Election 2020: another crazy event in a year full of crazy events

 

As the end of 2020 blessedly draws nearer, the text of a meme gives hope: “This too shall pass. It might pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.” 

Adding to the suffering was the campaign for president. The election is now over, but the decision is not yet final. When news organizations call a victor in a state, or project the winner of a race, that is not an official decision. It means little. Last weekend votes were still being counted.

The president and vice president will be officially selected when the electors of the Electoral College vote on December 14.

Remember 2000? That’s when Democrat candidate Al Gore was thought to be president-elect for more than a month before the process proved otherwise. 

To make matters worse, sometimes recounts are in order, for various reasons. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced on Friday that because of the closeness of the vote, there will be a recount. He pledged to maintain election integrity.

And as is common, there are questions about various aspects of the election that need to be looked into. There are issues cited and questions raised in every presidential election, and every candidate has the right to question them. 

And with the fear from the coronavirus pandemic, the issues and questions this year have been multiplied. Some are, in reality, not going to be significant. Some, perhaps most, are merely mistakes, or just “normal” sorts of problems. 

Other things, however, may well be significant. Sometimes things just happen. Other times, things are made to happen.

There are legitimate questions about the way universal/mass mail-in ballots — not absentee ballots, which are fairly secure — have been handled, and about the concept itself. 

Because of the fear of people being exposed to the virus at polling places, both early voting and universal mail-in ballot voting were very popular this year. As a consequence, tens of millions of ballots were mailed out to people on state voter rolls. Not all state voter rolls are up to date, meaning thousands of ballots were sent to people who were deceased or no longer lived at the address on the voter roll.

Every ballot mailed to a person who is not living, or is living elsewhere offers the potential for vote fraud.

After cross-referencing Nevada voter rolls with the National Change of Address database, more than 3,000 mail-in ballots in Nevada were found to have been improperly cast. Attorneys for the state GOP have sent a criminal referral to the U.S. Attorney General, seeking an investigation.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), which focuses on election integrity, filed a lawsuit last week that charges Pennsylvania with failing to maintain voter registration records. This is a violation of both federal and state law, the suit alleges.

There are tens of thousands of deceased people on the state’s voter rolls, PILF alleges, and there is evidence of ballots submitted in the names of deceased persons. The organization further alleges that an October analysis found at least 21,000 apparently deceased citizens on the state’s voter rolls.

There are allegations that local officials in some states arbitrarily changed election laws improperly. There are other allegations of election laws not being followed. 

Former judge and Whitewater independent counsel Ken Starr had some strong criticisms of the way Pennsylvania has behaved, post-election. Starr noted that state officials made changes to election rules and regulations that only the legislature can make. He also said that election observers, or poll watchers, who are present by law to help insure the integrity of the election system, were illegally excluded from observing ballot counting.

Starr also noted that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has allowed ballots to be counted that arrived after Election Day, even if they were not postmarked by Nov. 3. The U.S. Supreme Court in October split 4-4 on the question, allowing the state Supreme Court decision to stand, for now.

  

On Friday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ordered that ballots that were received after 8 p.m. on Nov. 3 in Pennsylvania are to be “segregated and secured,” pending potential action by the U.S. Supreme Court.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley thinks questions of irregularities or ballot issues should be investigated to determine whether they are episodic or systemic. “What is the harm in allowing courts to review such claims,” he asked, particularly when witnesses have submitted sworn affidavits concerning such incidents?

Maybe, when all is said and done, and all the errors, technical glitches and any actual election fraud that is found will not change the projected outcome, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will take office on January 20, 2021.

But while the Democrats may have won the White House, the American people have been handed an election process that is horribly in need of repair.

The people need and deserve the most secure election process possible, and making voting easy must not be a prime consideration. If, in order to have a secure system of electing public servants, people have to endure some inconvenience and spend some time going to the polls, it will be an investment well made.