Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Thomas D. Klingenstein: Our Elections Are More Vulnerable Than Ever

By Brian T. Kennedy


At no time during the Cold War with the Soviet Union was it imagined that the Russians could manipulate a United States presidential election in favor of their preferred candidate. Hollywood's portrayal of a "Manchurian Candidate" aside, American elections were held in person, using paper ballots, counted by human beings, with other human beings watching them. And, however vicious and corrupt the normal partisan interplay of American politics may have been, this practice insured that a fair enough election could be held. Today that is no longer the case.


Regardless of who the nominees are in 2024, just as in 2020, much of America will hold their elections in the least transparent, most vulnerable method possible: absentee ballots. Because of this, a free and fair election cannot be assured. It matters not that President Trump is ahead in all the polls and in ways that some pollsters believe cannot be overcome. Citizens should expect that, since America is in a war with Communist China, November's election will be the target of a massive intelligence operation to decide the next president.


It should be noted that America's election system was not built to stop the Communist Chinese or any nation state, or for that matter any dark money group, with the capacity and the interest in deciding an American presidential election.


The United States is made vulnerable by being the only developed country in the world to allow for this wide-spread use of absentee ballots. Every other advanced democracy conducts their elections in person, with identification shown, on paper ballots counted by large groups of people transparently tallying vote totals with the results available the same day of the election. In states around America, Secretaries of State have allowed or been part of the development of elections systems that would appear to be designed to allow for fraud. So whether or not an election is stolen, a free and fair election system has been stolen from the American people.

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