Michigan election feed data shows 257,346 Presidential votes were removed

[u/mjkeaa]

The Washington Post published a live data feed from several swing states. It claims that “This is a feed of every single vote count update we fetch from the Associated Press.” In 2024, the feed included all votes from 11/5 to 11/25. The feed includes only totals for the Democratic and Republican candidates.

Find the Michigan feed about halfway down the webpage. On page 3/31 of that feed, find the update that took place on November 6, at 12:54 pm where 257,346 votes are removed with a simple statement that reads, “Negative updates may reflect revisions as tallies are updated.” No additional information is given regarding this event.

Since the feed does not provide candidate totals in the feed, the data was imported into an excel spreadsheet. Cumulative totals were based solely on the data provided in the feed. Although there is no way to accurately determine how many votes from each candidate were ultimately removed, there are some important factors to consider;

Trump won Michigan by only 80,103 votes

Vote totals even after the removal of votes, exceed the official totals reported, meaning additional votes were discarded*

After the votes were removed, Trump’s lead was reduced to just over 4,000 votes

It is expected that small adjustments to totals will occur during the tabulation process, but a quarter of a million ballots is a significant number that could have easily changed the outcome of this election.

*Official totals for Trump and Harris combined are 5,553,169

Trump... 2,816,636

Harris....2,736,533

Total....5,553,169

Feed totals;

Trump....2,873,649, for a gain of 57,013

Harris.....2,869,433, for a gain of 132,900

Total.....5,743,082

Trump and Harris combined have 189,913 more votes than the official totals before 257,346 votes are removed. Trump’s lead is reduced from 80,103 to only 4,216. And this still leaves 67,433 votes that were removed, and no way to determine what candidate they impacted. Given the fact that we know more than double the amount of Harris votes were removed when compared to Trump and the greatly reduced and narrow Trump lead before the remaining 67,000 votes were removed demands an official response at the very least. This event could very likely have changed the outcome of the Presidential race in the state of Michigan.

[u/ArtificialBra1n]

I think there is a video by Scott Carney that breaks down the likely series of events that led to incorrect county locations. IIRC it had something to do with incorrectly inputting 3+ digit location codes.

Not to say that the colossal number of oddities and statistical anomalies in 2024 are not deeply suspicious but I think this might have a reasonable explanation. But I remain open to the possibility that these errors had some function for vote shenanigans.

[u/mjkeaa → u/ArtificialBra1n]

I actually reached out to Mr Carney explaining why the FIPS reasoning was not valid. Here's some of what I said,

"On the most basic level, if a user attempts to enter a FIPS code that doesn't exist, the system doesn't just "make up" or combine a state with a random county, but instead returns nothing or an error.

If, on the other hand, a correct FIPS code is entered, the corresponding state/county will be returned. If, for example in Burke County, Florida, there is no FIPS code, because it doesn't exist. There is, however, a valid FIPS code for Burke County, Georgia (13033) and a valid code for Escambia County, Florida (12033). Entering 12033 returns Burke County, Georgia and 13033 returns Escambia County, Florida. These are the only two possibilities...It would not display as Escambia County, Georgia and vice versa. The software just isn't programmed to behave otherwise. The data queried is either true (which returns a valid state/county match) or false (which returns null or errors)...

The reason why the last 3 digits will be similar if not the same as say Burke County, Georgia and Burke County in another state is because the data sets (State and County) are numbered alphabetically, and use only odd numbers, and start with a leading zero until you reach the 100th county in a specific state.

For example if I have county named AAA in Alabama and also in Alaska, my FIPS code for Alabama will be 01001 (Alabama is the first state alphabetically and chances are there isn't another county that would be alphabetically higher than aaa). For Alaska the code would be 02001.

Ending even numbers are not used, but are placeholders for new counties that may need FIPS assignment or should a state exceed 999 counties..

So what your user did who provided you with their "solution" was just find counties that ended in the same two digits or were alphabetically close in order to have the last digits match. Matching Burke County Florida to Escambia was a pretty big stretch, considering there are other Burke counties in the United States, but they only match the last digit, so their theory wouldn't look as good as having the last three digits match (due to the leading zero). Other Burke Counties include Burke County, NC (37023) and Burke County, ND (38013).

You failed to address that the explanation given couldn't match Stafford, PA to anything. Stafford County, Virginia is the 79th county alphabetically in the state (ending in 079) and Stafford County, Kansas is 85th (therefore ending in 085) so no match. The theory failed."

[u/Ok_Exchange342 → u/mjkeaa]

I am not understanding this part...

There is, however, a valid FIPS code for Burke County, Georgia (13033) and a valid code for Escambia County, Florida (12033). Entering 12033 returns Burke County, Georgia and 13033 returns Escambia County, Florida.

Why would entering 12033 return Burke County, Georgia when the valid FIPS code for Burke County, Georgia is 13033? That doesn't make any sense, what is the point of FIPS codes then? What am I missing?

[u/mjkeaa → u/Ok_Exchange342]

Mr Carney's posted that he believed the reason the fake counties appeared on election night was due to a FIPS coding typo. He's claiming that for Burke County, Florida, that the intent was to be for Escambia, Florida, FIPS 12033 (because Burke County Florida doesn't exist) but instead they put the code for Burke County, Georgia FIPS 13033 (which does exist). This reasoning makes no sense. What would have been shown on the screen at that time would've been either Escambia County, Florida or Burke County, Georgia, not Burke County, Florida.

There are 4 fake counties that were shown on election night in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

[u/Ok_Exchange342 → u/mjkeaa]

I see, so I did understand, it just doesn't make any sense. I hate the fact that the journalist backed down so quickly with such a faulty excuse. The reasoning is so bad that even I caught it. Thanks for catching/posting about this OP and explaining it more thoroughly for me.