It depends.
In the conventional sense, as it applies to the manner in which the 2020 Presidential election was held, and ballots counted and certified, no, it was not possible, and the election was not stolen. None of the conspiracy theories or wild conjecture in stories about ballot tampering were true, no evidence was ever produced because it didn't exist and we've now arrived at a point where evidence indicates that, among those left within the Trump administration up to January 6th, Trump himself may have been the only person in that group to believe the election was stolen. Not even those in his inner circle still believed that.
We're seeing more attempts at doing this now, in the wake of the 2020 election, which, by the way, was not stolen, that we've seen in this country for a long time. I'm sure there are ways to stuff ballot boxes in local elections in various places, where there's limited supervision and lack of accountability. But under the current system, it would be virtually impossible to "steal" an election by manipulating the vote count. It is possible to put legislation in place that allows certain politicians, most likely the secretary of state, to ignore vote counts and let a legislative body or court declare a winner, instead of the top vote-getter. That's being put in place now, by the way, in case you haven't noticed.
We've always had to live with the Electoral College, which is nothing more than a means for a minority, within the boundaries of individual states, to elect a President without getting the majority of the votes. The fact that this has occurred, in larger margins, in this century on two occasions is the best case that can be made for eliminating this antiquated, anti-democratic institution and let the people decide. And drawing congressional districts needs to be the job of an independent, politically-balanced commission, one commission for the whole country. No state legislature or judicial body can do this in a democratic, equitable way.
Other than that, we should be done with election reform. The things being proposed by Republicans are more ways to cheat the voters out of their voice.
It Makes for a Good Conspiracy Theory
Some of the conspiracy theories floating around about the 2020 election are so laughable, they are better than some of the top comedy shows in the media. My favorites all have to do with the "Cyber Ninja" audit that took place in Arizona, after two audits had already found the statewide ballot count, and then the Maricopa County ballot count, to be virtually accurate.
The fact that members of the state senate hired the group called the "Cyber Ninjas" is reason enough to question both the motives, and the sanity, of those who voted to approve it. The whole episode has made a national laughing stock out of Senate president Karen Fann, who exhibited gross incompetence and insanity in wasting the taxpayers money on this three ring circus. They were led by a guy who also exhibited gross incompetence and insanity in publicly expressing the conspiracy theories in which he believed and made outlandish claims about special devices capable of detecting bamboo fibers in ballot paper, which would indicate they were "imported from China." No bamboo fibers were detected, by the way, though Trump has asserted this in every rally he's had in Arizona.
The team assembled by the head Cyber Ninja, Doug Logan, resembled the Keystone Cops in their handling of the "audit." They couldn't figure out how to access the county voter data base, they couldn't figure out how to count the ballots, store the ballots, keep track of what they counted and what they didn't. Their maps, checking voter addresses, were eight years old, in a county that had added half a million new residents during that time. But the president of the state senate wanted these guys to do it. So they did. Other than parroting complaints, their report showed no evidence of voter fraud, but the data they were paid to collect and then report to the senate never made it there. Logan claimed that the audit, which collected more than $6 million, including a tidy sum from Arizona taxpayers, caused his firm to go bankrupt, leaving employees unpaid and no report to turn in to the senate.
I hope there are enough voters in Karen Fann's senate district to hold her accountable for that fiasco.
Michigan was a comedy act as well, with one on-camera testimony given by a drunk, paid informant, a mock "legislative hearing" for the camera and fingers pointed at cheating in a county that didn't exist. It made a celebrity of sorts out of Melissa Carone, whose testimony was proven false by evidence. She has somehow become the face of election deniers, a loud, inarticulate nut case. There might not be a place in the country where Giuliani and the circus appeared to be more ridiculous and out of touch than Michigan.
In Nevada, where the election deniers claimed that "dead people voted," there was a miraculous resurrection as all of those who were named showed up at the voter registration office to verify their existence and make sure their ballots counted. That's quite an event for Sin City, huh? In Wisconsin, after trying to find evidence of "widespread fraud," and failing, they've been grasping at straws, trying to find even a few fraudulent ballots. Investigations have led them to several Trump voters who cheated. Well, what did they expect?
I'm waiting to see what happens in Georgia, where the Secretary of State was instructed to "find" enough votes to overcome the deficit. That should be very interesting.
The most amusing moment of the whole Trump-Giuliani scam came in Pennsylvania, where a hair-dye stained Giuliani held a news conference at the Four Seasons Lanscaping Company, appropriately located next to a sex shop. In the same state, after several audits found absolutely nothing wrong with the ballot count, it was noted that there were far fewer complaints about malfunctioning machines and issues during elections than in the past, due to the fact that millions of people used the mail-in ballot system. Most counties reported veritification accuracy of ballots at higher levels than ever before.
New Ways to Steal Elections
So after some amusing laughter, we need to pay attention to what's going on with election reform, because most of it is aimed at putting up more roadblocks to free and fair elections. And these reforms are being proposed by the party that has trouble winning a majority of voters.
Gerrymandering is always good, and the line-drawers have gotten creative in their shenanigans. It's been good to see Democrats fight back, especially in states where seats were given up to give to another state. In several of the states that lost seats, lines were drawn eliminating at least one predominantly Republican district. In most cases, geographically, there was no other way to do it. So there was some balance. As it turned out, in every state that lost a district, it was a GOP congressman's seat that was removed. Well, that's too bad. But there are still states that are drawing districts which look exactly like the salamander in the examples from which the practice got its name.
Ranked-choice ballots are another trick of the trade of voter suppression. Voters cast ballots for more than one candidate, ranking them in order of choice. It's impossible to determine exactly how many individual votes were received by each candidate. It is very likely that the Democrats lost the Maine senate seat held by Susan Collins because of ranked-choice voting, which favors incumbents.
Placing the authority for certifying elections in the hands of partisan politicians who have an almost exclusive right to decide, without real evidence, that a vote count wasn't accurate is probably the biggest new way to steal elections. A candidate can win a clear majority of the vote, but if an election official declines to certify it, the results are null and void. I expect a lot of court cases this November in places like Texas and Florida, where the effort will be made to keep any Democrat from getting to the office to which they were elected.
It was comforting to see the state supreme court in New Mexico order the Otero County commission to certify the results of a primary election which was held back by a conspiracy-theory believing Trumpie nut job because he didn't like the result. It was also comforting to see the other two commissioners have some common sense and vote to certify. It would be even more comforting if that nut job commissioner were to be removed from office for his conduct. What's so troubling about that whole situation is how someone like Couy Griffin got elected to the county commission. A lot of people there were either not paying attention, didn't vote in the election, or are too stupid to be given the privilege.
The 2020 Election Was Not Stolen! And to Protect Future Elections, Turning Out in November of 2022 is Necessary
It was very clear, even before the Trump insurrection of January 6th, that there was absolutely no evidence anywhere of any "massive voter fraud" or that the election results of 2020 did not represent the will of the voter. In fact, since the hearings began, we've heard that members of Trump's inner circle never bought into his nonsense. They just went along with it for their own benefit. That is criminal fraud. And I devoutly hope that the Department of Justice prosecutes, gets rightful convictions, and sends a message to anyone else who might think about pulling something like this that it would be the wrong thing to do, and very detrimental to health, and personal freedom.
When I lived in Pennsylvania, I saw a pattern there that was the reason why a state with a million more Democrats than Republicans in the voter registration had such incredibly gerrymandered congressional districts and a state legislature with a veto-proof Republican majority. State elections are held in mid-term years, and Democratic turnout was always low. The state's Democratic senator was re-elected in a Presidential election year, while the Republican was narrowly re-elected in a mid-term year. When the court finally mandated the re-drawing of congressional district lines, the number of Democrats in Congress from the state went from 5 to 10. And that's still under-representation based on voter registration. The same needs to happen with their state legislature.
Given the percentages of unregistered adults, and the percentages of voters who don't cast ballots in any given year, the solution to these kinds of problems is simple. Turn out on election day, or with a mail-in ballot, but cast one. That's how Democracy works. Ballots come from voters who cast them to get the kind of government they want. If we want to put a stop to all of these Republican shenanigans, then we need to vote in every election and know who it is that we are supporting.
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