Dear Editor,

Historically, when the far-right accuses someone of committing a crime, they are often committing that very crime themselves.

In 2000 the Federalist Society Supreme Court (which allegedly believes in states’ rights) overruled the Florida Supreme Court to stop a recount, handing the Presidency to George W. Bush. A statewide machine recount would have given the state, and the election, to Gore.

Federal judges in Ohio ruled unanimously that Ohio’s congressional map is “unconstitutional partisan gerrymander”, allowing Republicans to control 75% of the seats, but receiving only slightly more than half of the votes.

A three-judge panel in Michigan ruled that the state’s congressional and legislative maps were “unconstitutionally gerrymandered with the goal of ensuring durable majorities for Republicans.”

North Carolina’s electorate is evenly divided, but Republicans have a 10-3 majority in the House. The legislator in charge said, “I don’t think it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats.”

Federalist Society SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that gerrymandering is not the judiciary’s business. That is a lie. The Founders included the elections clause in the Constitution to guard against such corruption. It gives states the power to set the “times, places and manner” of elections, but gives Congress the power to override as a check against self-interested politicians. 

Roberts argued that “voters and elected officials should be the arbiters of what is a political dispute.” Never mind that gerrymandered voters don’t really have a voice, and the elected officials are the beneficiaries of the corruption and that everything the Supreme Court hears is a political dispute. This corrupt ruling abolished federal court rulings in five states, and immediately ended all other lawsuits on the same subject.

The courts have ruled against gerrymandering for racial purposes for 50 years.

To provide fair and honest elections the House passed HR 1, the “For the People Act” in March 2019, but it has been blocked by Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans for 20 months. One of its provisions is automatic registering of all eligible voters. 

Voter ID laws originating in ALEC have disenfranchised voters in at least 34 states, all but one with a Republican dominated legislature. These laws make it harder for elderly, minority, poor, and student voters to cast their ballots. 

Various nonpartisan groups estimate from 10-14% of voters don’t have appropriate government issued identification.

In 2013 the Federalist Society Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act, meaning states no longer have to get approval from the Justice Department to change their voting laws. This makes it harder to challenge any new state laws and harder for the Justice Department to enforce the Voting Rights Act.

From a Trump rant about mail-in voting, “It’s going to be fraud all over the place.”

Loyola law professor Justin Levitt tracked all voter fraud in U.S. elections from 2000-2014 and found 31 instances out of one billion.

A five year study by George W. Bush’s Justice Department found “…virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections.”

Chris Wallace of Fox News earlier this year, “I’ve done some deep dive into it, there is no record of massive fraud or even serious fraud from mail-in voting.” 

The only recent case of organized election fraud is North Carolina Republicans in 2016 and 2018. Mark Harris hired a known felon, who ‘harvested’ absentee ballots and had them filled out and returned in Harris’s name. 

The State Board of Elections refused to certify his 905 vote victory, and ordered an election redo. Harris first gave “incorrect” testimony to the board, then admitted his lies and withdrew from the election, citing health reasons.

On August 13 of this year Trump admitted he was blocking funding for the Postal Service in order to obstruct mail-in voting. 

His new Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, assumed his office on June 16, and started banning overtime and extra trips to deliver mail. He had 671 mail sorting machines removed. The most important ones, the Delivery Bar Code Sorters (DBCS) can sort 30,000 pieces per hour. Many machines were scheduled to be removed, but the timing screams subversion. Many mailboxes were removed from city streets, allegedly to be moved to higher traffic areas. On August 7 DeJoy announced he had reassigned or displaced 23 senior USPS officials, including the two top officials overseeing day-to-day operations. The chair of the House committee that oversees the USPS called the reorganization “deliberate sabotage”. After the USPS Inspector General began a review of DeJoy’s actions and possible ethics violations, DeJoy suspended cost-cutting and other operational changes until after the election. He refused to reinstate the sorting machines or the mailboxes. The rest of DeJoy’s questionable history is too lengthy for review here.

The real reason the Republicans rant against mail-in voting is that mail-in ballots can’t be hacked and changed, and mail-in voters can’t be intimidated or challenged. Republicans have hired 50,000 poll watchers to do just that. Who is rigging elections?

Gene Strandberg
Gilpin County