COLUMN: Invalidating The Election.
It’s a good bet that 81,056,268 United States voters will not go to the polls again to vote for President Joe Biden, once the Republicans are successful in nullifying the Constitution and declaring the General Election of 2020 invalid.
But, in my view, a pretty good number of those ARE going to vote again -- even braving the hazards of COVID-19 because state election offices will not be allowed to offer mail-in or absentee ballots.
The only way that a United States Election in this pandemic-stricken time can be valid, the Republicans argue, is if The Voters go to the polls in person.
Then - and only then - will be United States Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security be unable to find any voter fraud to investigate. Donald J. Trump already has been told by the man who runs Justice, the Attorney General he appointed, William Barr, and the person in charge of voter integrity at Homeland Security, before the president fired him, that the 2020 Election has NO evidence of voter fraud that could overturn the result.
Biden - 81,271,137 votes.
Trump - 74,209,304 votes (as of Dec. 8).
That translates to:
Biden - 306 Electoral College votes.
Trump - 232 Electoral College votes (as of Dec. 8).
(Source: The Cook Political Report)
The Electoral College met Dec. 14 to certify the result.
But, before that, the posturing must continue.
South Carolina State Representative Stewart Jones and Laurens County Council member-elect Luke Rankin have written a letter to Trump on behalf of all Laurens County citizens. We have declared, they say, the election to be invalid until all claims of voter fraud have been investigated.
They want the former president to know, the letter says, that “the people of Laurens County will not accept the outcome of the election until all forms of fraud and dishonesty are exposed and dealt with. ... South Carolinians and all Americans want an honest outcome and to know that their legal votes mattered.”
Well, high-sounding language, but you know what? I want to know, also, that MY legal vote mattered, and was counted properly. And I have every confidence that it was.
Because, you see, voter fraud anywhere is an accusation everywhere.
I have every confidence in the South Carolina Elections Commission.
I have every confidence in the Laurens County Elections Commission.
If this were a fraudulent election, then United States Senator Lindsey Graham’s victory is invalid. United States Congressman Jeff Duncan’s victory is invalid. Laurens County Councilman David Tribble’s election is invalid.
Everywhere a Republican ran against a Democrat is invalid, or tainted, or fraudulent, or whatever you want to call it.
No, this is not about fraud. This is about a man who won election in 2016 with 45.6% of the vote wondering why he cannot win re-election with 47% of the vote.
And the people who coddle him, and his delusion.
The reason he did not win is simple - The Electoral College.
President Biden has more Electoral College votes. Simple.
He got more Electoral College votes because casting ballots, in the Covid Era, was made simpler and safer.
When you make voting simpler, More People Vote.
The 2020 voter turn-out is expected to be at a 50-year high.
Most of those people did not think Trump deserved four more years.
And - as of Dec. 7 - 289,138 of those people (ie, Americans) are dead. You see, it is a simple fact of life, if former president Trump had acted forcefully and effectively to marshal all the forces of the greatest nation on earth to stop COVID-19, he would still be the President of the United States.
No mail-in voting, no claims of fraud, no 46-minute video tagged on Twitter. No Covid-striken Rudy Guiliani and his cast of election experts. No recession. No calls by Misters Jones and Rankin for investigations in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina - but, tellingly, NOT in Florida and Texas.
You see, just like me in SC, those people in those states - it doesn’t matter if they are run by Republicans or Democrats - believe in their Elections Commissions, too. What right do we have to say they shouldn’t?
(Vic MacDonald is editor of The Clinton Chronicle. He cast his 2020 ballot in person at New Prospect Baptist Church. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chronicle. MacDonald can be reached at 833-1900.)
