Who's been listening to the Republican election rhetoric?
If you've been paying attention, you know that the Republican party is going to use every possible resource that it has to make sure the results of the 2024 election are not certified, and that somehow, they can cheat the constitution of its power to guarantee the American people the right to elect their own leaders. I'm not exaggerating. Go take a look at the collective record they're making as we head to the 2024 election.
The conservative, Republican legislature in the state of Ohio has already tried to use legislation passed earlier, regarding when names can be accepted for its Presidential ballot, to keep President Biden's name off the ballot by refusing to waive the deadline for getting it there than the Democratic party will meet with the nomination at their Chicago convention this summer. They have waived it in the past, when the Republican convention wouldn't meet the same deadline. That has forced the Democrats, and the Biden campaign, to change their rules on how a nominee is named by the party, to make sure the official announcement meets Ohio's deadline. As far as I can tell, while that did ring some alarm bells and get some action, it was an "on our heels" kind of reaction.
These people are going to do everything they can, including cheat in every possible way, to avoid another Trump defeat at the ballot box. They think they can do it, and get away with it, because what they've seen so far, a conclusion with which I would concur, is that no one will hold them accountable.
The Colorado Case Might Have Been a Good Thing
Colorado's attempt to keep Trump off their ballot, because of his incitement of the insurrection on January 6th, 2021, may have helped prevent some of the worst of what Republicans are planning to do in the coming election. The Supreme Court has ruled that a state cannot do such a thing, and that precedent will keep Republican dominated states from taking action to remove Joe Biden's name from the ballot. But there will be a lot of other attempts, including legislative action surronding the certification of ballots, that raises a lot of legitimate questions.
What if, for example, a state like Florida, takes a left turn, something quite likely given the oppresssive atmosphere in the state that appears to be motivating Democrats to vote and independents to go their way, and Biden carries the state by 20,000 votes? What if the governor refuses to certify the ballot totals, or the state legislature refuses to certify the election? What safeguards are in place to prevent a conservative legislature and a stacked state judicial system from determining that the Republican electors cast ballots in spite of how the popular vote goes?
Can someone answer that question, because I don't really know, and it appears, from much of the rhetoric that is circulating, that this is something which could happen.
A scenario like that is also quite likely in a state like Wisconsin, where, in spite of a string of recent Democratic victories in statewide offices, the incredible gerrymandering that has been allowed has led to a legislature that has isolated the Democrats in a few districts, giving the GOP a majority they have not earned at the ballot box. I live just 30 minutes south of the Wisconsin state line and their political pundits and experts are almost unanimous in stating that Biden will carry the state by a wider margin than he did in 2020, based on the Democratic trends in every election there since. They have a Democrat in the governor's mansion, but what if the legislature decides to nullify the vote?
What if Biden carries Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia, but the state legislatures hold up certification of the vote past the January deadline, which would then cause the election to be held in Congress, where each state delegation gets one vote?
Voter Suppression
Plans for voter suppression can be read just about anywhere in social media on the internet. Republicans are attempting to make inroads into traditional Democratic party constituencies with, of course, outright lies, but they are also working, as they have done in Georgia on more than one occasion, to remove minority voters from the electorate by invalidating their registration. That's happening in a lot of states right now and I'm wondering what Democrats are doing to make sure their voters are registered and ready to go on election day.
Georgia and Arizona are notorious for making it as difficult to vote as possible, especially in Phoenix and Atlanta, where they allocate fewer voting machines for the more densely populated precincts. Both states have vote by mail which has helped, but both states have legislatures which can play havoc with accepting and counting mail-in ballots.
During the 2022 mid-terms, after Biden carried Arizona, angering Republicans who thought that couldn't happen in their state, vigilantes with guns showed up at drop box sites in Maricopa and Pinal Counties, in heavily Democratic precincts. It's hard to tell how many voters were intimidated by that, though the mail-in vote was about what was expected. It's illegal to intimidate voters in Arizona, or in any state, but who enforces that law?
Raising a Lot of Questions That Need Answers if an American Election is to be Fair
There is not an election that I can ever remember when one party, in this case the GOP, made so much of an effort, and put the word out so openly and brazenly, about their intentions to keep this from being a free and fair election. There is only one reason they are doing this, and that is they believe Joe Biden is going to beat Trump and it's not going to be all that close. Otherwise, why go to the trouble, and why risk getting reported and caught if that happens, to try and stuff a ballot box? They know Trump is headed for defeat.
They're desperate.
Democrats and independents, and even third partiers, need to be on the alert for the tricks and treachery. The fact that this is happening is all due to "the big lie." Trump has played on the ignorance, fears and in some cases, the inexcusable stupidity, of his base, convincing them, without a shred of real evidence, that the 2020 election he lost was stolen from him. There's not any possible way that the few quirks and mistakes that are made in counting ballots in every election can be used as evidence for "massive voter fraud," and, in fact, when it did go to court and there was evidence required, not only did Trump not have any, but what he pushed his lawyers to get into the courtroom was falsified, with phony witnesses testifying to seeing things they weren't present to see. Those shenanigans actually got Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell disbarred.
For example, stories circulated around social media that truckloads of "New York ballots," where Biden won by 30 points, were taken across the state line and counted in Pennsylvania machines, to boost Biden's total there. What idiot would even think that was plausible? But I observed some who did because they wanted to believe it.
New York ballots could not be counted in Pennsylvania machines, which were programmed differently and, aside from the Presidential count, did not have any other Pennsylvania names in the other races. The machines would have rejected the ballots, and Pennsylvania's overall signature count would not have matched as closely as it did, accurate down to the decimal point.
Here's a statement you can take to the bank. In order for there to be "massive voter fraud" in America, it would require a conspiracy that included literally thousands of people of all political persuasions, in on the plan to subvert ballots. This election is safe.
Now, what are we going to do to make sure this election is as true as all other American elections have been?
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