Democracy Dies When Americans Stop Scrutinizing Partisan Election Administration Democracy dies in docility. If we fail to demand of our leaders elections of the highest integrity, we will reap what we sow. Benjamin Weingarten
As we witness the mass breakdown of voting machines on the single day of the year they’re supposed to work, cameras going down in vote-counting offices, and the endless drip-drip of ballot dumps — curiously in the most hotly-contested races and most critical precincts for political control in the country — remember that this is all commonplace and normal. And if you think otherwise, you’re not only unhinged, but you might be a domestic terrorist.
This is the gaslighting we have been getting from our political class and the media over the last two federal election cycles. It is purposeful propaganda meant to obscure the truth that our betters have fundamentally transformed voting policies and practices, and then exploited the new rules to the maximum extent.
The reality is that those skeptical about the integrity in our brave new election world are not a “threat to democracy.” They are defenders of the republic. America is in serious danger if the public unquestioningly accepts the fact that authorities made radical changes, sometimes unduly and under cover of crisis, that made less safe, secure, or at minimum trustworthy the processes by which we elect our representatives.
For decades we voted one way: In-person, with identification, on a singular Election Day, usually with rudimentary, analog tools. With rare exceptions, we received the results on Election Night. In the 2020 election, that all changed. For the first time in modern history, we had a mass mail-in election, held over the course of weeks, much of it automated. The results came in over a period of days, not hours.
The ‘Shadow Campaign’ That Rigged 2020
In the run-up to the race, election offices outsourced their most basic operations, with hundreds of millions of dollars in private funding, a.k.a. “Zuckerbucks,” to often leftist nonprofits. Authorities made all manner of exceptions to count ballots cast that did not comply with basic legal standards – that is, to tally votes that were patently illegitimate. When state judges decreed rule changes, as opposed to leaving it to legislatures to make law, courts up to the highest in the land permitted it. Poll workers prevented poll observers from overseeing their operations in certain precincts.
By their own admission, the wealthy and powerful came together in a comprehensive “conspiracy” to “fortify” the election against one candidate — aiding in many of these efforts. As Molly Ball spelled out in her “Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election:” “a well-funded cabal…ranging across industries and ideologies, work[ed] together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.” It is worth emphasizing that the co-conspirators both pushed the changes to the way we vote, and then, as seen with the Zuckerbucks, exploited the system they had helped create with nonprofits they funded to get out the vote — arguably disproportionately to Joe Biden’s benefit.
The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway of course laid all this and more out in stunning detail in her essential book, “Rigged.”
As voters witnessed the simultaneous stops in vote counts in swing states in the middle of election night, only to pick up in the wee hours with margins moving from Trump to Biden, and seeming statistical anomalies followed, tens of millions of Americans had questions about what they saw. This was a perfectly rational response. It would have been beyond disturbing if Americans weren’t skeptical about an election like no other in our history – and in which so many forces were literally and figuratively invested in ensuring a specific outcome.
Remote voting at the very minimum presents the potential for less safe and secure elections. And we have found myriad instances of people engaging in related fraud. It is incumbent upon voters then to scrutinize any such system. Yet those who scrutinized the 2020 race were shunned and censored. Was the ostracism supposed to instill confidence?
It’s Happening Again
Fast-forward to 2022. Many states made permanent the temporary election practices of 2020, loosening their voting rules, with tens of millions of voters continuing to vote by mail. In the days before the election, we were told by the likes of Politico that the very vulnerabilities in election infrastructure feared by supposed conspiracy theorists and election denialists in 2020 in fact were present in 2022.
Problems cropped up in voting centers on Election Day when and where Republicans vote disproportionately. From Maricopa County, Arizona, to Mercer County, New Jersey, electronic tabulation machines malfunctioned en masse. That is, machines with literally one job, on the one day they’re supposed to work, didn’t. The RNC alleged voter disenfranchisement as a consequence of the Maricopa debacle, but a judge dismissed the case.
In Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, 44 polling locations reportedly ran out of paper to print ballots. Ballot machines went down in Harris County, Texas. In Suffolk County, New York the tabulation process was reportedly “impacted” by government computers that had been hacked months ago. Chesterfield County, Virginia had a whole host of issues – apparently manual and electronic.
And then there’s the fact that Arizona, in part because of Maricopa County, and Nevada, with pivotal races for the U.S. Senate and governor, as of this writing have not reported their final results. Officials in both states claim the count may take days.
How is it possible that in the most technologically advanced civilization in the history of mankind, and when Florida with a population two times greater than Arizona and Nevada combined, could report results on Election Night, that Sun Belt states can’t quickly and efficiently collect and count the votes? Could it be because Florida’s system hews towards more traditional, rigorous voting standards?
The Republican establishment has made little effort to forcefully make the case for, and drive legislative changes aimed at moving toward the Florida model. It is not clear whether much of the party lacks the courage of its convictions to fight for election integrity, simply thinks Democrats have the better of the arguments on the matter, or are content to participate in a system that they have refused to exploit as mercilessly as their opponents and therefore under which they are at a distinct disadvantage.
What is clear is that they are effectively normalizing the abnormal with each cycle that passes. We are the last safeguard for the republic. If we are asleep, the system crumbles because men are not angels.
Democracy dies in docility. If we fail to demand of our leaders elections of the highest integrity, we will reap what we sow.
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