By Kim Smith
American citizens have a "sacred duty and responsibility" to take part in our republican form of government (we're not a democracy!). That right and duty is voting. Yet, increasingly, the protections that ensure a fair and honest election are being whittled away.
Mail-in voting appears to be the latest assault on the system. "Mail-in voting, unless changed by the courts, will result in the most CORRUPT ELECTION in our Nation's History! #RIGGEDELECTION", President Trump recently tweeted.
Others suggest that it's an okay practice, "with safeguards in place" or "if done properly". The difficulty seems to lie in those safeguards or lack thereof. Some states actually only do by-mail voting (no place to physically cast a ballot). Some states send ballot applications to ALL who are on the voter rolls – whether they've moved, whether they're registered in multiple states, whether they've died…you get the picture. Others send the actual ballots. The Government Accountability Institute warns that if this is expanded to the nation, 24 million ballots will be delivered this year to ineligible voters.
California recently eliminated one of those safeguards – authorizing ballot harvesting (illegal in most of the country) whereby "helpful" citizens "sweep through every nursing home in the state, get the patients to sign a blank ballot, and offer to FILL IT OUT FOR THEM AND TURN IT IN – AS A PUBLIC SERVICE, OF COURSE". (emphasis added) There are also the so-called ballot "brokers" that prey on the "poor, elderly and minority communities".
Persons such as Elizabeth Warren have allegedly demanded "that all jurisdictions be prohibited from actually cleaning their voter rolls". (Pew Charitable Trust report indicated one in eight voter registrations are "significantly inaccurate or no longer valid.) But this is usually not done through the legislative process with elected officials making the decision – but by "politically motivated and compromised bureaucrats". It has also been alleged that Politico is already "gearing up to air digital ads in battleground states on how to cheat vote by mail".
Mail-in voting, supported by the cheating system, has been documented by the Heritage Foundation to have at least 20 voter fraud cases that resulted in overturned elections between 1992 and 2018. One New York candidate convinced voters to give their ballots to his campaign, which dutifully altered the ballots, inserting his name in place of the preferred candidate. Notaries were paid to steal ballots from mailboxes and vote the ballots in place of the intended voters. And the list goes on – but the facts don't. "The absentee ballot is the 'tool of choice' for those engaging in election fraud" or "Vote by mail is a disaster" (Public Legal Interest Foundation).
Then there's the case of the 28 million ballots that are still missing (between 2012 and 2018- 6 million unaccounted mail-in ballots were never counted in 2016 – President Trump's year) according to the federal Election Assistance Commission. Where they are is anyone's guess – but ballots have been found in trays at post offices (or in illegal bundles), outside apartment complexes, on community bulletin boards, and the all-time receptacle – the trash.
With the increase in mail-in voting, there have been NO new safeguards, scrutiny, or additional research on the risks of this practice.
And since this is a relatively new way to avoid honesty and fairness and "one man, one vote", the money has started emerging. On the conservative side, organizations such as Judicial Watch, the Honest Elections Project, True the Vote and the Public Interest Legal Foundation are spending vast sums litigating cases across the US -or suing where voter rolls haven't been properly maintained.
On the other side, the Democrats are pushing to eliminate "hurdles" such as the required witness signature or allowing third parties to collect the ballots. They're mounting legal challenges that threaten voting laws championed by conservatives and sending thousands and more directly to cities in various states.
All this threatens the fairness and integrity we seek in our government and its systems. As Ben Franklin said to the question whether we had a monarchy or a Republic, "A Republic, if you can keep it."
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