by Craig Wiesner – San Mateo Daily Journal – May 13, 2024
Lara Trump, head of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, told a FOX News host last week that “you can not have ballots counted after the close of election day” and that they are suing states to stop election officials from counting ballots after 11:59pm on election day. Wow! I wonder what that would have meant for Sam Licardo, Joe Simitian, and Evan Low! Why do the RNC and Trump want counting stopped? Which of these do you think is the real reason?
This: Same-day in person voting favors Republicans, especially in swing states.
Or That: Stopping the count a minute before midnight will eliminate massive fraud.
The RNC, merged with the Trump campaign, and organizations like True the Vote are mobilizing 100,000 lawyers and activists across the country to monitor polling places, tabulation centers, registrar offices, dropboxes, and are training people to use an app to challenge individual voters in order to tackle what they claim is massive voter fraud. A True the Vote FAQ asks “How did this become such a big problem?” They blame antiquated technology and dysfunctional voting officials. Speaking of dysfunctional, True the Vote was behind the now discredited 2,000 Mules film which claimed massive fraud happened in Georgia in 2020. Hauled into court to provide any shred of evidence behind their wild accusations the organization finally admitted in February 2024 that they had absolutely none. The story was made up.
As a news junkie I’ve paid very close attention to the various voices of the election fraud conversation. To quote the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, there are “people who claim that election fraud is massive, and those who claim it is exceedingly rare.” Let’s combine that to say that it is, actually, massively exceedingly rare. The Heritage Foundation has an online database of nationwide verified voter fraud cases that resulted in investigations and prosecutions. The front page summary shows 1,499 verified instances of voter fraud since 1982. Wow? The foundation says this is just a “sampling” and the conspiracy theorists in our midst (and I think there are many many more conspiracy theorists than anyone could possibly imagine) will say that just because you can’t show very many documented cases of fraud doesn’t mean they don’t exist. At the Villages retirement community in Florida alone FOUR Republicans were caught cheating in 2020!
One person quoted on True the Vote’s web site was flabbergasted, gobsmacked, shocked, to discover through an online tool that he was still registered to vote in a state he had moved from seven years earlier. AND, though the state accurately listed his registration as inactive, there was a possibility that in an upcoming presidential election they might send a notice to his old address asking if he wanted to register for a mail ballot. Holy election integrity crisis!
What if you happen to be a candidate and are worried that there may be people registered in the district where you’re running who shouldn’t be allowed to vote? Is it just a black hole into which you have no visibility whatsoever? How can you ferret out nefarious ne’er-do-wells like Mr. Moved to Another State? Political parties, candidates, and others (rules differ based on jurisdictions) can get the database of registered voters and investigate the lists and object against any and all potential voters using tools that can identify potential registration problems. In Pennsylvania in 2020 MAGA attorneys spent $4 million dollars challenging thousands of voters and they found… nothing.
Still, the “voter fraud” faithful want to solve this mythical problem. If they made the rules they would only allow disabled people, military, and select others to vote absentee by mail but their ballots would have to arrive by and be counted on election day. Everyone else would show a photo ID to vote, on election day, in person, at an assigned polling place, using paper ballots, NO machines, and officials would stop counting ballots (with an abacus?) at 11:59pm. How1800s! Not getting their way on all that, expect to see vote integrity volunteers snapping photos of people and license plates at drop boxes and challenging individual voters before and on election day. While it is almost universally illegal to wear a T-shirt with a candidate’s name in a polling place it is legal in many places to dress in military gear and open-carry weapons and challenge people’s right to vote. That’s why others, like me, need to be poll watchers to make sure no citizen is intimidated. We’ll have lots of lawyers too, but no guns!
The right to vote is one of our most precious freedoms. Let’s make denying people that right massively, exceedingly rare!
Visit https://www.nass.org/can-I-vote to make sure you’re properly registered and please vote!
Craig Wiesner is the co-owner of Reach And Teach, a book, toy and cultural gift shop on San Carlos Avenue in San Carlos.