Democrats Versus the Vote

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A recent New York Times piece about the presidential election reads more like an article in The Onion or Babylon Bee. It claims that “President Trump’s litigiousness and unfounded claims of fraud have increased the likelihood of epic postelection court fights.”

The president’s “litigiousness”?! In state after state, almost all the lawsuits filed over this year’s elections have been filed by Democrats and liberal or progressive organizations, seeking to change election rules by judicial fiat. Their objective: force all-mail elections or huge increases in absentee balloting while simultaneously eliminating safeguards against abuse and fraud.



The Times top brass must not have read their own reporters’ story very carefully. That story cites law professor Richard Pildes’s count of at least 160 lawsuits filed by “party organizations, campaigns and interest groups,” noting that the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee “are involved” in only 40, “some in response to Democratic lawsuits.” For those familiar with basic arithmetic, the “litigiousness” is on the other side of the political aisle. Perhaps the Times didn’t bother to do the math.

The Times is right, though, when it says that the possibility of litigation after this November’s election may make the 2000 fight in Florida “look like a high school student council election” in comparison. But given what has occurred so far, if we have contentious court fights, it is far more likely that they will be initiated by Democrats attempting to game the system, not Republicans.

The nature of the hundred-plus lawsuits filed by Democrats and these organizations make that clear. All of those lawsuits (and the COVID-19 response bills filed in the House by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats) have similar goals that will give these political actors the ability to game the system. This would be true of any actors trying to change the rules in this manner mid-game. They are trying to force states to mail absentee ballots to all registered voters, despite the known inaccuracies of state voter rolls. At the same time, they are trying to

  • get rid of voter ID and witness signature or notarization requirements for absentee ballots;
  • override state deadlines for absentee ballots to be either returned or postmarked by Election Day;
  • void state laws banning vote harvesting by third parties;
  • stop or erode signature comparison procedures; and
  • require that voters be sent postage-prepaid envelopes for the return of completed absentee ballots.

What is clear from all of these lawsuits is that the Democrats and these organizations are trying to change the rules governing the administration of the November election, while it seems that the Republicans are trying to preserve the status quo.

Flipping the Script

It is also interesting, although probably to be expected, that the Times story dismisses all the problems with mail-in balloting raised by critics. The Times labels as “dubious” claims about possible fraud—such as just occurred across the river in Paterson, N.J. Nearly 20% of the ballots cast in that all-mail election were rejected, leading a judge to invalidate a city council election.

As for the problems encountered by voters due to misdelivery or delayed deliveries of ballots by the U.S. Postal Service, as well as the higher rejection rates of absentee ballots, the article blithely ignores these well-documented and all-too-common problems.

My, how times have changed. In 2012, the paper of record published a story entitled “Error and Fraud at Issue as Absentee Voting Rises.” That story concludes—correctly—that “votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting booth, statistics show.” The rejection rate for absentee ballots, according to the New York Times in 2012, is “double the rate for in-person voting.”

That refutes the Brennan Center’s claim, advanced in the story, that attempts to defend existing laws are just “efforts to throw tacks in front of the tires to make it so states can’t run their election this time.” No, trying to stop the imprudent expansion of mail-in balloting—as the evidence shows—is an effort to prevent a higher rate of disenfranchisement and a higher incidence of possible fraud.

To be clear, only one side so far seems to be trying to “make it so states can’t run their elections” the way they are required to under their existing laws and regulations. And it appears these same actors are trying to take political advantage of the COVID-19 crisis by getting judges to order the same ill-advised changes to election law they’ve been trying to wring from Congress and state legislatures for years. Of course, these changes to election law and policy would be unwise no matter who was pushing them.

The story notes that the effort to expand vote-by-mail to supposedly help voters, especially minority voters, is being led by DNC general counsel Marc E. Elias. He and his law firm, Perkins Coie (the legal consigliere of the Democrats), even have a website called Democracy Docket that lists the numerous cases they have filed all over the country.

But has this always been their position?

Consider, for example, Ohio Democratic Party v. Husted, a 2015 case over various election changes affecting early voting and same-day registration. In that case, Elias and his law firm filed a brief criticizing absentee balloting. In what can only be termed a patronizing and racialist view, Elias essentially claimed that African-American voters just aren’t smart enough to vote using absentee ballots:

Lower levels of educational attainment make the complexities of the vote-by-mail process—which requires filling out a detailed absentee application, paying postage, filling out more information again when the ballot is received, and paying additional postage—even more difficult to navigate. As a consequence, mail-in absentee voting is a not a workable option for many African Americans.

While they are trying to void witness signature requirements on absentee ballots (because that is supposedly too dangerous and will lead to the spread of COVID-19), many of these same actors are also trying to override state laws banning vote harvesting.

So what is vote harvesting? When you vote by absentee ballot, you can either mail back your absentee ballot or you or a family member can hand-deliver your ballot to election officials. But states like California have legalized vote harvesting, which allows any third party to pick up your ballot to deliver it. Apparently, family members delivering ballots will give you COVID-19, but total strangers coming to your house (and hundreds of others) to pick up and deliver ballots is 100% risk-free.

The Real Danger

The real problem with ballot harvesting is that it puts ballots, a very valuable commodity, into the hands of individuals who have a stake in the outcome of the election—candidates, campaign staffers, party activists, and political guns-for-hire (consultants). This leads to predictable results.

Just look at the 2018 election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. That election was overturned because of illegal vote harvesting that included a political consultant and his staff doing everything from filling out voters’ absentee ballots to forging voter signatures.

Yet in the face of COVID-19, liberals are trying to force states to allow strangers to go door-to-door in voters’ neighborhoods to pick up their absentee ballots. Not only will this potentially spread COVID-19, it will also put those strangers in a position to round up unused ballots and to coerce or pressure voters to vote the way the campaigns want them to vote—a recurring feature of absentee ballot fraud cases. Yet this is supposedly necessary because of the health crisis.

And what about postage-stamping the envelopes sent to voters for their use in returning their completed absentee ballots? It may sound innocuous, maybe even like a good-government reform, but it is actually another way of getting around having an Election Day deadline for returning an absentee ballot.

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Democrats feel they have already lost. Long ago, they gave up ever winning a fair election again. They were desperately using investigations and impeachment to try and undermine Trump’s governance. COVID19 was a gift, provided to the Democrats by their close friends, the CCP. They’ve done all they can to oppose efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus while spreading unreasonable fear of the virus, so that people will readily accept their long sought voter fraud gold mine, vote by mail.

Democrats stand for lies, crime, fraud and violence.

The Democrats are the Globalists they want America to surrender itself to a World Government all under the Useless Nations and Globaism all Democrats need to be voted out and Obama belongs in Prison with both the Clinton’s