The news media describe GOP attacks on ballot counting in key swing states as “baseless,” but how do you know? Without going into the mechanics of the process, there are several ways:
- Trump’s lawsuits — over 50 of them — have all been rejected by the courts. He hasn’t won a single election fraud lawsuit. Where there’s no smoke, there’s no fire.
- While much of the Republican Party appears to support Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results, that’s mostly members of the House and Senate, and local party officials. No Republican governors, secretaries of state, or election officials have joined in that effort.
- Cybersecurity experts, law professors, and election experts condemned the Republican attacks on the integrity of our election processes.
- It’s beyond a stretch to argue that all those judges and experts are people with partisan biases who are conspiring together to help Biden win.
But if you really want to understand why the GOP claims are bogus — and why Giuliani’s ersatz witnesses don’t know what they’re talking about — read this Vox article (here) detailing how ballots are actually processed.
Having been a pollworker and observer in the past, I have firsthand knowledge of how the system works, and I can personally attest there are very strong safeguards in place to prevent cheating and catch errors, and those procedures work. Read the Vox article above to learn the details. It’s telling that no Republican election official anywhere in the country — not one — has come out in support of Trump’s “fraud” claims.
More reasons to be suspicious of GOP allegations:
- Republicans routinely cast aspersions on every election they lose.
- They only recount, and attack the results in, Democratic counties. For example, in Wisconsin, the Trump campaign requested recounts only in Milwaukee and Dane counties, both Democratic strongholds, not the rest of the state.
- Their complaints about voting procedures are wildly inconsistent; they criticize mail voting in some states, praise it in others, and challenge the procedures in Democratic counties, but not in Republican counties where the same procedures are used.
- Moreover, much of what they say in their complaints are voting procedures is simply false.
They, not judges or election officials, are the partisan-biased actors in this soap opera drama. All of this goes back to the fact that Republicans are an unpopular minority party (for good reason), and when people vote, that puts them at a disadvantage.
Photo below: Wisconsin election workers counting ballots on Nov. 3, 2020
