Some folks take advantage of mail-in voting. Those of us who cast ballots during the early voting period or who are voting today can reinforce what everybody but infantile sore losers already know. The American voting system is in good hands – the hands of dedicated neighbors who sacrifice their time to serve us and the republic.
Except for Jim Wells County, Texas, “finding” enough Lyndon Johnson votes in lucky Ballot Box 13 in 1948 to propel him to the Senate, most accusations of voter fraud in the U.S. have proven fraudulent themselves.
This includes the onslaught of the biggest lie of Donald Trump’s more than 30,000 lies during his four-year presidency. The GOP’s Liar in Chief has spent the past eight years trying to undermine the American voting system. (Yes, that is one of Lawrence Britt’s 14 warning signs of fascism.)
Stung by losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump began his election lying by ignoring the fact that, in addition to falling three million votes short of her total, another seven million people voted for third party candidates.
But, a guy whose craving for popularity includes everything but positive action could not accept the numbers – compiled by other good neighbor poll workers throughout the country.
In mid-October, The Associated Press reported, “America’s elections are decentralized, with thousands of independent voting jurisdictions. That makes it virtually impossible to pull off a large-scale vote-rigging operation that could tip a presidential race — or most any other race.”
The AP story cited former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a Republican and chair of the advisory board of the Secure Elections Project: “You’re probably not going to have a perfect election system. But if you’re looking for one that you should have confidence in, you should feel good about that here in America.”
But, some people still try to cheat. Late last month NBC News reported that Pennsylvania officials are “investigating as many as 2,500 fraudulent voter registration applications in Lancaster County that election workers flagged during routine reviews of the forms.”
Local District Attorney Heather Adams told reporters: “We have confirmed violation of our crimes code as well as our elections code. We have all available detectives working on this. We are all hands on deck so that we can properly assess the validity of these applications in a timely manner.”
The application forms, according to AP, were “completed by paid canvassers, as part of a ‘large-scale canvassing operation’ dating back to June.” The new registrations were Republican. Oops.
Trump’s vilification of election workers put them at risk – even more so when he lost the electoral college vote as well as the popular vote in 2020.
He lost the election in Republican-run states, but that did not deter the lousy losers. Trumpistas filed nuisance, fruitless lawsuits to support The Big Lie of The Big Liar – and lost them all. And now many of those fraudsters have found themselves in court again.
The Take America Backwards crowd stays silent on the “good old days” when everyone realized we had/have a great election system. That does not serve their wannabe dictator’s purposes.
Most disheartening was the cringing, crawling capitulation of alleged conservative politicians, whose fear of the wrath of Trump’s base base saw them cowardly collude with the liar. Their rallying cry has been that “some people” think the 2020 election was stolen.
Well, some folks think that because too many Republicans lack the courage to stand up to Trump and broadcast the truth. And, this includes many very public Christians whose desire for temporal power overrides whatever might remain of their purported principles.
They, too, bear responsibility for putting election workers at risk from verbal and physical abuse from Trump loyalists trying to emulate his total disregard for decorum.
During early voting in San Antonio, a 69-year-old poll worker was punched in the face several times by a guy in a pro-Trump cap, who took exception to very clear laws that prohibit campaigning within certain distances of polling places.
In New Jersey, a woman wearing Trump clothing at the polls verbally abused other good neighbor election workers with a stream of profanities unsuitable for family newspapers. This evoked a “what a patriot” response from Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance.
A guy in a pro-Trump hat displayed the same viciousness toward poll workers in South Carolina.
I have served as an election judge, an assistant judge and an impressed, hand-count vote tally person in an emergency. Our biggest worries were the crushing boredom of very long days and the late night nervous giddiness as the adrenalin ran out.
Thanks to lying Donald Trump and his enablers, today’s good neighbor election workers are now in danger. They probably never thought of themselves as brave. Well, they are braver than those who kowtow to calumny.
They deserve our gratitude, not vile vilification.
(Duncan resident Gary Edmondson is chair of the Stephens County Democratic Party.)