The execution and aftermath of the 2020 election are nothing
short of shameful. At this writing – nearly two months after the
election on Nov. 3 – the public still does not have satisfactory
answers about what took place during the counting of ballots on
election night and the days immediately following. We clearly do
not really know why counting suddenly stopped or paused in
multiple battleground states on election night (unprecedented in
the history of the country), or why the excuses that were offered
at the time (for example, that a pipe had burst at the State Farm
Center in Atlanta) were subsequently proven false.
Hundreds of witnesses have given sworn statements and testimony
under oath, and the public has seen videos of behavior that is
suspicious, to say the least. There are statistical anomalies –
some say impossibilities – for example, that 100% of the votes
that magically appeared in the middle of the night in Michigan and
Wisconsin, after official vote counting had allegedly stopped, went
for Joe Biden. Or how Biden managed to get more than 81 million
votes despite losing Florida, Texas and Ohio, and taking only 527
of 3,113 counties, while former President Barack Obama won Florida
and Ohio and took 875 counties.
We are in a bad place. Half the country does not believe – and
will probably never believe – that Joe Biden was elected
president of the United States. On Jan. 5, there are runoff
elections for two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia, which will decide
the composition of Congress. They are being administered just as
the November election was. That does not inspire confidence.
Assuming that Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael
Warnock win the Georgia elections, and that Joe Biden is
inaugurated on Jan. 20, Democrats will take control of both houses
of Congress and the White House.
What should conservative Americans work toward if that
happens?
The No. 1 priority must be passing legislation at the state
level that ensures the integrity of elections in 2022 and
thereafter.
States, not Congress, have control over election procedures. And
a 6-3 conservative majority in the Supreme Court will likely uphold
state election-integrity laws. Republicans control the House and
Senate in 29 states including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa,
Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. These are all
battleground states, and several are at the epicenter of the
current election-fraud claims. In other words, sensible rules
protecting the integrity of the vote would have eliminated most of
the problems we’re facing now.
Republican-controlled state legislatures should pass laws that
include the following:
No. 1: Require state- or federal-issued identification to vote,
and put in place efforts to provide every citizen who does not
already have an ID with one. No one who is not a citizen of the
United States and of any given state should be able to vote.
Objections to this most basic election-integrity rule are
meritless; you cannot drive a car, travel by plane, purchase a
firearm or walk into a liquor store without identification.
No. 2: Purge voter rolls of people who have died or moved, and
duplicate registrations removed.
No. 3: Strictly enforce residency requirements, and eliminate or
ban same-day registration.
No. 4: Ban ballot harvesting. More than half of the states allow
it in some form or another, but this procedure is ripe for fraud,
and the investigative work done by Project Veritas this year
reveals just a few methods, including showing up at senior or
assisted-living facilities and manipulating them into voting the
way the “harvester” wants them to. Federal legislation to ban the
practice has bipartisan sponsors Reps. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., and
Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, but it is unlikely to pass, so states must
take the lead on this.
No. 5: Forbid ballot drop boxes, which present tampering and
chain-of-custody concerns, as well as concerns about whether all
votes deposited will even be counted. California was called only
moments after the polls closed, but cellphone videos appear to show
some drop boxes in the state being emptied days after the
election.
No. 6: Ban mail-in ballots, and preserve absentee ballots.
Absentee ballots are only mailed to voters upon request, but
mail-in ballots are sent to everyone on the voter rolls. 2020 was
the best proof of how fraught this practice is with potential for
fraud. There have been countless examples of multiple ballots sent
to the same address, to the wrong address, even to pets – not to
mention last-minute rule changes made by courts allowing ballots to
arrive after Election Day, without postmarks or matching
signatures. COVID or not, there is no reason why any voter
concerned for his or her safety cannot vote early in person or
request an absentee ballot.
No. 7: Mandate the presence of bipartisan poll watchers at a
distance close enough to observe the vote counting. Forbid ballot
deliveries or vote counting unless poll watchers are present.
No. 8: Congress should pass legislation making Election Day a
federal holiday. Whether or not it does so, state legislatures
should pass laws making Election Day a state holiday – and, in
appropriate cases, extending the hours at polling places (Indiana’s
polls close too early, at 6 p.m.) – so that people can vote in
person and have fewer work-related conflicts.
There has never been a more propitious time for
Republican-controlled state legislatures to pass election-integrity
legislation. Democrats will challenge these laws in court. Let
them. The public – especially the 74 million-plus people who
voted for Donald Trump – is outraged about the sloppy and
careless practices that created an environment ripe for fraud. And
court challenges will provide opportunities to present the evidence
of fraud (actual and potential) from the 2020 election.
Common-sense election-integrity laws should have been passed
decades ago. Our cavalier and cowardly attitude about election laws
threatens the survival of the United States as a republic. Millions
of Americans believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen
and fear that we will never again have a free or fair election.
Without adequate rules to protect the integrity of our votes, those
Americans are quite likely correct.
Anyone who derides such concerns should look to history to see
what happens when half the population decides it has been
permanently disenfranchised.
The post
8 must-haves for new vote-integrity laws in 2021 appeared first
on WND.
