I trust our elections. I have no fact-based reason not to.
I’ve learned first-hand how elections work as a pollworker, observer, and voting rights lawyer, .
Numerous studies back up the many election experts who assure us that voting fraud happens too rarely to be of concern.
Our election system works the way it’s supposed to. By that I mean the voters choose who gets elected. Most elections aren’t perfect, but don’t have to be. The inadvertent mistakes present in nearly all elections don’t matter unless they change the results, and they almost never do. There’s a practical need to declare a winner, and a legal process for settling disputed results.
The Republican Party is attacking it. They want to put more restrictions voting by arguing their party’s voters don’t trust our elections.
I don’t care that they don’t. That has no bearing on how elections should be run. They can’t go around creating distrust with lies, then claim that gives them a right to interfere with other people’s right to vote.
CNN published an article on Tuesday, July 19, 2022 (read it here), that says,
“Over the course of the January 6 hearings, Americans have heard detailed testimony rejecting allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 election and exposing former President Donald Trump’s failed attempts to overturn the results. Much of this testimony has come from … prominent Republican leaders with ties to the Trump administration. And, just last week, a group of eight prominent conservatives … released a 72-page report categorically rejecting each claim made in court by Trump and his supporters about the election’s outcome. Still, many commentators are pessimistic that the new evidence will ‘move the needle’ among the large proportion of Republican voters who have lost faith in American elections. Are they right?”
It would be nice if does move the needle, but if it doesn’t I don’t care. This is a free country, and people can believe what they like, but believing something doesn’t make it true. I will not go along with the argument that we need more restrictive voting laws because Trump’s followers choose to believe his lies.
Reasonable people base conclusions on evidence, and there’s no factual basis for Republicans’ distrust of our elections. If they can’t get facts straight, they’re not worth listening to. We must not allow their feelings to dictate how things will be done.
I wish they would come to their senses. It would be great if the Jan. 6 hearings opens their eyes to the truth about the 2020 election, and the fact they’ve been lied to. Our country needs political competition, and it’s not healthy when you can’t vote for one of the parties because they’re crazy.
But when people are impervious to reason, the best thing to do is ignore them. Accordingly, I don’t care that Republicans don’t trust our elections. I will make no concessions to that, and you shouldn’t either. It’s time to brush their fake complaints aside.