Ken Block, a Rhode Island software engineer and founder of Simpatico Software Systems, released a “tell all” book called Disproven earlier this month that details his involvement with the Trump campaign’s efforts to find voter fraud and has become the subject of debate.
His principal arguments are largely a rhetorical construct, and he often gets over his skis. Right out of the gate, he makes so many misleading, inflammatory, and contradictory claims that it becomes a challenge to find where to even start unpacking them. Perhaps the best place to begin is where he began, with the first words of his “Introduction” chapter:
There may be no better-qualified person to discuss whether voter fraud impacted the 2020 presidential elections than the person hired by the Trump campaign to find it.
I am that person.
That claim doesn’t quite square with a story from The Washington Post reporting that similar work was conducted by the firm Berkeley Research Group, which was paid around $1 million. Block himself acknowledges the existence of another firm doing similar research, stating Berkeley reported directly to the White House.
According to the book, Block was hired by the Trump campaign without a nondisclosure agreement in place and paid $755,000 to find evidence of fraud in the election. CNN did an interview with Block when they reported on a USA Today opinion piece he penned titled, “Trump paid me to find voter fraud. Then he lied after I found [the] 2020 election wasn’t stolen.” While
