as an example.

Here’s a small example by The New York Times.

As for the Talon showing bias, as previously stated, we are following in the footsteps of state
and federal officials, and other major news organizations, CNN and Fox alike, who have
called the election for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

“THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA DOES NOT CERTIFY

RESULTS, THEY ONLY DABBLE IN PROBABILITIES.”

This is correct. As stated before, the General Services Administration certifies the results,
triggering an Electoral College vote in December.

Ignoring the condescending use of “dabble,” major news organizations use information from
a variety of sources to support their projections, including government officials, federal
agencies, and campaign staff themselves. To say the mainstream media dabble in
probabilities is like saying the president dabbles in combat strategy - there is much more
nuance.

“KNOWING THERE WERE SERIOUS PROBLEMS WITH

THE ACCURACY OF THE VOTING RECORDS I WOULD
THINK THE TALON WOULD BE MORE PROFESSIONAL
AND UNBIASED IN YOUR REPORTING AS WHAT YOU
REPORTED IS DISENFRANCHISING AT LEAST THE
OTHER 50% OF THE POPULACE, AND YOUR
AUDIENCE.”

Let me start with the first part of this, talking about accuracy. There has been no evidence
that there are any widespread instances of voter fraud, or nefarious issues with the voter
records. There are currently recounts happening in Wisconsin and Georgia, and Biden’s lead
appears to be increasing in both.

Secondly, I take personal offense when our professionalism is called into question. We take
the utmost respect in our reporting, even when we didn’t even break the story. Or even write
a story.

We do our best to report the facts and achieve the most accurate version of the truth as
possible. We also respect objectivity, and we strive for it whenever we can. Most of us are

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going into journalism after this, and we take what we publish as seriously as if we had done it
for a major news outlet.

Next, the truth is not, and let me be clear, is not disenfranchising. President Trump has
created a culture where living in a false reality is not just okay, it’s admirable. Publishing well-
established facts is inherently never exclusive. The truth affects everyone, whether you like it
or not. It is not the role of the media, even student media, to report what people want to hear,
it is our job to report the truth.

Also, universities trend liberal on social issues, according to numerous studies done by The
Pew Research Center.

There was a Democratic Socialists Student Organization on this campus before there was a
College Republicans club, so assuming that more than half of this school voted for President
Trump when less than half of the voters in this election did is misguided.

“THIS IS A MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR AN ELITE

UNIVERSITY TO DELVE INTO THE PROBLEMS RAISED
IN THE ELECTION AS OPPOSED TO A HEADLINE
GRAB.”

Starting with the first part of this, there’s no evidence to suggest that UT Tyler as a whole is
an elite university yet. According to US News and World Report, we rank just inside the top
400 schools in the country, and according to Niche.com, we’re barely inside the top 30 in
Texas.

One ranking service has put our Nursing program at the top in the country, but one program
can’t lift a whole university. Let me be clear: I love this school. I love UT Tyler and the
experience I’ve had here, but by almost no metric is it considered a top university, much less
elite.

Secondly, the problems raised in the election are not election fraud, of which there is no
evidence, they are peoples’ fundamental misunderstanding of, or lack of willingness to
understand the electoral process.

Finally, this was not intended as a headline grab, merely a way to preview a major story
being mentioned in our news roundup.

OTHER FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why Does the Election Process Take So Long?

This election isn’t necessarily taking any longer than any other election, but because of
President Trump’s lack of concession, and the increase of mail-in voting, it feels like it is
taking much longer than normal. Most people tune out once the election has been called, but
due to The General Services Administration dragging its feet, and a number of baseless
lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign, it hasn’t come to a complete end.

What is the Electoral College?

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The Electoral College is a group of appointed individuals by the party that wins a state to act
as representatives of the vote cast in the Winner-Take-All system. These representatives are
appointed by their party, to cast a vote in favor of their party. For example, if the Republicans
win Texas (like they did) then the electors are Republican, and cast Republican votes. If
Democrats win Texas, then the electors are Democrat, and cast Democratic votes.

Why is a Concession Important?

Aside from being a crucial part of the integrity of American democracy, this signals that the
campaign is over, and makes the transition between administrations more efficient. Once the
GSA certifies the election in favor of one candidate, then the winning candidate gets access
to national security briefings, office space in most government agencies, and millions of
dollars to coordinate the transition and set up government computers.

Do you have any questions about the election or the electoral process? Is there anything in
this story that needs more clarification? Anything we missed? Shoot us an email at
editor@patriottalon.com and we’ll try to answer it!

Campus • Opinion

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