The exact mechanics of how it works is not a thing I have evidence on, but the statistical effect in California of AB1921 being signed into law is, in your words, irrefutable. In Orange County, an extremely right wing area, 100% of the state house races immediately after the bill was signed flipped to Democrat.
The Orange County Republicans were leading in the polls, won the in-person voting, were winning the absentee mail-in voting, and then on election day ballot harvesters dropped off a quarter of a million votes which wiped Republicans off the board.
The Big Lie makes the claim that something was stolen. I don’t think that is quite right and what really happened is more insidious. I think a flotilla of rushed changes to the voting system were made, with the COVID pandemic being the claimed motivation, and those changes mirrored California’s AB1921.
Do I think Trump lost the vote in 2020, yes 100%. Do I think that Trump would have lost the vote if not for the pandemic election law changes? I’m much less sure about that.
As for the exact mechanics of how the phenomenon works, I am extremely curious. I think there was a good possibility of gaining some insight via the Arizona voting audit, but the one thing that would have really cast a light on what happened was expressly declared off limits from the audit. The auditors were not allowed to perform signature comparison on the mail-in ballots versus the stored signature at the Registrar of Voters. I find that deeply suspicious. If you are going to allow an audit then allow an audit. Don’t authorize an audit and say you can look anywhere you want except for this one place that might actually give some insight.
