But delaying the announcement of election results is typically seen the world over as evidence of fraud. US officials once saw it that way, too, at least up until the 2020 election when contesting election results became grounds for indicting Trump, his lawyers, and other top aides.
For instance, delays in announcing the results of the first round of Peru’s 2000 election — which included three days for the presidential race, more than a month for congressional contests, and a “mysterious” lapse in the transport of ballot boxes to vote count centres — caught the Clinton administration’s attention. A State Department spokesman warned the Peruvian government “to take every possible measure to ensure that the next round of voting fully meets democratic standards of openness, transparency and fairness”.
The Peruvian campaign was marked by other irregularities, too, as watchdog groups found evidence that incumbent Alberto Fujimori’s operatives had manipulated the media, forged voter registration signatures, and transported pre-marked ballots. The reason those sound like the irregularities identified in the 2020 US elections is because the distinguishing characteristics of election fraud are always the same. There are not that many ways to rig an election, and it does not take a professional election monitor to recognise fraud.
Delayed election results are correlated not only with fraud but also with violence. According to a study of African elections from 1997 to 2022: “The length of time between elections and the announcement of the official results acts as a signal of possible voter fraud, thereby increasing incentives for post-election violence.”
Likewise, paused ballot-counts and lengthy delays in announcing results in Honduras’s 2017 presidential elections led to widespread violence and 17 deaths. Here again, the US State Department took note. The irregularities, said US diplomats, indicated that “much-needed electoral reforms should be undertaken”.
Could the promised delays for this election cycle provoke further political violence? With two attempts on Trump’s life already, Kamala Harris raised the stakes when she compared him to Hitler. In a recent Atlantic article, former Trump administration officials allege that their ex-boss spoke favourably of the Führer, claims that the Harris team rolled into a press conference essentially warning against a Hitler presidency. Only Harris, her campaign promises voters, is capable of “defending democracy” — effectively the central plank in the party’s platform — against your Nazi neighbours.
The idea that Trump is a tyrant in the wings is of course absurd. But it is no more dangerous than Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign propaganda claiming that Trump was controlled by Vladimir Putin. US intelligence services used that fabrication as a predicate to investigate Trump during the second year of his presidency.
Through three election cycles, from 2016 to the present, the Democrats have sought to present Trump, a political outsider, as somehow fundamentally un-American. At best, the Democrats dismiss Trump’s supporters as unwitting accomplices of a foreign agent; at worst, they denounce them as collaborators in a fascist plot to undermine democracy. This has proven to be the most destructive propaganda campaign in US history. No foreign power has ever divided the American public so successfully.
The catch is that Harris doesn’t have many options. Some say the Hitler ploy is evidence that her campaign has run out of steam, but the problem is more fundamental: owning the Democratic Party’s signature policy initiative from the last four years would be disastrous. Since Biden took office in January 2021, the administration has ushered millions of illegal aliens across the southern border. Because no one is stopping the migrants from crossing and record-keeping is deliberately careless, no one knows how many have entered, though estimates range between seven and 25 million.
Even officials in Democrat-run polities such as New York, Boston, and Los Angeles are starting to have second thoughts about their status as “sanctuary cities” now that illegal aliens are exhausting their resources while also spiking crime rates. The proliferation of cheap, undocumented labour has suppressed the wages of working-class Americans or pushed them entirely out of the workforce. And because no Democrat in their right mind wants to take credit for burdening taxpayers with billions of dollars in public services for non-citizens, no one dares look into the future when automation will make millions of illiterate foreigners redundant.
Trump’s plan, the cornerstone of his campaign, is to send them back. If they want to move to America, they have to go home and start the process lawfully. In the meantime, Republicans are worried that illegal migrants are being registered to vote and their harvested ballots may help Harris win battleground states.
However, some GOP officials I’ve spoken with say there’s little evidence yet of mass registration of the Biden-Harris administration’s illegal migrants. At present, say my sources, the migrants are largely being relocated to Democrat-run states and cities, replacing Americans who vacated these areas in the last few years, driven out by draconian Covid lockdowns and mandates. These millions of Americans have left the Democratic enclaves on the East and West coast and moved to the sunbelt and other Republican-dominated regions to free themselves from the policies that have made life more dangerous and expensive. That exodus is a problem for Democrats since congressional seats are allocated according to population size. When conservative voters leave majority Democratic regions in droves as they have recently, those areas lose seats. And so, to win elections and hold power, so the theory goes, the Democrats need to keep the borders open, maybe forever.
This is why Trump supporters believe that the election will decide whether America remains a real country, with secure borders and secure elections, or is destined rather to become a tax farm for oligarchs in a geographical zone ruled by a single party. It’s no wonder Americans are on edge — Harris voters are worried that Hitler will be re-elected, and Trump supporters fear a repeat of 2020 that will lead to an unrecognisable America. Accordingly, voters are more galvanised by the electoral process than ever before, watching polls like political professionals.
Americans aren’t accustomed to this level of political urgency. For much of US history, most voters assumed that regardless of the outcome, the ship of state would rest in relatively steady hands whether it was a Democrat steering it slightly left or the Republicans charting a centre-right course. After the eight-year campaign targeting Trump, his aides and supporters, hardly anyone believes that anymore. Today, there’s little voters are willing to take for granted, including evidence of Trump’s growing lead as we head into Tuesday’s election.
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SubscribeTrust in US democracy has been steadily eroded by a series of much contested results in the last several elections Bush/Gore, Trump/Clinton, Biden/Trump.
Faith needs to be restored in the electoral process, it’s absolutely critical, and there are some fairly simple steps that would have achieved that.
Every voter should be able to be verified – the matter of every voter’s eligibility is fundamental. Anyone who doesn’t have a Driver’s Licence should have been able to request another form of ID, issued free of charge by the Govt. Every voter should be made to produce ID before being allowed to cast a vote.
The practice of Ballot-harvesting – “gathering of completed absentee or mail-in ballots by third-party individuals rather than submission by voters themselves” should have been banned altogether.
Voter Rolls should have been integrated and made uniform across the country. If a voter changes address, including moving State, that should be updated to a national database. Every US voter should be informed that IF YOU ARE NOT ON THE ELECTORAL ROLL, YOU CAN NOT VOTE.
It is noticeable that it has been the Democrat Party who’ve been vociferously opposed to the introduction of any new Voter ID laws or election security mechanisms, all whilst condemning Republicans for the threat they supposedly pose to democracy. The Democrat Party claim that any Voter ID laws discrimate against ethnic minority communities, but polling has shown that there is 70% support for their introduction among Dem voters of all races. In California is is ILLEGAL to ask someone to produce ID to vote – no paper trail, nothing to stop illegal immigrants from voting.
So what is the real reason Dems push back against any measures to ensure Election integrity? Who knows, but maybe another Old Joe had the answer….
“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” ― Joseph Stalin
Audit random districts every election. Match a person with every ballot.
delete
Downvoted for a deletion. Truly mystifying.
I balanced it out.
I also upvoted to compensate for moral damages. It’s not just Americans who have problems voting.
Shows the caliber of most of those drawn to this article to reinforce their dumb conspiracy theories
Clearly a voting irregularity
Do you mean there’s a problem with the system itself?
No. It’s the the Democrats
🙂 🙂 🙂
What do you mean by ‘delete?’
I had made a comment that I realised was wrong and it wasn’t something that could be fixed with an edit in the time they give you, so the easiest thing was to delete it. Maybe I should have written “deleted”. Though I see I did say deletion in a following comment.
Some would have thought you gave an instruction – many are jumpy & from what I have been forced to learn since 2009 in leafy Melbourne, Australia, not recently, jumpiness is better than dumb sleepwalking.
If the system is so easy to rig then the US government is a Failure and it would be illogical to go back to the Same system. Are citizens of the US that flummoxed ?
My Spouse cheats but we have an exceptional Marriage .
Time to throw G Washington and founders on the Trash Heap of History.
Where one party favours voting procedures that lend themselves to fraudulent voting suspicion is bound to arise that they do so to enable fraudulent voting in their favour. That is surely unarguable.
It is not merely suspicion, it is a racing certainty
https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dollars-Pork-Chop-Sandwich/dp/0807061980
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In male-female relationships when one partner constantly accuses the other of infidelity without any proof, it usually turns out that the accuser is the one who is being unfaithful.It’s called projection.
It is more than mere suspicion, it is a racing certainty
You make logical points. It should be in the interests of both sides that there is a robust reliable voting system based on integrity. This is not rocket science. Right now it is the Republicans calling for it and the Dems blocking the calls.
The only side caught blatantly trying to cheat legit voters of their vote is the Republican one – co-led by a “never a Trump man” – “Trump is a Nazi” creepy political chameleon
Please explain
In California, the precinct workers have a list of verified, legal voters. If you are not on the list, you don’t get to vote. No I’d needed.
In California everyone gets mailed a mail in ballot. No checks required.
Please explain.
All registered voters? All adult residents? Or do they just stick hands-full of ballots in every mailbox?
I don’t know about CA, but I live in Oregon, and the state migrated to vote-by-mail *entirely* by 1996. There are no longer any voting precincts, volunteer precinct workers, voting booth, etc. The ballot is mailed to you about 10-12 days prior to the election and you can fill it out and mail it in up to maybe 3 days before the election, after which time you must take the ballot, in a signed envelope, to a ballot box that is located in public libraries, etc.
The ballots are scanned for signature, opened, and tallied as they come in, so partial results are therefore *known*, but not announced to the public.
For myself, personally, none of this gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. Now, combine this with ranked choice voting–which the state is experimenting with currently–and it’s hard to see how any of this could increase public trust in the process.
Well said. Observers outside of the U.S., who may simply be informed by the NYT, WAPO, and rags like The Atlantic must be particularly aggrieved by what they perceive to be witnessing over here.
I am a Brit, with absolutely no axe to grind. Who the American people choose for their next president is their business, and absolutely nobody else’s.
But this piece is off-the-scale barking mad. It’s a wild conspiracy theory, in which the Democrats, the judges, the Department of Homeland Security, numerous officials in the states, and God knows who else, have entered into a vast conspiracy to stop Trump winning.
I’m surprised only that he doesn’t accuse the CIA of masterminding the whole operation. After all, the CIA is the default bad guy for conspiracy theorists in the rest of the world.
It is naive David to dismiss the idea that the CIA might be involved in domestic election interference. There is a reason the CIA is the default bad guy for conspiracy theories in the rest of the world. They have been pretty much openly involved in color revolutions since their inception. It’s not a big step from intervening to make sure democracy is preserved in Ukraine, to name but one example, to intervening to make sure democracy is preserved at home. And that it is how the debate is openly framed in the NYT, the Atlantic the WaPost and other elite communication channels. What used to be called democracy — the populace choosing their preferred representative — has been redefined as populism. Democracy has been reframed as the maintenance of the policies and ideals of the elites. The idea that a large fraction of the population are misinformed and cannot be trusted have a say in choosing their leaders has become mainstream.
Trump has announced his intention to clean house. Along with Bobby Kennedy, he has announced openly that he will declassify the Kennedy assassination files and his foreign policy goes against every tenet of the globalist policies that have been followed for decades by Republican and Democratic Presidents. He is an existential threat to the actors who benefit from the defense establishment and the arms industry not to mention the pharmaceutical industries. So yes… I’m pretty sure the CIA has their collective finger in the pie.
Ignoring the rest of your childish ranting for the moment, this is particularly amusing:
“he has announced openly that he will declassify the Kennedy assassination files”
He of course promised this in his first run and didn’t follow through. Are you so naïve to think he will now? Because Trump always keeps his promises, right? LOL!
“Childish ranting” …more self projection from CS.
He explained on Joe Rogan why he didn’t release the Kennedy files and why he will now.
Because Trump would never say something that wasn’t true, would he?!?!
LOL! You people are such rubes!
CS defended dementia victim, pathological liar and daughter molester Joe, and backs Kamala. What a hoot. The woke have become the corrupt reactionaries….
And please remember the Twitter Files. The FBI and CIA had many fingers in the social media pie.
Ya. This essay is pretty partisan. However, it does outline some serious issues with the machinery of American elections. It’s 2024. America is the most advanced nation in the history of the world. Yet it can’t seem to run elections efficiently and timely. It’s mind boggling if you think about it. These delays at least create the perception of cheating, and weakens the bonds between voters and the state.
Maybe this is what late-stage democracy looks like – a sclerotic administrative state incapable and uninterested in performing even the most essential and basic functions of democracy. Ironically, the incompetence of the political and technocratic elite gave birth to Trump, and similar populists across the globe.
I had to laugh at your statement that :America is the most advanced nation in the history of the world”. Is that why the streets in the Greater Washington DC Metropolitan area are akin to the 3rd world, loaded with potholes. Is that why electricity is carried in overhead wires which go down in every storm rather than being carried underground as they are in every modern European city (including the UK). Having lived in the US for over 35 years, I can tell you that there are many strange facets that would shock many Europeans if and when they visit.
As someone who worked in the USA for many years I have to agree.
Isolation and self sufficiency makes the country surprisingly backwards in many areas despite having superb technical capabilities.
It’s a strange combination that is noticeable to anyone moving to the USA from Europe.
It’s a matter of priorities. Having the most advanced weapons is what counts. Who cares about civilian infrastructure?
Now that makes sense, Jim. Leave it to a Canadian eh?
America has a deep need to be exceptional, good or bad. You aptly point out the global spread of populists, many of whom I’d call demagogues too.
In reference to the exchange below your comment: America is at once very advanced and quite backward. I can see the contrast just by crossing the border into my home town of Calgary—not that it’s a paradise.
America has a weird culture. They love guns. You can burn the second amendment to the ground and they will be shooting each other up forever. The only time I’ve ever felt scared being a white man was taking my family to a restaurant in the wrong neighborhood in LA. I would NEVER trade in my Canada card for the U.S. Yet they are the most entrepreneurial, success driven society in the world.
I doubt I’ll relocate long-term, but I take comfort in my dual citizenship.
Would love that. I’m not crapping on America. I’ve spent a tonne of time there. Grew up in sarnia. Outside Edmonton now
The demagogues who are damaging us are wielding power in capitals around the world, as well as from Davos.
But Trump, Orban, and Erdogan are a-ok with you?
Still don‘t understand why voter ID is so hated by the Democrats. Do they think minorities are dummies and therefore unable to get an ID?
In the U.K. we had to show our passports or other IDs even at the election of the Mayor of London as there was massive postal vote harvesting fraud before, especially in Tower Hamlets, a London Borough with a mostly South Asian community. So the last government made changes to how the population can vote. I hope, if Trump becomes president, his administration will also introduce voting reforms, so that cheats like Newsom can’t get away with possible fraudulent elections.
Oddly, elections run by Republicans nearly never run into issues of security, accuracy and timely results.
“These delays at least create the perception of cheating, and weakens the bonds between voters and the state.”
This is more important in the long run than any individual election that *may* have been compromised by unlawful voting.
If people lose confidence in the honesty and validity of the voting system they quit voting. Eventually the whole idea of having a ny say in public decisions goes away.
I’ve been skeptical, and remain so, of the rigged election narratives.
But it’s not a conspiracy theory to claim that, when other countries’ elections in the past saw delayed releases of counts these were seen as very suspicious, so it is prima facie fair to be suspicious when the same is true of ballots at home.
And when no proof of ID is required to vote, or to prove one is eligible to do so, it seems extraordinarily loose. When it is literally not allowed to ask for ID, one can only conclude it is deliberately so. If one party benefits from this, and campaigns for this, it is prima facie fair to be suspicious.
And postal voting, with not even a signature required, is so obviously open to abuse that in the past both parties avoided it. Should one party suddenly start supporting it, it is prima facie fair to be suspicious.
So what the author is doing isn’t peddling conspiracy theories, what he’s doing is identifying a number factual matters that each on its own could be suspicious. And saying that when lots of them apply, and it’s one party (the ruling one at that) which seeks to promote what are typically seen as poor practice, it’s natural for people to be suspicious.
Why on earth, if it was a free and fair election, which everybody could accept as such, that you wanted, would you actively seek to promote practices that are suspicious and undermine acceptance of the result by a large proportion of the population?
It would seem self-defeating. Unless of course…
“And when no proof of ID is required to vote, or to prove one is eligible to do so, it seems extraordinarily loose. When it is literally not allowed to ask for ID, one can only conclude it is deliberately so. If one party benefits from this, and campaigns for this, it is prima facie fair to be suspicious.”
This is *exactly* the issue: it fosters mistrust in the entire political system, and not just the election, itself. It matters much less *who* won, because now the losing side think that the winner won illegitimately. If people start thinking “the system is rigged” and that they have no input, society instead of being mutually beneficial, quickly becomes every man for himself.
“And when no proof of ID is required to vote, or to prove one is eligible to do so, it seems extraordinarily loose. When it is literally not allowed to ask for ID, one can only conclude it is deliberately so. If one party benefits from this, and campaigns for this, it is prima facie fair to be suspicious.”
I’ve seen the evolution of fairly strict registration procedures move toward automatic registration thru the DMV, expansion of absentee ballots until it’s now exclusively vote by mail, and now we’re considering ranked choice, which at best uses an iterative logical algorithm for re-assigning votes until a winner or winner emerge–but this is *far* from intuitive to the voter, and it makes some voters nervous because they cannot readily see, or figure, how the winner is determined.
You are woefully uninformed. Smith is informed with facts. You have shown up to a battle of wits, witless.
I’m sure everything about this election will proceed regularly. I mean, it’s not like the Democrats have been constantly denigrating Donald Trump as the second coming of the by-word for supreme political evil, thus justifying any and all methods to keep him out of office, whether legal or illegal. Everything will be fine!
I guess you missed the part where Trump describes his political rivals as “enemies of the people”?
Your comment reads like something Joseph Goebbels might say.
Some of his rivals. Is he wrong?
Yes. And even more wrong to say so in front of cameras and adoring crowds.
So you don’t think there are political figures out there care more about their own interests than the people they represent? That they are all humanitarians. That they shouldn’t be named.
That isn’t what I said or even implied, and I believe you knew that before you typed a caricature of my words.
I am saying they should not be demonized with terms like Enemy of the People, which has a violent history.
Naming or opposing someone is not the same as calling them evil or calling for their imprisonment without due process.
They’ve literally tried to assassinate him. Several times. He is not wrong, by the way
Who is They?
Yes Champagne National Socialist.
What exactly are you downvoting to a factual comment?
Eight years ago Donald Trump was possessed by Putin and his intelligence operatives. Today he is possessed by the spirit of Adolf Hitler. Therefore, since Hitler is worse than Putin, a second Trump term would be worse than his first.
Behold the Leftist crackhead logic.
Deleted comment… What? Am I not allowed to say, “absolutely barking mad”?
That’s hurtful to dogs.
Except basenjis.
Or could be those who hug and talk to trees.
Election fraud just isn’t a real issue in the US. Republicans have been trying to block voters wherever possible, particularly minority voters, because they know that the more people that vote the more they lose by.
This has been exacerbated by the pathetic groveling to Trump that all Republicans have to perform or lose the approval of the fat orange moron. So when he gets thrashed by Joe Biden in 2020 every Republican has to go along with the ludicrous charade that he was somehow cheated because you daren’t cross him and his ego.
This cowardice leads to real world problems including unconstitutional attacks on voting rights and of course to a deadly attack on the capitol in an attempt to usurp a legitimate election result. Its bad enough that you people would do that – but to do it on behalf of a ridiculous fraud like Donald Trump beggars belief.
Good to see you actually putting forward something a bit more thoughtful than your usual insults. But unfortunately you haven’t said anything of substance. I don’t know who you mean by “all Republicans have to perform or lose the approval of the fat orange moron”. Do you mean the 74 million Trump supporters/voters of 2020? Nor do I think “every” Republican goes along with the idea that Trump was cheated, and how have Republicans tried to block voters? The deadly attack on the Capitol; deadly in what way?
Possibly alluding to voter registration fraud in Florida during the Bush/Gore election. If so, it’s a valid point, but it also cuts both ways as that election saw a large number of democrats allege that Bush was elected as a result of fraud (i.e. black Floridians being blocked from voter registrations, vote machine tampering) demonstrating it is not only Republicans who have questioned the validity of elections. It’s also worth mentioning that many allegations of the Bush/Gore election persisted into Bush/Kerry.
We have more recently had the slightly different approach of alleging Trump’s election was ineligible due to Russian interference.
I have a high level of cynicism at the best of times, but my conclusion is quite simple, there are substantial numbers of both Democrats and Republicans who either lack faith in the political process of elections, wish to manipulate people’s lack of faith in it. As soon as one side loses an election and it isn’t a land slide, the other will claim corruption in one form or other.
Democrat candidates who lost have conceded in a timely manner instead of spending 4 years whining and spouting lies about how the election was rigged against them. They also have not send their rabid followers to the capitol to thwart the handover of power and murder elected officials if they could have gotten their hands on them.
See the difference?
Here you go, slick!
What part of all Republicans don’t you understand?
Every Republican that doesn’t want to be exorcised from the party and face death threats from the MAGA faithful. Does that help you?
Deadly in that people died. The usual way that deadly is.
You’re welcome!
Each comment you post makes less sense. Now you seem to be talking about members of the Republican party instead of, as your original post suggests, all Republicans, that is every US citizen who votes for Republicans. The only person killed in the “deadly” attack on January 6 was Ashleigh Babbit. You know the cause of the other deaths and if you’re not sure look it up. And now you’re suggesting that Republicans members face death threats from MAGA. I think you’ve pretty much blown your credibility out of the water and now you’re just a source of fun. But considering your mentality that might be considered bullying.
Not too smart are you, sport?!?!
Try to articulate your questions a little better. Maybe also try some reading comprehension exercises. Work on your vocabulary.
I’ll be here waiting.
Try to articulate your questions a little better.
There was no questions in that comment. Are you reading the comments or just lashing out.
Deadly in that people died. They’re dead.
Who and how?
“Republicans have been trying to block voters wherever possible, particularly minority voters” – you mean by asking for voter ID?
It is a nonsense – and frankly demeaning – to suggest that minority voters are somehow incapable of availing themselves of ID.
Voter ID has broad support across all demographics – except among Democrat activists and party members. Pew has done all sorts of polling on this and the data is there for you to read.
Given the importance of these elections – and the dangers if people do not trust the result – why would one party always pushback against any measure to increase election security?
Who does it benefit?
How have they tried to block “minorities” from voting? You mean non-citizens? Yeah they shouldn’t vote
CS trots out more of his self revealing bullschitt on cue.
A huge tell someone is in bad faith regarding election integrity is if they are against voter ID.
Or if they want to invalidate ballots on selfish, partisan grounds—like Trump and his multitude of minions do.
Postal voting can never be a secret ballot (you don’t know who else is in the room) and therefore should be minimised if not outright banned. The increase in postal voting in all Western democracies is a worrying trend.
So I guess that means that military personnel and people working overseas for multinational corporations can’t vote.
Odd that the proven cases in Tower Hamlets don’t convince you. I wonder why?
Correct.
Absentee balloting, closely scrutinized and securely handled, is not postal voting. Pay attention.
“Absentee balloting, closely scrutinized and securely handled, is not postal voting.”
Absolutely correct.
I live in Oregon, where vote-by-mail, exclusively, has been used in all elections since 1996. It doesn’t take long voting under this system to see where the potential for fraud is readily available.
“The Department of Justice has filed suits against the states of Alabama and Virginia to keep them from purging ineligible voters, including non-citizens, from its voter rolls.“
For decades in my youth, it was an open joke that the dead voted in Chicago elections. To deny it exists in many forms today is laughable.
And when the federal government itself comes after jurisdictions that are trying to “purge INELIGIBLE [emphasis added] voters from voter rolls, that’s the proof positive that fraud abounds.
I believe that the suits are because the law says that you can’t do this within 90 days of an election, which is what the states want to do. Also there seems to be a lot of genuinely eligible voters being deleted in this process.
So no objection to the deletion of inelgibe voters if the process was fair and accurate and took place more than 90 days before an election?
… in Republican controlled states…
EVIDENCE PLEASE!
The filed DOJ suits are the evidence!
Every four years, Texas purges its voter lists. Surprise! Almost all of these legal voters are black and Latino.
Or, as the joke goes in New Orleans, they bury the dead above ground so they can be closer to the polls.
No, it doesn’t. Despite endless, tedious accusations and months-long, expensive taxpayer recounts, nothing has ever been proven. We’re dreading more of the same if Trump doesn’t win. It’s so childish.
Unlawful ballots are re-counted the same. The point is to audit the ballots themselves.
The institutionalised fraud in American elections is the Electoral College which denied Al Gore 7 Hilary Clinton the Presidency despite winning a majority of the vote.
That’s not fraud. It was established by the Founding Fathers and had good reasons for doing so.
Maybe then but not now. Things change.
Aye, it is an 18th-century patrician model that emphasizes the interests of Southern landowners, whose property included human beings.
The comment was that it’s institutionalised fraud. Is that what you’re asserting?
You simply don’t understand the concept!
Who does!!
You don’t? But you made this comment;“Maybe then but not now. Things change.”
Which one should I believe?
No. The Electoral College protected us from the likes of Gore and Hillary. We are a Constitutional Republic, teetering, but still standing. Conflating the EC with fraud in reference to those two demonstrates the mindset of a corrupt democrat.
The electoral college was put in the constitution by the founding fathers to protect the country from the tyranny of democracy. The USA is a constitutional republic, not a democracy.
Who protects the Republic from a tyrant if not the voting public, and office holders with the backbone and nerve to oppose tyrannical aims?
It sounds like you don’t really know much about the Constitution, how it was constructed and why. Read up on it before you run down others who do.
I’m pretty well-read on American State Papers and founding documents, including the whole text of the Constitution with the Amendments, and you should at least be able to detect that. If you are in fact as well-versed yourself.
And I wasn’t running anyone down. You oughta look in the mirror there.
What would have happened if Pence and certain key Republican official hadn’t stood up to Trump’s attempted steal? A result you would have welcomed maybe, but not a Constitutional or democratic one.
You’re an election denier.
Absolutely!!! What an abomination that is.
I thought you said you didn’t understand it.
Thank you. 2020 was in effect a corrupt counter revolution. 2024 will see if the junta can finish the job they began. So far, from the coordinated announcements from the four states upfront announcing the slow count scam, to the outrage if non-citizens voting ans much more, the reality is deeply disturbing.
The article is too obviously partisan but raises some valid points. As always getting at the actual truth rather than a hyperbolic version of it is difficult.
I’ve read somewhere today that in California absolutely no proof of ID is required to vote. In fact asking for it is not allowed. Does anybody know if that’s true?
If it is, is there at least an electoral roll or is it possible to vote as Fred Bloggs in one station then walk round the corner and vote at Fanny Bloggs (this is California) in another?
I live in NJ and there is no requirement for an ID to vote. They check my signature against the one on file. I’m not certain my current signature closely matches the one on file that I created over ten years ago. Today, most of my signatures are made on a computer with my finger. I really do not sign things with a pen very often.
Yes, exactly. I seldom sign things and I feel that my signature, unpracticed, migrates all over the place.
So based on the signature match my vote could be plausibly discarded. If it was, I would never know *unless* the elector board followed up, after the election, and asked me if I had voted because where I live it is exclusively vote-by-mail.
I have never heard of this happening in the 28 years we’ve had vote-by-mail *exclusively* in Oregon. So then this leads me to the further questions:
1) Do apparent “mismatched” result in disqualified ballots, but there is no follow up with the supposed voter to check? I’ve read about no such follow-ups, leading me to think that this is not done. so…
2) Is the signature match scan (done by machine) set to be very tolerant of variations, to the point that very few, if any, votes are disqualified based on the scan? If so, it means that in the state of Oregon, no ID is required to vote, and signatures are not really checked closely, either.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill into law in September 2024 that bars local governments from enacting laws to require residents to show a valid form of identification in order to vote.
Maybe this is factual and it is difficult to be bipartisan?
Discussing Trump’s actual positions and actions rather than simply smearing him with cliched ad hominems, “OMG, Literally, Hitler!”, is obviously partisan? I suspect you’ve spent far too much time following the MSM.
Of course it’s true. Gavin Newsome signed the law. It is illegal for me to produce my ID and if I did the poll workers would have to avert their eyes
And republicans would do that if they could get away with it.
Possibly the most tech-savvy person on the planet, Elon Musk, has been quoted as saying that there’ll never be trustworthy elections until simple paper ballots are the rule.
He also says the planet is underpopulated another nutty comment.
He was in fact talking about the falling birth rate. He’s not alone in his concerns. Why do you do this?
No mention of Republican controlled states manipulating the voting process? Strange as there are plenty of reports around of that happening.
UnHerd platformed a disinformation specialist here. Red meat for the most Trumpian subscribers?
To some, invalidating votes to benefit their favorite candidate is an act of patriotism. #J6gaslighters
Dems spent four years trying to invalidate a candidate, which has the side effect of invalidating votes. Did you miss that or was it okay because you don’t like Trump?
Thank heaven that patriots in his administration successfully thwarted his documented attempts to jail political opponents, including Biden.
Certainly the inability to work with a president of the other party has been about the only point of bipartisan agreement for decades. Many Democrats go too far; so do many Republicans.
January 6th was another order of magnitude, and the attempt to rewrite that recent history will attach a lasting shame to Republicans of these years, in which nearly all of them are sold out to one very self-fascinated, massive fraud of a man.
Where were the patriots in the Biden administration, who went full-bore in trying to jail Trump, and did jail Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro? Where are the patriots now demanding an all-hands-on-deck investigation into how not one but two assassins get a bit too close to a candidate?
An ‘inability’ to work with an opposite party president presumes an effort at doing so. There is no evidence of that having occurred with Trump. WaPo was talking about impeachment on inauguration day.
Yeah sure, but you are insistently one sided man. Republicans are proudly the Party of No! And they shanked their own border bill for political reasons, at the insistence of the person they actually serve.
Like many, you are treating the FBI, CIA, and Justice Department as mere arms of the Biden administration. That’s a suspicion or conspiracy claim, not a fact.
You’ll see who your candidate truly is if he is emboldened by reelection. Maybe you’ll even like Unrestrained: Trump Part 2 when it plays on our screens and streets. But I hope none of us will have to find out for certain.
Now you’re projecting. You assail a guy who thought about jailing opponents while ignoring one who actually did. The “border bill” did nothing to enhance enforcement. It provided a free pass for thousands based on a rolling average and the vague promise that maybe, perhaps, once that threshold was crossed, something would happen.
Your side owns the border. For four years, anyone noticing reality was a racist or xenophobe or whatever else. The one thing this author gets right is how many blue cities are rethinking their status as sanctuaries.
So you acknowledge that the rest of the article gets it wrong.
Who put who in jail? You assert a one-to-one connection between Biden and the entire state-and-security apparatus that is not a fact, no matter how forcefully you insist or believe it is. I can quote Trump’s own public a documented words. And those of Republican office holders. Why can’t you make your case without flailing reference to the MSN and whatever some extreme lefties think. When told Pence’s life was in danger Trump responded “so what?” Do you doubt that?
Do you personally think the 2020 election was stolen?
I’d like to have a worthwhile exchange with you but it isn’t in the cards is it? No doubt we’d each blame the other guy.
You seem like an all-in, tribalized partisan to me. I’m emphasizing things that get left off these comment boards and your doubling-down on things that are are already well-covered and repeatedly claimed. For the most part, that is. If I thought you brought only that I’d let it go sooner. Still, we are just gainsaying one another most of the time at this point. SAD.
Perfect parroting of the narrative. Alpha plus.
Nice bumper-sticker dismissal, Captain Freethinker.
All of the points he made have been reported before and currently there is huge coverage of this on X – including many photos and videos. Nice try though.
X is now a sewer whose owner is all in for Trump, without any ethical or factual restraint. Nice try though.
If by “he” you mean Alex Lekas, I know some Democrats used underhanded means to try and get Trump out of office.
But they didn’t rile up an obstructionist mob, or go around claiming the 2016 election was “stolen”.
Lee Smith’s article is part of a preemptive attempt by Trump and his minions to deny the result of another consecutive election, in the very likely event that he loses again.
But they didn’t rile up an obstructionist mob, or go around claiming the 2016 election was “stolen”.
This is the point where you lost the ability to be taken seriously. Hillary made that claim repeatedly. Others simply called him an illegitimate president.
Ah. I see you are making the same point as me!
How predictable.
Trump absolutely riled up the mob and watched them rage on TV for hours, putting the lives or Pence, Pelosi and others at risk until he saw it wouldn’t work.
Certain MAGA Republican have been denying the result and saying “Stop the Steal” since November of 2020, and many more, including Vance the VP pick, have been expressing doubt more recently. You’re willfully ignoring this, it would seem.
You can find exceptions or parse my words with a microscope for things I didn’t notice or say with one-hundred accuracy, but that doesn’t erase the essential validity of what I’ve pointed out.
By ‘he’ I mean Lee Smith. If you were on X you would know that there is a huge Democratic voice there. And they are not restrained. I well remember the Russia hoax during and after the 2016 election (with all the support from corporate media) and Hillary frequently mentioning that Trump was an illegitimate president after the elections.
None of Lee Smith’s key claims are substantiated. In fact, he repeatedly hides behind the words of others and “people are saying” statements he clearly intends to promote. Where is any semblance of proof? It’s all gut feeling, outrage, and insistence.
I know X is not purely one-sided. It was a gargabe hell-pit when in was owned by Dorsey and company too, who privileged nasty speech that leaned to the left.
Since Twitter was founded, it would have been absurd to cite what was said or claimed there as fact or corroboration, and it is absurd now.
What nonsense. Should I be believing CNN, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CBS, SKY, BBC and the like? All left leaning. I don’t watch FOX either. What about WaPo and NYT and the like? No sorry, not going to be influenced by news that isn’t journalism and is heavily biased to the left and serve as propaganda machines for governments.
Who do you trust then? Doctored feeds from chaos actors and trolls on X. The algorithm has its tentacles into you deep, ma’am.
None of Lee Smith’s key claims are substantiated.
the Carter-Baker report warned: “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”
Is this reference good enough for you? These are not the words of Lee Smith but the Carter Smith report he cites.
Exactly.
Cite a few please. We don’t want to hear it is ok because the other side does it. If you think the Republicans are cheating, join the team that is fighting to tighten voter integrity laws. We would love to have your support.
Evidently ideologically captured. The Price is not right, he is left and wrong.
Donald Trump without a voice is a vision of poetic justice which this world has yet to enjoy.
This article is a scattershot rant that doesn’t even attempt to provide a basis for its claims: “However, some GOP officials I’ve spoken with say there’s little evidence yet of mass registration of the Biden-Harris administration’s illegal migrants”. There is zero evidence, because that is a paranoid fantasy. Cleta Mitchell is an extreme conspiracy shouter who was on the line of Trump’s “perfect phone call” pressuring Brad Raffensperger to “find” about 12,000 votes in Georgia. But she is referenced as an authority here, without fact or context. Of course Lee Smith is just asking questions and repeating select things “some people are saying”, in rather Trump-like fashion.
Few people of any stripe think Trump is actual A d o l f. In fact, please show me the wording Harris actually used—never mind, this author doesn’t do evidence. But those who hope for such a dictator share a favorite candidate. And does anyone doubt that he admires aspects of you-know-who, as he does with present-day authoritarians including Putin, Erdogan, and Kim Jung Un?
This article contends for the Record Low in Unherd’s venturesome and varied history. There are bound to be some stinkers when you take real risks, but c’mon.
At least one state is in a court battle to remove non-citizens from its roles. That doesn’t sound like ‘zero evidence’ of potential fraud.
In fact, please show me the wording Harris actually used ——> You mean where Kamala calls Trump a fascist? The wording is not hard to find. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/kamala-harris-calls-trump-fascist-argues-dangerous-unfit-office-rcna176713
Then came the event at MSG, which we were warned was Nazis all over again. That must explain the Jews, blacks, and other non-Aryans in attendance.
Fascist, yes—quoting Trump’s former Chief of Staff. Not the H-word, there’s a difference.
While it wasn’t a good political outreach by Harris, Trump most certainly associates himself with fascism. “The enemy within” is used repeatedly, and when multiple Fox News anchors tried to get him to clean it up he kept at it, naming Pelosi and Schiff as key enemies. He fantasized out loud about nine guns “trained on” Liz Cheney’s face yesterday. He announced that non-white foreigners are “poisoning the blood” of America.
People all over the political spectrum say irresponsible, exaggerated, and jackass things. The key difference with the Trump/Vance ticket is that they are coming from the very top, and go very far both in rhetoric and stated intentions. Dictator on Day 1? I believe he intends that—and not only for 24 hours if the ratings are good from what he hears.
He fantasized out loud about nine guns “trained on” Liz Cheney’s face yesterday.
You know you have taken this out of context. Knowing that, yet still trying to distort what was said, ruins any credibility you might have. It’s so pathetic and tiresome..
I watched an extended clip of the exchange and quoted it as accurately as I could from memory in a short space and time
What would you like to add in order to clarify anything, supply important context, or increase your own credibility for good faith or fair mindedness?
Because he labels her a warmonger the statement is fine?
And you granted me—or anyone who opposes your rabid Trump Defender Syndrome—credibility prior to my last perceived shortcoming?
Nice try.
Weak. You didn’t try at all. Or can’t confess that the comment, like a hundred others Trump has made, is indefensible. You don’t seem to be listening to any voices outside your own head and echo chamber now. Look into that at some point. Or don’t, free country. For now.
The comment, as you well know, was about Cheney and her connections to the Neocons and their permanent state of military action in the world. Maybe not put very eloquently but far removed from what you’re suggesting. I’m happy to listen to anyone as long as they’re playing with a full pack of cards.
No, you’re not capable of listening much these days, let alone happy to do so. Otherwise, you’d not present such a partisan, one sided case as Reality.
Do you want me to put the whole statement up?
Yes.
Trump said: “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
He added: “They’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh, gee, well let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.'”
I heard him say all of that and admit my initial brief comment perhaps takes too dim a view of his irresponsible comment. But it was spoken in the larger context of his explicit promise to go after his political enemies. He wanted Milley in front of a firing squad, right? Or perhaps that was just a loose-lipped riff too. No one knows exactly how far Trump intends or will be able to go if re-elected and surrounded only by true believers or sold out opportunists this time around.
And here is a more complete version of his comment:
”I don’t blame [former Vice President Cheney] for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual. Very dumb, she’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face. You know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in the nice buildings saying ‘Oh gee well, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy’”.
At an absolute mimimum, Trump is a total jerk. Right? The same guy who calls a cemetery full of war dead losers and disparages McCain for getting captured. But for some, all his loudmouth idiocy is a feature, not a bug.
That is what Trump said. If you have any interest in the truth, please check it out.
Well obviously Trump didn’t say what Aj Mac implied. It’s quite clear. My questioning of his comment was absolutely in the interest of truth. It doesn’t concern me where someone sits on the political spectrum, just don’t expect me to accept a lie or distortion of a fact. If someone feels they’re right or on the side of integrity why do they feel the need to then distort something they’ve read or heard? Do you really expect me to accept that? If you’d actually read the Trump statements why would you then address your comment to me as you did?
Actual statement;
“I didn’t say that. I said I want to be a dictator for one day. You know why I wanted to be a dictator? Because I want a wall, and I want to drill, drill, drill,” Trump said during the club’s annual gala, according to multiple reports.
That somehow cleans it up for you? He’s talked about imposing martial law on U.S cities too. Why are you trying to rehabilitate and whitewash his many way over the authoritarian line statements—however sincere or merely unacceptable they are? I tend to believe he will try to do most of what he is threatening if granted presidential power again, this time with a get out of jail free card courtesy of his sold-out Supreme Court.
I’m not trying to clean up anything or whitewash it? I’m just drawing attention to your distortion of Trump’s comments. Which you clearly did.
Not a distortion. Just a shorthand that wasn’t unlikely or far off. The more you insist on the actual transcript, the more you make my own point whether you can face that or not*. Trump is totally unfit to lead, more so than ever.
-And you conveniently left out an important sentence, which I put in italics, while pretending to give the whole text of his statement. Whether intentional or not, that was a distortion or misrepresentation on your part.
Just a shorthand that wasn’t unlikely or far off.
Right, but not the actual statement. Isn’t that what you’re concerned with here, the untruths, fabrications and partisanship of posters here. The idea that they won’t deal with reality. If you’re going to quote someone in your concern over their state of mind and you want to persuade us of this then you need to quote accurately. Otherwise it looks dubious.
By the way, what important sentence did I leave out?
Why did you omit a key sentence in your own purported full transcript of the quote??? You try to demand a precise accuracy you come nowhere to reaching yourself Brett.
Good luck to America today, and in the coming weeks.
«Dictator on Day 1? I believe he intends that»
Duh – Trump’s fanbase cannot easily be scared. They know not to take his words literally. They know he promises a lot he won’t or cannot fulfill. BUT—with that kind of behavior he is not alone in the political arena! Dishonest trickery and false promises are the daily routine. Like promising things to the electorate that have no chance to make it into reality because of the opposing senate majority…
Credibility or makebelieve? So what… Right or wrong, the end justifies the means. In the end the winner takes it all. To me, this amount of dishonesty, obfuscation with meaningless buzzwords, masquerading as straightforwardness, is part of the system, no matter who will be the winner in this election. Is this the Republic intended to protect the People from the „Tyranny of Democracy“?
Does Trump’s fan base (fun term when choosing a world leader yeah?) get to decide the direction of America based on their many fears and lack of fear when it’s warranted?
I know that Trump voters are not one undifferentiated group, but many are as violence and destruction ready as their counterparts in the extreme left.
It’s true the institutions and sensible middle 80% may hold against a hard authoritarian turn in the awful event of a Trump reelection. I said I believe he INTENDS most of what he says, and wil ltry some of it, with disastrous consequences. If permitted to try.
Potential fraud is a far different thing than demonstrated fraud. I know Harris used the F-word. Trump calls her a Marxist. Both are unhelpful labels, but hers is more accurate. I made a longer reply, but I’m getting pushed from the board for unpopularity, not anything related to substance or a lack thereof.
Am I your only supporter here AJ? Sad indeed. I was thinking over breakfast this morning that a closed mind is the greatest sin. Not ignorance. You don’t know what you don’t know, but ignorance and a closed mind are unforgivable, and you, Bret, are guilty of both.
Many of the moderate and oppositional voices have definitely left or been shouted off these boards. Like Steve Murray and Alex Carnegie. I don’t want to get into bickering exchanges with people who have calcified or totally partisan views, but I fall for it sometimes, especially in the absence of much real discussion here anymore. I’m glad you’re still weighing in Clare. Thanks.
I hope that some of this increased onesidedness and ranting outrage will settle down once the election is decided. But it might get far worse.
ignorance and a closed mind are unforgivable, and you, Bret, are guilty of both.
What evidence do you have for saying that?
How could there be evidence either way of voting by illegal immigrants? California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill into law in September 2024 that bars local governments from enacting laws to require residents to show a valid form of identification in order to vote. If no evidence of ID is required to vote, anyone can vote, and do so as many times as they like.
Yes, Kamala Harris did stpo short of calling Donald Trump a reincarnation of Hitler, but she has called him a fascist, which is not too far off.
Pretty far off actually. But not politically smart.
Fraud can happen, but your free-for-all characterization is just silly.
Pretty far off actually.
I’d be interested to hear the difference between Hitler and a fascist.
All Nazis are fascists. All fascists are not Nazis—just ask Mussolini or Franco’s ghost.
The digging around I did after the election revealed that there was election fraud, but ironically – I found somewhat more evidence of it on the republican side.
And there was certainly evidence Trump himself attempted fraud, by asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” him enough votes to overturn the result.
As is usually the case – if you want to know what someone is up to, look to see what they are accusing other people of doing, because there is normally psychological projection involved in their perceptions.
You have done just that! 🙂
Trump is doing well. His podcasts draw millions of listeners, nobody is interested in Kamala.
If the Dems win, there will be cheating. My fear is that they’ll use the Jan 6 2021 as an excuse to stay on. They’ve been milking that one for the past four years, while denying their own riots at Trump’s first inauguration, or the madness of BLM. We should be very afraid.
The reason the Nazis rose in Germany is because at least half the people did not want to be overtaken by the lies, deceit and violence of the Communists in their attempt to capture that country. Little difference between 1920s Germany, and 21st century USA.
Absolutely not true! Germans were so humiliated by losing WW1 that Hitler’s cry of “Make Germany Great Again” was very seductive.
That’s what I get from my reading of the history of the era.
The problem of course is proving something did happen, rather than voicing suspicion. On that Trump seems to fall short.
The entire reason that Trump got anywhere with the idea of voter fraud is that they various systems are not transparent, and this encourages mistrust.
…and one thing you do not want in a supposed free society is mistrust of public institutions, which is why we are in two armed camps, figuratively.
The headline popped up in my email inbox, Is Trump right to fear election fraud?, and I thought, of course!; What dull-witted Nimrod hadn’t figured that out at some point over the last few years?
But, then I clicked on the piece and noted that it was composed by the formidable Lee Smith … not, say, Lee Siegel. Big difference!
I worked as a poll-watcher in the previous two elections. I came to appreciate that in my area that the process–the very narrow slice of it into which I had a direct view–was competently organized.
I live in a city south of the Imperial Capital north or Richmond (Virginia), and the governor of Virginia and his people had to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States to secure right-of-way to sweep about 1,500 registered voters who had indicated that they were non-citizens from the voter rolls. The Biden-Kamala Department of Justice (DOJ) had sued the state of Virginia to bar the state from doing this, but the state prevailed.
That gives you a flavor of the state of things. The Biden-Kamala administration has never been interested in the integrity of the institutions of liberal democratic process.
The state only prevailed with an appeal to the Supreme Court. Both the local state court and the state appeals court said they did not have the right. If it was so ‘competently organised’ why did it need to to all the way to the Supreme Court.
This debauchery is not contained to just the current administration, it gets to the heart and soul (such that there is one) of the Democrat party. Election fraud and denying citizens the right to vote harkens back to the days of Tammany hall and the suppression of Black Americans in the rapidly fading Jim Crow south. If not through outright violence or the threat of it, through poll (head) taxes or literacy tests deliberately concocted to exclude as many Blacks as possible.
Meanwhile, Democrats and their media allies have yet to identify any single Black citizen ever denied the right vote for lack of I.D. It’s yet another gaslight mythology.
That’s a load of rubbish
Ihave a specific question for you about this part:
“I worked as a poll-watcher in the previous two elections. I came to appreciate that in my area that the process–the very narrow slice of it into which I had a direct view–was competently organized.”
I live in Oregon, where it is exclusively vote-by-mail, and has been since 1996. The ballots are mailed to the voters about 10-12 days beofre election day, and voters send them back by mail (until the last 3 days or so, when you have to drive them to a special ballot box in libraries, police stations, etc), and as the ballots come in by mail, they are machine-scanned (your signature is on the outside of the special postal envelope),opened, and tallied.
The largest percentage of votes cast are therefore tallied before election day, and this means that partial results are known. They are not publicized, however.
I worry about this process. Formerly, under the old system, the main body of votes were cast in booths, taken to a tally station and counted on election night–and there were observers from each party there for the tally. Under the mail system, there would have to be observers present everyday for the entire tally process, which is along the lines or 10-12 days.
I therefore doubt that the tally is observed with the same degree of attention that it once was, or perhaps not at all.
Is there any way this could be considered “good”–an overall benefit to the system?
The number of non citizen voters in the US is miniscule but the issue has become another focus of conspiracy thinking.
My understanding is that some time in the past those 1800 Virginia voters had been non citizens but most or perhaps almost all of them had since become citizens. They were flagged since on some past thing such as application for drivers license, perhaps years before, they had indicated that they were not citizens.
Given enough time before election, this could have been easily rectified,
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/30/politics/supreme-court-virginia-noncitizen-voting-purge/index.html
When evidence of voter fraud does not stand up in court, judges are charged with being left wing. So perhaps the remedy is in reforming the judicial system and how judges are appointed.
Or the evidence could be adjudicated in court rather than the claims kicked out on procedural grounds or matters of standing. The reality is that no court wanted to take on any of the claims. A rational person might think that the people who insist 2020 was the most secure election ever would welcome an opportunity to prove themselves right, if only to rub the result in the other side’s face.
And that is exactly what happened. Trump was laughed out of court in evidentiary hearings – something he and you wish to conveniently forget!
Even on Rogan’s podcast Trump flubbed a softball – after 4 years he still can’t show anything that demonstrates election fraud. You just have to take his word for it – and I think we all know exactly how much Donald Trump’s word is worth!
Once you declare that your political opponent is a fascist who will end democracy if he prevails, why would anything be out of bounds to you? You can’t just let Hitler take power again. So isn’t a little vote-count fudging (not to mention some blatant lawfare and an unguarded rooftop or two) a net good if it yields the proper results in the election? Gotta save democracy from the voters SOMEHOW.
The writer makes some good points but shows his bias by ignoring that Trumps is a deeply flawed individual. Millions of otherwise conservative voters believe, policies aside, he is unfit to lead our nation. As for election integrity, we need to return to in-person voting requiring identification credentials.
Yes. Both statements are true, I believe.
Having voted in and observed elections in multiple countries the main issues I see in US elections are:
1. Non-uniform practices to register and vote across different States – you literally need a detailed guide for each state as to how to register, what identification or self declaration is acceptable and cut off times.
2. Ridiculously different time frames when voter rolls close (if ever) versus same day registration and voting in some states.
3. Different voting starting times (weeks before election day) and modes – completely inconsistent approaches to early in person, mail in by post, drop offs at ballot boxes versus attending specific or multiple polling locations etc.
4. Different modes to register and verify your vote. Electronic terminals, scanned paper ballots, etc. Even different acceptances of postal ballots (by election day, 3 days after election but with postmarks, etc) make me laugh.
5. Far far too much being voted on in each ballot: judges, state officials, local dog catcher? etc. It’s actually insane and adds to the complexity of administration and counting votes.
I am hopeful one day there will be consensus on what standards are acceptable to maximise American voter franchise and minimise fraud or errors.
There are zero excuses when there are fixed voting dates prescribed (most countries can run an election with just one month’s prior notice!) and the voting franchise re citizenship and residency eligibility are so clearly stated.
Everything you describe is the result of the US being a Republic, with autonomous voting laws and regulations. My guess is you have never been involved in elections in a Republic before, as Parliamentary democracies are the norm world wide. One could apply uniform federal rules to the presidential elections, but only if they were held seperately from election of state officials.
The different rules are a legacy from the formation of the US as a vaguely defined federation of independent states voluntarily acting in concert. A lot of this vagueness was cleared up by the Civil War.
I think it would require a constitutional amendment to make voting rules uniform within the US.
In 2012, 57 precincts recorded ZERO votes for Mitt Romney. My stepfather-in-law, a senior state government lawyer in Pennsylvania used to say that the Republicans had to get 4-5% more votes to win to overcome the MoC…Margin of Cheating.
Yep: vote early, vote often…
There is some degree of voter fraud in all Western democracies. Postal voting in the UK, anyone?
The UK’s voting process is abysmal and needs overhauling. Stone Age stuff.
As this develops, it goes all round the houses for Dear Donald. Wiping away any reason we might give credence to what it asserts re voting, past, present or future.
I recently volunteered as a “poll challenger” in Grand Rapids MI while bi-partisan teams processed mail-in ballots. I saw vast numbers of Dem straight ticket ballots, but the real concern to me is the fact that ballots had already been “verified” by clerks/bureaucrats prior to arriving there. Therefore the ability of GOP folks to challenge ballots was limited to stray marks or over-voting, whereas I suspect the real opportunity for fraud occurs in the (overwhelmingly Dem) clerks’ offices in cities all over the state.
And yet Trump did win an election. How come? Was there cheating?
Maybe because there was not enough cheating?
:^)
The idea of voting without first presenting ID, or voting by post, have always seemed very odd to me. So obviously liable to fraud that it boggles the mind.
There must be literally millions of examples of this fraud – I’m sure you can share a few?
Tower Hamlets in the UK is one example.
And yet it *does* happen…
Here’s a case from Oregon, where vote by mail is the only way you can vote. It was fully adjudicated. A poll worker changed two ballots in favor of a GOP candidate.
https://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/2013/04/oregon_city_woman_gets_90_days.html
The point is not which party benefits, or how large the benefit was, but that the act is possible and the opportunity wide-spread. This all leads to mistrust in the outcome, which can be minimized by some systems, and exacerbated by others.
This is such total BS it hardly deserves replying to. Of course voter fraud is bad. Of course robust systems should be in place. Duh. But in 40 claims of fraud brought before Republican and Democrat leaning judges, not one single case of significant fraud was found.
This article feeds into the lies told by desperate GOP politicians – which in turn spreads into mistrust and decay in democracies. It is disingenuous and dangerous gobbledygook.
40 out of 44 of his close and senior White House advisors say Trump should never be anywhere near the White House again. The contention that they are sore losers is a pathetic attempt to belittle their evidence and worthy only of a hack small time shabby solicitor defending a known drug dealer.
Hope you enjoy the contents of your Kremlin brown envelope
UnHerd: You need to stop “time-outing” comments for unpopularity alone. That is mob rule. I think you have the resources to check and quickly restore comments that are unwelcome to many, but violate no rules, or at least don’t push the limit to any degree that isn’t allowed in the other direction.
Unless “Join the Discussion” truly applies only to narrowly “like minded readers” who need a safe space of loud agreement instead of anything approaching an open forum.
If you’re worried about the electoral system stop moaning about totally unsubstantiated fabrications and remember the guy who tried to overturn an election by summoning a mob to Washington “to fight” and stood by while they ransacked the place and threatened death to his own VP. He’s whiter than white in the MAGA fairground hall of mirrors even though he was seeking to overturn the Constitution with insurrection – let’s conveniently forget all that and whinge whinge whinge about unsubstantiated conspiracy theories on voting – pathetic.
The difference between Dems gracefully accepting the highly suspicious Bush junior win in order the preserve faith in the system and the peaceful transfer of power, and that creepy, women harassing, self-serving, bullying conman, whose 2016 vote was boosted heavily by last minute outside interference from his Kremlin allies with false allegations against HC, is a stark reminder of right and wrong here, for all the gaslighting by people like Lee Smith.
Forget about whingeing about non-existent voter fraud – if Reps are stopped from de-registering legit voters this will be the fairest US election ever – and I say that whoever wins.
Hilary Clinton had 3 million more votes nationwide, yet the Orange demi-God was elected – how’s that for democracy? Biden had 7 million more yet only won marginally. That’s the true scandal. All this unsubstantiated voter fraud mudslinging is a deliberate smokescreen for the real problem – the disenfranchisement of Americans by a system that permanently favors the GOP. Answer that if you can.
Well said.
Let me guess. If Harris wins, it will be because of cheating. If Trump wins, there was no cheating. Got it!
If Trump wins it will be despite Democratic cheating. At least that is how it appears from the Democrat’s eagerness to promote voting practices that make cheating easier.
Exactly, it’s as simple as that!
This election will be even more controversial (a diplomatic term) than 2020 and will end up with Harris being declared the winner. It will probably take weeks to decide on the result and could well result in significant violence.
Like the attack on the capitol by violent MAGA followers you mean?
Take a look at today’s Washington Post “first look” with Capehart, Marcus and Hewitt where Hewitt resigns on air because of the usual dishonesty of Capehart and Marcus over the Bucks County rigging.
The fraud in 2024 seems to have moved to the “tabulation centers.”
Oregon switched from in-person voting to mail-in and went from a red/conservative state to a blue/crazy state in one election cycle.
Covid was one of the excuses to cheat in 2020.
When people vote in person those people going in to vote can be counted and compared with their votes. That cannot be done with mail ins.
The only violence January 6, 2021 was done to Trump people by the left. Byrd shot Babbit, Roseland Boyland was beaten to death by a capitol cop. Several old guys died of heart attacks when flash bangs were thrown into the peaceful crowd. Antifa was there causing mayhem as were the alphabet agency folks.
Yep, 2020 was a stolen election and 2024 will be also unless there is a landslide. Also, the deep state will keep trying to get Trump anyway they can. After all they call him hi t le r
The 2020 election wasn’t stolen Trump admitted that.
Extended voting is a bad idea. It’s expensive for the localities in the US for one thing. And, if we don’t all vote on the same day, there is no opportunity for an exit poll. Not perfect, of course, but an indicator of fairness or unfairness if the exit polling and the actual polling aren’t more or less aligned.
Now, whose idea was this?
I like Paddy Taylor’s suggestions to sort this out – however I have to point out the hypocrisy here: Gore would have won Florida by a mile if it were not for systematic oppression of voting by the Republicans – there were so many ways – one that wasn’t given much publicity was where on polling day police were stationed at the intersections of neighbourhoods that would vote heavily Democratic where all the streets filter into one access highway into town. Investigating further back these allegations have been rampant on USA elections back in the 60,s 50s and earlier.
For your consideration of voter fraud. Very easy.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/11/01/noncitizen-voting-election-security-voter-fraud/75963501007/
This video clip is all you need to see to understand what is going on:
wwwDOTbitchuteDOTcom/videoSLASHTlH055zzmCjZ/?list=notifications&randomize=false
Usual replacement theory required!
Excellent. You know election fraud is rampant when the U.S. ranks right up there with Honduras and all of the other third world countries in skewing election results and ballot security. America is a schizophrenic country, Oligarchs with too much money and influence, media that has lost all trust and are basically propaganda sites, Federal, local, and state government upper tier bureaucrats swearing fealty to the Dems, and the most inept and bought politicians in our country’s history. On the other side, we have politicians and citizens who are working to restore trust in our institutions, media, and return to doing what is best for our citizens and community, not someones agenda. The electorate is apparently is split close to 50/50 and if news reports are true the election can come to down to a handful of counties. Talk about a potential for voting fraud. Mail in ballots have been banned in a great number of countries for good reason, but as long as the left wing nuts are in charge they will not change a thing. This is the crux of this election. Sad to see my country sliding into the third world country slot. Although we deserve it.
What of the right-wing nuts?
I think the citizens of the once great Republic have a right to fear what their lying eyes are seeing — the demise of a once great country as the factions duke it out for power.
In my opinion, we’re off the cliff in this bus and the ground is coming up fast. There is no brace for impact. IF any politician truly intends to fix the overgrown federal government and restore power to the states as originally envisioned, there is going to be an unavoidable world of hurt.
And from what I can see, no one has the stomach for it.
It looks that way and unfortunately the election will change nothing. Hopefully it won’t be so bad but all the signs are there for major upheaval.
The obvious flaw in this approach to the subject is that suspicion and instances of cheating don’t mean the election was unfairly won. It seems unlikely cheating would be decisive just from the numbers.
I love Unherdfor articles like these.
Just look at how many influential events have occurred since the start of “early voting.” I don’t think it’s necessary to cite fraud, when the problem of general laxity is self-evident.
We should have a national holiday and a one-day, in-person, well-managed, uniform election. Good election practices were described by a nonpartisan National Commission in 2005, but the recommendations were largely ignored.
Normally I resist Federal authority over States, but perhaps the election procedures are a valid use of Federal power. We must handle ballots and elections like cash and banking!