Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), passed over by Trump when he chose his 2024 running mate, is defending Trump’s latest election rant. On Saturday, September 7, 2024, Trump posted this on his social media platform:
“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences. Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
Burgum (photo, left), asked about this on NBC‘s “Meet the Press” the next day, replied that Trump was “speaking to a concern that Americans have,” and added, “I think what President Trump is saying, if we have free and fair elections everybody has to follow the rules. And just putting people on notice.” (See story here.)
This is bullshit, and Burgum knows it. There’s no “if” to discuss; America has free and fair elections, and everybody does follow the rules. The “concern” he’s referring to is a doubt based on lies in the minds of Republican voters, which has been manufactured and marketed by the Republican Party, Trump, and dishonest politicians like Burgum.
America’s election rules and processes are effective at counting votes accurately, correcting glitches and mistakes, ensuring the eligibility of voters, and preventing fraud. In Washington state, where nearly 4 million votes were cast for president in 2020, you can count the number of fraudulent votes on your fingers. Every reputable study of election fraud ever done in the United States has shown that voting fraud is extremely rare.
The proof? Simple. When Republicans are asked to put their evidence where their mouths are, they don’t have any. Trump’s 2020 campaign filed more than 60 court challenges, and all were dismissed for lack of evidence.
When it does occur, voting fraud is committed by individuals acting on their own. In most of the known 2020 cases, they received an absentee ballot for a dead relative, and forged the dead person’s signature to give Trump an extra vote. In a few cases, individuals who had moved to another state, but hadn’t canceled their previous voter registrations, voted in both states. These cases, when identified by election officials, were prosecuted.
Republican efforts to impose new restrictions on voting are a cure for a problem that doesn’t exist. Everyone knows their real purpose is voter suppression. The “concern” meme being peddled by GOP poobahs like Burgum is even more insidious: Its purpose is to encourage the Republican base to reject election results; and it has the effect of inciting threats against honest election workers, and encouraging violence such as occurred on Jan. 6, 2021. Shame on him for participating in this. By helping to promote this nonsense, he’s no better than other Republican liars.
Every American has the same rights. There is no special class of citizens entitled to enhanced rights. We’re all entitled to free and fair elections impartially conducted by election officials to the best of their ability. We’re entitled to fraud-free elections, but the corrective remedies are those available under the election laws and through the legal process, and nowhere else; there is no right to vigilante intervention in election results.
We’re entitled to the candidate receiving the most votes in the official count being declared the winner and installed in office. We are not entitled to change the results based on “concerns.”
After the 2020 election, there were Trump supporters who believed the “stolen election” lies, and went around saying Trump was still president, and “Biden is not my president.” Well, guess what, Trump was not still president, and Biden was president for all of us, including the deniers. If Biden signed a bill into law, and a denier claimed the law doesn’t apply to him because Biden isn’t a legitimate president, he would get nowhere with that argument in court.
In other words, when Republicans drum up “concern” about our elections among their followers, and those supporters lose faith in our elections because of the propaganda being fed to them, the answer is: It doesn’t matter. Their “concern” doesn’t count for beans. The votes will be counted, tallied, and certified anyway, and the winner declared; and if they have objections to the result they can litigate their complaints in court, or pound sand.
The rest of us have to make sure that’s how the system continues to work. As for Burgum, he just diminished himself by climbing aboard this haywagon of election denial nonsense.