Want to Avoid the “Fraud”? Just Don’t Vote

Spectator

By Stephen Tuttle | July 30, 2022

The congressional hearings on the Jan. 6 attempted coup have been even more distressing than we imagined because the evidence uncovered has been more offensive than we imagined.

Of course, this all started with Donald Trump’s outrageous lies about the results of the 2020 election. Even now, he continues to perpetuate that destructive delusion 21 months after that election was fairly and legally decided.

Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6 can be summed up in two of his own quotes. According to multiple sources, he was informed there were armed individuals in the crowd that soon became a dangerous mob heading to the capitol. He was unwilling to say or do anything to stop them. His reaction? “They aren’t going to hurt me.” Self-absorption doesn’t get much more self or absorbed.

He wasn’t quite done. When informed there were chants of “Hang Mike Pence” once the riot breached the capitol, his response was reported to be, “He deserves it.” It isn’t clear whether he really believed his incredibly loyal vice president deserved to be hanged or he just approved of the chanting. (You might recall Pence refused to “decertify” the electoral college vote principally because he had absolutely no constitutional or statutory authority to do so.)

Trump is still at it. In what was potentially illegal witness tampering, or at least an attempt to do so, he contacted a potential witness as the hearings unfolded. Though he was unable to make contact, the attempt itself was a no-no.

And, in what was a step from his delusions into absolute derangement, earlier this month he contacted Wisconsin Speaker of the House Robin Vos asking him to “decertify” Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state. Vos reported he had politely explained to the former president he could not legally comply. Still, Trump persists in regurgitating the Big Lie.

Then there’s Trump's imaginary “legal defense fund.” Though it was never made clear just who was being defended from what, some $250 million has been raised by the former candidate. Unfortunately, it does not appear a “legal defense fund” actually ever existed, and no money has been expended for any defendant. That has spurred additional investigations Trump can call witch hunts.

Perhaps most annoyingly, Trump’s fabrications have spawned an entire cottage industry of new election losers now claiming fraud. National Public Radio (NPR) has identified dozens of such instances so far, but we can assume more will crawl out from under various rocks as primary elections continue being held around the country. It has reached a level of absolute absurdity.

In Nevada, Republican Joey Gilbert lost by a convincing 11 percent in his primary election. He immediately claimed fraud and presented an election “expert” to prove it with perhaps the most bizarrely convoluted formula ever devised. The expert, by the way, has no math or election credentials, never graduated from college, and was previously arrested for dealing drugs. He may have also had a role in the comedy-of-errors that was the Maricopa County election “audit” in Arizona.

Losing Republican candidates for both governor and attorney general in South Carolina, on the short end of blowouts, have claimed fraud and demanded recounts that will not happen.

But the champion of this nonsense is Tina Peters, the former County Clerk in Mesa County, Colorado. Ms. Peters, who has been arrested and charged with tampering with voting machines and official misconduct for her post-2020 election shenanigans, was nevertheless a candidate for Colorado Secretary of State. She lost by more than 88,000 votes or about 14 percent but, of course, claimed widespread fraud and demanded a recount. (Recounts in Colorado are automatic if the margin is 0.05 percent or less of the winning candidates vote total. Losing candidates outside that margin may request a recount but must pay for it, about $224,000. No payment was made, so no recount will occur.)

What’s missing in all of this is even the tiniest shred of evidence of voter fraud or irregularities. Not in the 2020 presidential election or any of the recent primaries. It’s a lie first perpetrated and then perpetuated by a very bad loser.

But if you believe it, your best bet is to not vote at all. After all, your ballot is likely to be intercepted by a non-existent modem attached to a vote tabulator and, derailed by an algorithm created for a long-dead Venezuelan dictator, will then be beamed up to an Italian satellite, then back down to servers on an American base in Germany where your vote will be changed in the nanosecond it takes for the machine to read it. Even more miraculous, after changing your vote, it can then change the ballot back to the way you had originally voted so the fraud is brilliantly undetectable.

If you still believe the Big Lie, avoid the fraud and just don’t vote.