The problem is not whether it was “stolen”. We’ll never know for sure. The problem is that people BELIEVE that it was stolen. People act on what they believe, not what is objectively true.
A better question is, did fraudulent behavior change the results? EVERY presidential election has had some fraud. For that matter, EVERY election has had some fraud. Lyndon Johnson ran for US Senator twice. The first time, he lost. That was not because he didn’t cheat, it was because he announced his vote too soon, and the other candidate then created enough fraudulent ballots to beat him. He also cheated the second time, but he was smarter than his opponent then and he won. Everyone know he cheated – 200 people voted at the last minute in the precinct that put him ahead. They voted in strict alphabetical order. The chances of that happening by coincidence are TRILLIONS to one.
The funny thing is, that had no effect on the effect of his policies. He STILL ultimately pushed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and Medicare into law.
And in fact, his supporters – and many supporters of whoever – will justify that because for them to win is obviously good for the country. G. Gordon Liddy never thought to apologize for Watergate.
There was cheating in the 1960 elections. Kennedy won the West Virginia primary. His supporters passed bags of cash around liberally. He won the general election. His win was narrow, and in part depended on the Daley machine in Chicago. The only question to this day is whether he would have won Illinois in a clean election. No one really knows. Oh, Richard Nixon didn’t want to create a constitutional crisis, and he kept mostly quiet.
Back to LBJ – Both his and Goldwater’s supporters likely cheated in 1964. But the election was such a blow-out that the cheating didn’t affect the Presidential results. But no doubt there was cheating.
2020 was the same, and different at the same time. There was cheating. There’s always cheating. But the Covid situation changed the manner in which we voted. Fewer people went to the polls on election day. But more people voted than ever before, largely by absentee and mail-in balloting. I voted by absentee because our office worked on Election Day. Covid emerged two months before the first primaries. The states had little time to design an inclusive balloting system that made it hard to cheat.
The Electoral College has voted. The 2020 election is over. Tomorrow, the results will be certified, and the Republicans are making a rather stupid point. Were I in Congress as a Republican and disapproved of the election, I’d just vote “present.”
Now, we can look to the weaknesses in the balloting systems. We have about a year until the 2022 campaign season kicks off.
The goal is three-fold: Count every legal vote, don’t count illegal votes and encourage voting by eliminating unnecessary barriers to exercising the franchise.
That being said, there will always be some fraud. We can hope – but not guarantee – that it will not change results.
The biggest new wrinkle this year has been mail-in voting. To vote by mail is FAR safer from an infection point of view that voting personally.
At the polls, we have a number of people involved in the voting and counting. The more people present, the less likely hanky-panky will occur. And to eliminate most fraud, we would have vote-in-person and have poll workers who know the voter or who – from ID’s – can readily identify the voter. “Real ID” – like we have for driver’s licenses - is a system which resists fraud. However, not everyone gets a state-issued driver’s license or ID card. Common perception is that vote-in-person and ID benefits the Republicans. It certainly would result in people – citizens – who don’t have a state-issued ID from voting.
A big problem is that mail-in voting leaves the ballots where sometimes one single person can get at them, usually a postal worker or a person at the Courthouse. If you know where the ballot is coming from, you can safely delete ballots and perhaps change the election results. When one person can access ballots, there is little chance of detection.
Where an election is close, a party can eliminate ballots from sharply tilted precincts and hurt the other side. I always tell candidates to get the precinct by precinct numbers, so they will know where they are strong and where they are weak. Even in a close state, there are precincts heavily prone to one party, by 2:1 or more. If you eliminate 3 ballots which come from that area, you probably have take 2 from the other side and 1 from your side, and you have eliminated one ballot for the other side. The stories of ballots found in a dumpster, etc., might be an example of that – committed by someone too stupid to bring a lighter or matches along.
So how do we make vote-by-mail legal but more secure? Signature checks is one suggestion. However, it takes some skill to detect a forged signature and also takes a LOT of time. Fingerprints might be safer, but then we would have to depend on ordinary people producing a readable print. Restricting mail-in voting to those who have a need might work, but then some people will not vote.
Paper ballots, hand-counted, resist electronic misbehavior. But that takes time.
In the meantime, Georgia is rocking to an orgy of legal election spending - over 500 Million Dollars – more than $100 for each eligible voter.
I wish I had more concrete suggestions.
Mizpah!
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