Ever notice how carefully bank tellers count out money while customers watch? This isn’t a job where you don’t want to make mistakes. People would get very upset.
Few people have ever watch votes being counted, so most people don’t know how that works. Election workers are just as careful when they count votes. That, too, is a job where you don’t want to make mistakes, because people will get very upset if you do.
The people responsible for counting our votes are, for the most part, career professionals and civil servants. They may be overseen by partisan elected officials, but those who actually carry out the process — unlike the rank amateurs hired to conduct the Arizona GOP’s sham “audit” of Maricopa County ballots — receive training and follow strict protocols designed to protect the accuracy and integrity of the process. The system works. Vote counting is very accurate in America, it’s extremely rare for errors to affect an election result, and there’s an effective system for catching any errors that occurred if a result is challenged.
Trump’s lies about the 2020 election are just that — lies. His blowhard lawyers who disputed his election loss failed to deliver any evidence of fraud, because there was no evidence or fraud, and their dozens of lawsuits were thrown out as meritless. Including by Republican judges, some appointed by Trump himself. The countless Republican diehards protesting a “stolen election” are blowing hot air.
Some of them also are threatening election officials and workers with physical harm, and harassing them and their families, and that’s against the law. Those actions are crimes. Those people are criminals.
A recent survey shows that following Trump’s 2020 election loss, “Nearly 1 in 6 local election workers received threats of violence, and almost 1 in 3 said they feel unsafe because of their job,” The Hill says.
“Their private information was maliciously posted online. Some fled with their families into hiding. Others faced down armed crowds outside their workplaces and homes.” Some even had their homes broken into. “And nearly nine months after Election Day, the threats persist.”
Few people will risk their own safety, much less their families, for a job. Predictably, people who work in elections are quitting in droves.
Read story here.
Figuring out who these criminals are is a no-brainer: Every single one is a Trump supporter. Biden fans have no reason to do this, nor are they this kind of people. Only Republicans have brandished guns in public buildings, threatened public officials, stormed state and federal capitols, and talked about coups and civil war. There’s some basically pathological about both their ideology and their behavior.
Law enforcement and prosecutors should go after them relentlessly. America shouldn’t tolerate political violence, we should be above that. Preventing political violence should be a top priority. These aren’t misdemeanor crimes, they’re serious felonies. These people are violent criminals. Lock them up.