Henry Olsen, a conservative scholar who is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, decided to actually take what he describes as a "deep dive" into former President Donald Trump's voter fraud conspiracy theories.
Writing in the Washington Post, Olsen explains that he decided to actually give Trump the benefit of the doubt and take his claims about potential fraud in the state of Pennsylvania seriously.
But alas for the former president, Olsen nonetheless concluded that Trump's claims were "bogus" after he looked at voting data in major urban areas including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
"If Democrats stuffed the ballot boxes in large urban areas in 2020, there would be an unexplained increase in turnout in those areas," he writes. "The same would be true for areas with higher rates of mail voting if the new practice gave rise to voter fraud. But that didn’t happen in either case."
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In fact, Olsen found that turnout increases in reliably blue Pennsylvania counties was small in comparison to turnout increases elsewhere in the state.
"Here’s what actually happened: Philadelphia had the second-lowest increase of any of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, with the share of eligible voters who cast a ballot going up by a mere 2.2 percent," he explains. "Allegheny County, which contains Pittsburgh, rose by 7.4 percent. That’s smaller than the median rise in turnout for all counties of 8.4 percent. Other big Democratic-controlled counties, such as Erie, Delaware and Dauphin, also had smaller turnout increases than the average county."
Olsen then threw down the gauntlet and agreed to debate him on "voter fraud."
"Trump recently said he wanted a debate on his voter fraud theory, arguing it would be a TV ratings bonanza," writes Olsen. "I accept his challenge, but I doubt he’ll follow up. Trump doesn’t like to lose, and he’ll be beaten like a drum if he ever has to defend his allegations against real evidence."
