Time to scrutinize all who backed Big Lie
AP’s review of voter fraud cases finds nothing that would have made any difference in 2020.
As we approach the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol, one of the most grievous and shameful events in our nation’s history, it’s heartening to explore the findings of a year-end review by the Associated Press of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states former President Donald Trump continues to dispute. His perpetuation of the Big Lie fueled the attempted insurrection.
The AP’s comprehensive review involved contacting hundreds of local election offices around the country. Taking nearly a year to complete, the review found — surprise, surprise — that the cases of potential fraud were so surpassingly few that they could not have made a difference in the 2020 presidential election. The report confirmed the findings of numerous election officials in battleground states (many of them Republicans), as well as Trump’s former Attorney General William Barr, more than 80 federal judges and election experts representing both parties.
Americans in the six battleground states cast 25.5 million votes for president in 2020. Out of that vast number, AP’s researchers found fewer than 475 potential cases of voter fraud. Not 475,000, just 475.
There was no collusion, no vast, labyrinthine conspiracy, no sophisticated voting-machine computer manipulation. Nearly every one of the 475 possible cases was an individual acting alone to cast additional ballots. Some were Democrats, some Republicans. Some were elderly voters, some were former inmates, others were seeking to vote on behalf of dead relatives.
A Wisconsin man mistakenly thought he could vote while on parole, for instance; an Arizona woman was suspected of mailing a ballot for her dead mother; and a Pennsylvania man and Trump supporter tried to vote twice, once for himself and the second time for his son (after disguising himself by donning sunglasses). Almost all the 475 potentially fraudulent votes were tossed out. In cases where the intent to vote illegally was clear, prosecutors have brought or are considering charges. But the alleged instances of fraud never amounted to enough to sway local or state results, much less the presidential election as Trump and his supporters continue to claim.
Try to picture the two numbers from the battleground states — 475 and 25.5 million. Imagine the potential fraudsters in one line and the total number of voters in another, with a space of about five feet between each person in line (or six feet, just to be socially distanced). The fraud line would stretch about half a mile, from, say, City Hall to maybe a couple of blocks east of Minute Maid Park. The line of voters? All 25.5 million of them standing five feet apart would circle the globe.
Yes, we know that vote fraud happens. At least since colonial times — when Americans indicated their choice by tossing little colored balls into boxes — groups, political parties and individuals have tried to manipulate election outcomes. It happens.
It goes almost without saying that we do not condone any kind of vote fraud, no matter how innocuous, no matter who benefits. Messing with the system strikes at the heart of a functioning democracy and should be dealt with harshly. Nobody, however, stole the 2020 presidential election.
Messing with the system works both ways, though. Every American should resent being taken for a fool by perpetrators of the Big Lie. Despite his clamorous claims, continuing to this day, the former president lost to Joe Biden. He knows that and so do most Americans, even those who insist otherwise.
Trump was braying about ballot fraud, even before he won in 2016. The reason he can’t be laughed off more than a year after he lost in 2020 is that too many Americans in his thrall believe him. And too many Republican lawmakers mimic his Big Lie to hamstring democracy, regardless of whether they actually believe Trump’s absurd claims. They have used those claims to justify costly and timeconsuming partisan state-level reviews. Some of them — Arizona in particular — have been laughably inept.
As the Associated Press noted, the tiny handful of cases that came to light in the 2020 battleground states underscores the fact that suspected fraud is almost always detected and exceptionally rare. That fact hasn’t stopped Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and 15 other GOP governors from working to control who gets to vote in their states.
“Voter fraud is virtually nonexistent,” George Christenson, election clerk for Milwaukee County in Wisconsin, told the AP. In Wisconsin, five people statewide have been charged with fraud out of nearly 3.3 million ballots cast for president. “I would have to venture a guess that’s about the same odds as getting hit by lightning,” Christenson added.
Of course, we don’t need a Milwaukee County election official to tell us that. Our own AG could have. In the past year, Trump’s Texas toady spent more than $2 million taxpayer dollars rooting about the state for voting fraud. He found basically nothing.
“There is a very specific reason why we don’t see many instances of fraud, and that is because the system is designed to catch it, to flag it and then hold those people accountable,” Amber McReynolds, a former director of elections in Denver, told the AP. Texas is no exception. The system works here, as well.
With midterm elections in the offing, voters should carefully scrutinize the fitness for office of any candidate who has helped perpetuate the Big Lie.
We would urge voters to educate themselves about the process as a way of inoculating themselves against election falsehoods. We’re less prey to myth, lies and rumors when we’re familiar with how the process works, either as a voter or a volunteer election worker.
The truth, we’ve been told, will make us free. With Trump and his Big Lie minions busily laying the groundwork for undercutting the legitimacy of elections in ’22 and ‘24, voters need to be ready. All of us — Republicans, Democrats, independents — need to be aware that truth in 2022 is likely to face its sternest test in our lifetimes.