Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Restoring Confidence in Our Elections
The debate over election fraud versus voter suppression is high-stakes and high-intensity. Trump loyalists insist the election was stolen, mechanically rigged, and rife with fraudulent actors. Democrats continue to insist that fraud never happens, an argument easily swatted away by the existence of thousands of documented incidents.
But Democrats have a point in that the problematic behaviors – bulk mail voting, ballot harvesting, and related practices – were permitted by law in most states. That means, according to the “fact checkers,” that all reasonable people must agree that there was No Fraud.
Trump fought the wrong war at the wrong time. While he was ranting about corrupt voting machines, rogue election workers, and a cascade of assorted allegations, Democrats in the last two elections were cleverly creating election rules intended to create a permanent majority.
Trump and his supporters were never able to prevail in a court of law. In the end, they were outsmarted and lost the election to a pathetically weak candidate.
Attorney General Bill Barr was an astute, loyal adviser to Trump during the election. Unfortunately, his advice to stop exploring rabbit holes was not heeded. Yet he would see the traps the Democrats were setting in September 2020.
Bulk mail balloting is not your father’s absentee voting, he explained on CNN. “Instead of requests coming from a specific address, we are now going to mail them to everyone on a voter list, when everyone knows the voter lists are inaccurate.”
“People who should get them don’t get them … and people who get them are not the right people. They are people who have replaced the previous occupant … and sometimes multiple ballots come to the same address with several generations of previous occupants.” That’s no way to run an election, he concluded.
He’s right. For generations, America had voting laws that produced fair, reliable results. The laws required that all voters register beforehand and present a secure ID. All votes were cast confidentially. Absolutely no intimidation or persuasion was allowed in or near a polling station.
Importantly, there was a strict chain of custody to make sure that there could be no tampering and that all legally cast ballots would be counted. Voting was done mostly on site although accommodations were made for those unable to vote in person on election day.
That was the American way of conducting elections. Now all that has changed. Millions of ballots are sent automatically to voters just because they didn’t opt out of receiving one. Nobody knows what happens to them until they are returned.
Helpful party workers can collect them, offer aid with voting and often leave them anonymously in drop boxes. The notoriously unreliable signature verification often is the only ID required.
Today, this is all perfectly legal. Of course, it’s illegal to vote a ballot not your own, to unduly influence another voter or to fail to deliver certain ballots. But with bulk mail voting, none of this is detectable.
Once a mail-in ballot is opened and separated from its envelope, any possible proof of fraud is lost, no matter how many audits and investigations are performed. We have a voting system obviously prone to fraud and coercion yet opaque to any misdeeds committed within it.
Arizona voters, thanks to their legislature, will have a chance this year to close one gaping flaw in our system by approving a requirement of voter ID for bulk-mail voters. There is no coherent reason to require ID at the polls while bulk-mail voters get a pass.
Although the media continues to insist that those who support voter ID are “vote suppressors,” Americans smell a rat. According to a Quinnipiac poll, only 60% of voters overall believed the last election to be legitimate.
In the end, it may not matter that much how much “provable fraud” can be discovered. So long as we have a slipshod, non-secure system like bulk-mail voting, it will be difficult to convince voters of the integrity of their vote.
In a closely divided country, it is critical that citizens have confidence in elections and the legitimacy of the government. As Bill Barr says, “we are playing with fire.”
Published in Elections
Good. We must never stop digging into these “rabbit holes,” even if it gives Bill Barr the sads. Because I don’t give a flying redacted about Bill Barr’s feelings. Or his “advice.”
But if Bill Barr says it’s all legit, we’re supposed to drop it, right? That’s what I’m hearing from the Barr apologists.
Heaven forbid Bill Barr risk a little burn.
Especially when people who are hired to explore the “rabbit holes” are completely uninterested in doing their redacted jobs.
Nope. The 2020 election was stolen by the Democrats and you can shout nuh-uh until you’re blue in the face. I will never accept that the 2020 election put the voter’s choice in the White House.
Never means never.
I agree with Drew. And what about, like me, if you live in a state with all-mail voting. Washington has had such for over two decades, and the first year the King County DemocRat machine cheated in the Governor’s race. We voters have no choice-we must vote by mail ballot. In 2020 I was a signature-verifier for my county, and I had my share of shaky signatures that I kicked up to my supervisor.
This year, the King County Republicans put out notices on all the ballot drop-boxes, stating that there would be observers there day and night, supposedly to catch the kind of ballot-stuffing that may have taken place in other states; of course, the KC Executive has cried foul and demanded that the notices and observers be removed. It remains to be seen what might happen. In any case, no one bothers with my state, since we are seen as reliably Leftist everywhere and always. Our Republican votes do not count for much.
Excellent article. If they can steal the next two elections it’s over. The US may already be too big, too diverse, and too corrupt to fix itself with the current rotten voting system. If Democrats win the next two elections it gives the Chinese three years to help the mindless giant digital companies, bureaucrats and dozens of other organized groups, including the radical left all the time they need to consolidate their power. Why are states with good governors not preparing to pull out? Why are folks not talking this way? The question is sincere. Can someone who is well plugged in which I am not by a long shot, explain why nobody is talking about separation let alone preparing for it?
I don’t think it’s an excellent article at all, because on the one hand it says “Stop looking for vote fraud! Bill Barr dismissed these concerns!” (argumentum ad verecundiam) while on the other it’s saying “Vote fraud is serious and we must work to stop it!”
Well, make up your mind.
^ The rest of what you say is correct. ^
Vote fraud in the last election isn’t going to be looked at unless we win an election. If we can’t win the next election. Its over and we have to organize succession. it’s that or it’s over.
I’m sure we agree. Fixing the next election means looking at the last election and figuring out how they stole it. Then shutting down those avenues of fraud. I’m tired of people who say “Bill Barr says there wasn’t any fraud!” as if I’m supposed to trust his word as gospel.
I’m sorry to have to disagree with the OP in the main point of the post, that the “enhanced turnout activities” that
stolewere decisive in the 2020 national election were legal.It is not legal to turn in a mail in vote for someone not your close relative, then or now.
It is not legal to be paid to turn in a mail in vote for someone not your close relative, then or now.
It is not legal to accept money to run an organization that hires others to turn in mail in ballots from people who are no their close relatives, then or now.
It is not legal for
Bezosa billionaire to fund a NGO enhanced turnout organization engaging in activities that were not, and are not now, legal.I certainly agree that President Trump did not take the “Stop The Steal ” movement seriously until it was far too late to do anything about it. On January 6th, he had a real poll in one hand accurately predicting increased votes for himself in all demographics. In the other hand, he had the official results of 81 million votes cast for Joe Biden with loose to non-existent auditing of their sources. I imagine some part of his rage at the situation was guilt over letting his own side down. And so he should have felt.
But they did try court actions before the election, which were routinely dismissed for “standing” – i.e., too soon, no “damage” had yet occurred. After the election, the court actions were routinely dismissed for “laches” or “moot” – i.e., too late.
Heads they win, tails we lose.
Which court actions were dismissed for lack of standing?