In President Trump’s prime time address on July 16, he revealed newly declassified evidence that (Mainland) China had spent a mint to acquire considerable election data for the 2020 election, including the full personal data sets on 220 million eligible and/or registered American voters. 

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As many reporters point out, we don’t yet have all the data to tie up in a neat little bow proving how this data was used to commit vote fraud.  That would require other, very different types of information.   

It’s notoriously difficult to prove vote fraud, after the fact, because of the secret ballot, which prevents us from being able to match a voted ballot to the person who filled it out, among other challenges.  A country therefore needs to be proactive, and design a system that’s very difficult to cheat in, from the outset. You have to stop it from happening in the first place, because you can’t undo the corrupted, fabricated, or stolen vote after it’s been counted. 

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At this point, the main thing for us to get from the speech is the fact that China definitely went to the trouble and expense of acquiring these records.  Why do that, if not to use them to cheat?     

It’s like someone buying safe-cracking tools. Either he means to become a professional locksmith, or he means to rob banks; there’s no other reason to buy them.   

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Since foreign governments are not legally allowed to participate in USA elections, we know there’s nothing the Chinese could have done with these files that was legal, so, even though we may not yet have proof of what they did, we know that they spent a huge amount of money to obtain them, so they must have planned to do something with them.  But what? 

Well, we know what a normal, legal political campaign or organization does with a list of potential voters. It puts them on telemarketing and mailing lists, for fundraising, push-polling, volunteer solicitation, and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operations.   

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As a foreign country, that’s not a legal option for Beijing.   

And we know what a crooked political campaign or organization normally does with a list like that.  The campaign uses the names to track whether they vote or not, then casts fabricated mail-in or election-day ballots in their names... or attributes illegal campaign contributions to them to fool the campaign finance regulators... or uses their names to pad candidacy petitions, or friend-to-friend ads, or concoct misleading polls, or countless other traditional ways to participate in elections. 

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It’s likely that China did indeed do some of this. Even without having evidence of it, we know that there is simply no reason for a foreign government to spend the money to obtain such data sets if not to use them.  The ongoing scandal around ActBlue, for example, in which a major Democrat fundraising platform methodically broke up illegal contributions and allocated small portions to countless voters without their knowledge, to make illegal campaign funds appear legal, could well have been related to this ongoing practice. 

But we need to think bigger.  Remember the truism that “the generals are always fighting the last war.” 

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In studying this issue, and preparing to secure our elections for the future, we should be thinking not of what your everyday local crooked political machine could do with such a list, but rather, what could China do with it?  What could only China could do with it? 

Well, what do we know — not theorize, but know without question — that China does, and has been doing for years? 

China sends government-funded professors, undergrads, and grad students to the USA by the hundreds of thousands.  They choose which universities, in which cities, in which states, to place these students in. 

The Chinese government buys land and buildings, as investments, all over the country. This includes single family houses, townhomes, apartment buildings and condominiums.  Sometimes as rentals to just any tenant, sometimes as places for Chinese nationals to live, either as a base of operations or as just a place to live as students or in regular jobs. 

The Chinese government arranges what is known as “the birth tourism industry,” sending expectant Chinese mothers to various points in the USA — especially on the west coast — so they can give birth here, taking advantage of our so-called “birthright citizenship” to then more easily situate whole families here. 

The Chinese government buys existing American factories, or builds their own new factories here.  We are sometimes even enthused by these developments - “Look, the Chinese are creating jobs here, for American workers!” - but look first to where they’ve done it in Europe, particularly northern Italy; it’s more a way to bring more Chinese people here, rather than to create new jobs for the locals. 

Note that the above isn’t in dispute.  We all know that China has been doing the above for decades now, and much of this was ramped up in recent years, particularly as China’s “Belt and Road” initiative gained speed. 

Now let’s put the two data sets together. 

With an interest in involvement in American elections, and an ongoing process of increasing China’s other activity here in the United States, we see that every one of their known ongoing activities can easily be used to affect American elections. 

China has the world’s top software experts, unlimited people, and practically unlimited funds.  What would you do if you were an unscrupulous entity with those resources? 

You could look at the voter rolls and see where congressional, county board, and/or state legislative districts could be flipped by another few thousand voters, and put college students there, or put those anchor-baby children there, or put those plant employees there. 

This isn’t just federal; you could look at county boards and state houses, governors and state treasurers. 

We have one set of campaign finance laws for federal races, and 50 completely different state campaign finance laws in every state.  Put a manufacturing plant or logistics center in the right swing state, and that plant can create a political action committee that can funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars — or even millions of dollars — to candidates in that state.  Maybe enough to swing an entire legislative chamber, or control key offices like county state’s attorneys or statewide attorneys general. 

This isn’t just about a single election.  These are long term opportunities for long term power.  Put the right plant in the right place, or put the right people in the right college, and it won’t matter when legislative districts are redrawn every decade; the voting block - and donor block - will be well-enough established to play a permanent role in those jurisdictions. 

You may ask, is all this just theoretical?   

Look at the muslim immigrant presence in Michigan.  Look at the Somali immigrant presence in Minnesota.  Look at the Haitian immigrant presence in Ohio.  In all these examples, an immigrant group settled in specific areas, in high enough concentrations to swing jurisdictions. 

China has resources, people, and opportunities that dwarf all those groups. 

And don’t ask if this just might happen in the future. 

It’s already happening. 

The only questions are, how much is it happening already, and what can we do to reduce it, before this infection becomes lethal. 

Image via Pixabay, Pixabay License.